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3He went through this same process of deterioration, too, in almost all other respects. Thus, he had seemed at first most democratic, to such a degree, in fact, that he would send no letters either to the people or to the senate nor assume any of the imperial titles; yet he became most autocratic, 2so that he took in one day all the honours which Augustus had with difficulty been induced to accept, and then only as they were voted to him one at a time during the long extent of his reign, some of which indeed Tiberius had refused to accept at all. Indeed, he postponed none of them except the title of Father, and even that he acquired after no long time. 3Though he had proved himself the most libidinous of men, had seized one woman at the very moment of her marriage, and had dragged others from their husbands, he afterwards came to hate them all save one; and he would certainly have detested her, had he lived longer. Towards his mother, his sisters, and his grandmother Antonia he conducted himself at first in the most dutiful manner possible. 4His grandmother he immediately saluted as Augusta, and appointed her to be priestess of Augustus, granting to her at once all the privileges of the Vestal Virgins. To his sisters he assigned these privileges of the Vestal Virgins, also that of witnessing the games in the Circus with him from the imperial seats, and the right to have uttered in their behalf, also, not only the prayers annually offered by the magistrates and priests for his welfare and that of the State, but also the oaths of allegiance that were sworn to his rule. 5He himself sailed across the sea, and with his own hands collected and brought back the bones of his mother and of his brothers who had died; and wearing the purple-bordered toga and attended by lictors, as at a triumph, he deposited their remains in the tomb of Augustus. 6He annulled all the measures that had been voted against them, punished all who had plotted against them, and recalled such as were in exile on their account. Yet, after doing all this, he showed himself the most impious of men toward both his grandmother and his sisters. For he forced the former to seek death by her own hand, because she had rebuked him for something; and as for his sisters, after ravishing them all he confined two of them on an island, the third having already died. 7He even demanded that Tiberius, whom he called grandfather, should receive from the senate the same honours as Augustus; but when these were not immediately voted (for the senators could not, on the one hand, bring themselves to honour him, nor yet, on the other hand, make bold to dishonour him, because they were not yet clearly acquainted with the character of their young master, and were consequently postponing all action until he should be present), he bestowed upon him no mark of distinction other than a public funeral, after causing the body to be brought into the city by night and laid out at daybreak. 8And though he delivered a speech over it, he did not say so much in praise of Tiberius as he did to remind the people of Augustus and Germanicus and incidentally to commend himself to them.
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