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2It was due to this characteristic, that, as emperor, he immediately sent a dispatch from Nola to all the legions and provinces, though he did not claim to be emperor; for he would not accept this name, which was voted to him along with the others, and though taking the inheritance left him by Augustus, he would not adopt the title “Augustus.” 2At a time when he was already surrounded by the bodyguards, he actually asked the senate to lend him assistance so that he might not meet with any violence at the burial of the emperor; for he pretended to be afraid that people might catch up the body and burn it in the Forum, as they had done with that of Caesar. 3When somebody thereupon facetiously proposed that he be given a guard, as if he had none, he saw through the man’s irony and answered: “The soldiers do not belong to me, but to the State.” Such was his action in this matter; and similarly he was administering in reality all the business of the empire while declaring that he did not want it at all. 4At first he kept saying he would give up the rule entirely on account of his age (he was fifty-six) and of his near-sightedness (for although he saw extremely well in the dark, his sight was very poor in the daytime); but later he asked for some associates and colleagues, though not with the intention that they should jointly rule the whole empire, as in an oligarchy, but rather dividing it into three parts, one of which he would retain himself, while giving up the remaining two to others. 5One of these portions consisted of Rome and the rest of Italy, the second of the legions, and the third of the subject peoples outside. When now he became very urgent, most of the senators still opposed his expressed purpose, and begged him to govern the whole realm; but Asinius Gallus, who always employed the blunt speech of his father more than was good for him, replied: “Choose whichever portion you wish.” 6Tiberius rejoined: “How can the same man both make the division and choose?” Gallus, then, perceiving into what a plight he had fallen, tried to find words to please him and answered: “It was not with the idea that you should have only a third, but rather to show the impossibility of the empire’s being divided, that I made this suggestion to you.” 7As a matter of fact, however, he did not mollify Tiberius, but after first undergoing many dire sufferings he was at length murdered. For Gallus had married the former wife of Tiberius and claimed Drusus as his son, and he was consequently hated by the other even before this incident.
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