He thought there was no other use of riches and money than to squander them away profusely; regarding all those as sordid wretches who kept their expenses within due boundsLjand extolling those as truly noble and generous souls, who lavished away and wasted all they possessed. He praised and admired his uncle Caius1 upon no account more, than for squandering in a short time the vast treasure left him by Tiberius. Accordingly, he was himself extravagant and profuse, beyond all bounds. He spent upon Tiridates eight hundred thousand sesterces a day, a sum almost incredible; and at his departure, presented him with upwards of a million. 2 He likewise bestowed upon Menecrates the harper, and Spicillus a gladiator, the estates and houses of men who had received the honour of a triumph. He enriched the usurer Cercopithecus Panerotes with estates both in town and country; and gave him a funeral, in pomp and magnificence little inferior to that of princes. He never wore the same garment twice. He has been known to stake four hundred thousand sesterces on a throw of the dice. It was his custom to fish with a golden net, drawn by silken cords of purple and scarlet. It is said, that he never travelled with less than a thousand baggage-carts; the mules being all shod with silver, and the drivers dressed in scarlet jackets of the finest Canusian cloth,3 with a numerous train of footmen, and troops of Mazacans,4 with bracelets on their arms, and mounted upon horses in splendid trappings.
1 The emperor Caligula, who was the brother of Nero's mother, Agrippina.
2 See before, c. xiii. Tiridates was nine months in Rome or the neighbourhood, and was entertained the whole time at the emperor's expense.
3 Canusium, now Canosa, was a town in Apulia, near the mouth of the river Aufidus, celebrated for its fine wool. It is mentioned by Pliny, and retained its reputation for the manufacture in the middle ages, as we find in Ordericus Vitalis.
4 The Mazacans were an African tribe from the deserts in the interior, famous for their spirited barbs, their powers of endurance, and their skill in throwing the dart.
Suetonius: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars; An English Translation, Augmented with the Biographies of Contemporary Statesmen, Orators, Poets, and Other Associates. Suetonius. Publishing Editor. J. Eugene Reed. Alexander Thomson. Philadelphia. Gebbie & Co. 1889.
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