(275) XXXIII. Among many other jests, this was one: As he stood by the statue of Jupiter, he asked Apelles, the tragedian, which of them he thought was biggest? Upon his demurring about it, he lashed him most severely, now and then commending his voice, whilst he entreated for mercy, as being well modulated even when he was venting his grief.
As often as he kissed the neck of his wife or mistress, he would say, “So beautiful a throat must be cut whenever I please;” and now and then he would threaten to put his dear Caesonia to the torture, that he might discover why he loved her so passionately.
XXXIV. In his behaviour towards men of almost all ages, he discovered a degree of jealousy and malignity equal to that of his cruelty and pride.
He so demolished and dispersed the statues of several illustrious persons, which had been removed by Augustus, for want of room, from the court of the Capitol into the Campus Martius, that it was impossible to set them up again with their inscriptions entire. And, for the future, he forbad any statue whatever to be erected without his knowledge and leave.
He had thoughts too of suppressing Homer’s poems: “For why,” said he, “may not I do what Plato has done before me, who excluded him from his commonwealth?”
440
He was likewise very near banishing the writings and the busts of Virgil and Livy from all libraries; censuring one of them as “a man of no genius and very little learning;” and the other as “a verbose and careless historian.”
He often talked of the lawyers as if he intended to abolish their profession. “By Hercules!” he would say, “I shall put it out of their power to answer any questions in law, otherwise than by referring to me!”