Of the birth of Curtius
Rufus, whom some affirm to
CLAUDIUS CHECKS CORBULO'S
PROGRESS |
have been the son of a gladiator, I would not publish a
falsehood, while I shrink from telling the truth. On reaching manhood he
attached himself to a quæstor to whom
Africa
had been allotted, and was walking alone at midday in some unfrequented
arcade in the town of
Adrumetum, when he saw a
female figure of more than human stature, and heard a voice, "Thou, Rufus,
art the man who will one day come into this province as proconsul." Raised
high in hope by such a presage, he returned to
Rome,
where, through the lavish expenditure of his friends and his own vigorous
ability, he obtained the quæstorship, and, subsequently, in
competition with well-born candidates, the prætorship, by the vote of
the emperor Tiberius, who threw a veil over the discredit of his origin,
saying, "Curtius Rufus seems to me to be his own ancestor." Afterwards,
throughout a long old age of surly sycophancy to those above him, of
arrogance to those beneath him, and of moroseness among his equals, he
gained the high office of the consulship, triumphal distinctions, and, at
last, the province of
Africa. There he died, and so
fulfilled the presage of his destiny.
