When his son Titus blamed him for even laying a tax upon urine, he applied to his nose a piece of the money he received in the first instalment, and asked him, “if it stunk?” And he replying no, “And yet,” said he, “it is derived from urine.”
Some deputies having come to acquaint him that a large statue, which would cost a vast sum, was ordered to be erected for him at the public expense, he told them to pay it down immediately, (461) holding out the hollow of his hand, and saying, “there was a base ready for the statue.”
Not even when he was under the immediate apprehension and peril of death, could he forbear jesting. For when, among other prodigies, the mausoleum of the Caesars suddenly flew open, and a blazing star appeared in the heavens; one of the prodigies, he said, concerned Julia Calvina, who was of the family of Augustus 771; and the other, the king of the Parthians, who wore his hair long.
And when his distemper first seized him, “I suppose,” said he, “I shall soon be a god.” 772
XXIV. In his ninth consulship, being seized, while in Campania, with a slight indisposition, and immediately returning to the city, he soon afterwards went thence to Cutiliae 773, and his estates in the country about Reate, where he used constantly to spend the summer.
Here, though his disorder much increased, and he injured his bowels by too free use of the cold waters, he nevertheless attended to the dispatch of business, and even gave audience to ambassadors in bed. At last, being taken ill of a diarrhoea, to such a degree that he was ready to faint, he cried out, “An emperor ought to die standing upright.”
In endeavouring to rise, he died in the hands of those who were helping him up, upon the eighth of the calends of July [24th June] 774, being sixty-nine years, one month, and seven days old.