VIII. Caius Caesar was born on the day before the calends [31st August] of September, at the time his father and Caius Fonteius Capito were consuls 384.
But where he was born, is rendered uncertain from the number of places which are said to have given him birth. Cneius Lentulus Gaetulicus 385 says that he was born at Tibur; Pliny the younger, in the country of the Treviri, at a village called Ambiatinus, above Confluentes 386; and he alleges, as a proof of it, that altars are there shown with this inscription: “For Agrippina’s child-birth.” Some verses which were published in his reign, intimate that he was born in the winter quarters of the legions,
*In castris natus, patriis nutritius in armis,*
*Jam designati principis omen erat.*
Born in the camp, and train’d in every toil
Which taught his sire the haughtiest foes to foil;
Destin’d he seem’d by fate to raise his name,
And rule the empire with Augustan fame.I find in the public registers that he was born at Antium. Pliny charges Gaetulicus as guilty of an arrant forgery, merely to soothe the vanity of a conceited young prince, by giving him the lustre of being born in a city sacred to Hercules; and says that he advanced this false assertion with the more assurance, because, the year before the birth of Caius, Germanicus had a son of the same name born at Tibur; concerning whose amiable childhood and premature death I have already spoken 387. Dates clearly prove that Pliny is mistaken; for the writers of Augustus’s history all agree, that Germanicus, at the expiration of his consulship, was sent into Gaul, after the birth of Caius. Nor will the inscription