Tiberius in his testament, still extant, had written the same words over in a number of ways, as if this would lend them some force, nor yet that all of it had been at this time read aloud by Macro before the senatorial body.  For no injunction can have weight against the intentional misunderstanding or the power of one’s successors.  Tiberius suffered the same treatment he had accorded to his mother’s wishes, save that he discharged none of the obligations imposed by her will in the case of any person, whereas all his bequests were paid to all the beneficiaries, save to his grandson.  This, of course, made it perfectly plain that the whole fault found with the will had been invented on account of the lad.  Gaius need not have published it, since he was not unacquainted with the contents, but inasmuch as many knew what was in it and it seemed likely that he himself on the one hand or the senate on the other would be blamed for its suppression, he chose rather to have the latter body overthrow it than to conceal the document.

[-2-] At the same time by paying all the bequests of the dead emperor, as if they were his own, to every one concerned he gained among the many a certain reputation for nobility of character.  In company with the senate he inspected the Pretorians while they were busy with exercises and distributed to them the two hundred and fifty denarii apiece that had been bequeathed, and he added as a gift as many more.  To the people he paid the one thousand one hundred and twenty-five myriads (this was the amount bequeathed to them) and in addition the sixty denarii per man which they had failed to receive on the occasion of his enrollment among the iuvenes,—­this with interest amounting to fifteen denarii more.  He also settled the bequests to the citizen force, to the night-watchmen, to those of the regular army outside Italy, and to any other army of native Romans in the smaller forts,—­that is, the citizens proper received one hundred twenty-five denarii each, and all the rest seventy-five.

He behaved in this same way also in regard to Livia’s will, executing all the provisions of it.  If he had spent the rest of his money with equal propriety, he would nave been thought prudent and munificent.  Sometimes, through fear of the people and the soldiers, he did so act, but it was mostly through whims.  At such times he discharged not only the obligations of Tiberius but those of his great-grandmother, and debts owing to private individuals as well as to others.  As it was, he lavished boundless sums upon dancers (whose recall he at once effected), upon horses, upon gladiators and everything of that sort; and so in an inconceivably short time he had exhausted the treasures, which had grown so great, and at the same time convicted himself of having done it through a sort of easy-going temper and indecision.  He had found accumulated five myriad myriads, seven thousand five hundred denarii, or (according to others) eight myriad myriads, two thousand five hundred, and yet could not keep any part of it to the third year, but actually in the second season fell in need of a great deal besides.