At this time, too, Crete, its governor being dead, was attached to the quaestorship and to the quaestor’s assistant for the future.  Since, also, many of those to whom the provinces had been allotted lingered in Rome and in the remainder of Italy for a long time, so that those who had held the office before them delayed, contrary to precedent, Tiberius commanded that they should take their departure by the first day of June.  Meanwhile his grandson by Drusus died, but he neglected none of his customary duties; it was his settled conviction that a governor of men ought not to give up care of the common weal by reason of private misfortunes, and he confirmed the rest in their purpose not to jeopardize the interests of the living because of the dead.

The river Tiber now proceeded to occupy a large portion of the City, so that there was an inundation.  Most people regarded this also as a prodigy, like the great earthquakes which shook down a portion of the wall, and like the frequent fall of thunderbolts, which made wine leak even from pails that were sound.  The emperor, however, thinking that it was due to the great number of springs, appointed five senators, chosen by lot, to constitute a permanent board to look after the river, to the end that it should not give out in summer nor become over full in winter, but flow evenly so far as possible all the time.  These were the measures of Tiberius.

As for Drusus, he performed the duties pertaining to the consulship along with his colleague as any private citizen might have done.  Being left heir to someone’s estate he assisted in carrying out the funeral.  Yet he was so prone to anger that he inflicted blows upon a distinguished knight, and for this exploit he obtained the surname of Castor. [2] And he showed himself such a hard drinker that one night, when he was forced to lend aid with the Pretorians to some people whose property was on fire, he commanded, at their request for water, to pour it out hot for them.  He was so fond of dancers that this class raised a tumult and would not be brought to order by the laws which Tiberius had introduced to apply to them.

[A.D. 16 (a. u. 769)]

[-15-] These were the events of that period.  Now when Statilius Taurus was consul with Lucius Libo, Tiberius forbade any man to wear silk clothing and likewise to use gold ornaments, except for sacred ceremonies.  As some were at a loss to know whether it were forbidden them also to possess silver ornaments which had some gold inlaid, he wished to issue some decree about this too, but he refused to let the word emblaema, since it was a Greek term, be inserted in the original document.  Yet he could find no native word that would describe such inlaid work.

This was the position he took in that matter.  Now there was a centurion who wished to give some evidence before the senate in Greek, and he would not allow it.  Yet he was wont to hear many suits that were argued there in that language and to investigate many himself.  Besides his unusual behavior in this respect he failed to pass sentence on Lucius Scribonius Libo, a young noble suspected of revolutionary designs, so long as the latter was well; but upon his falling sick he had him brought into the senate in a covered litter (such as the wives of senators use) to be condemned to death.