folly increased every day, he transported to an island 205, and placed a guard of soldiers about him; procuring at the same time an act of the senate for his confinement there during life. Upon any mention of him and the two Julias, he would say, with a heavy sigh,
Aith’ ophelon agamos t’ emenai, agonos t’ apoletai.
Would I were wifeless, or had childless died! 206
nor did he usually call them by any other name than that of his “three imposthumes or cancers.”
LXVI. He was cautious in forming friendships, but clung to them with great constancy; not only rewarding the virtues and merits of his friends according to their deserts, but bearing likewise with their faults and vices, provided that they were (120) of a venial kind. For amongst all his friends, we scarcely find any who fell into disgrace with him, except Salvidienus Rufus, whom he raised to the consulship, and Cornelius Gallus, whom he made prefect of Egypt; both of them men of the lowest extraction. One