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Quote of the day: That he would bring the war to conclusio
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Annals by Tacitus
Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
Book IV Chapter 64: History of Mount Caelius[AD 27]
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This disaster was not forgotten when a furious conflagration damaged the capital to an unusual extent, reducing Mount Caelius to ashes. "It was an ill-starred year," people began to say, "and the emperor's purpose of leaving Rome must have been formed under evil omens." They began in vulgar fashion to trace ill-luck to guilt, when Tiberius checked them by distributing money in proportion to losses sustained. He received a vote of thanks in the Senate from its distinguished members, and was applauded by the populace for having assisted with his liberality, without partiality or the solicitations of friends, strangers whom he had himself sought out. And proposals were also made that Mount Caelius should for the future be called Mount Augustus inasmuch as when all around was in flames only a single statue of Tiberius in the house of one Junius, a senator, had remained uninjured. This, it was said, had formerly happened to Claudia Quinta; her statue, which had twice escaped the violence of fire, had been dedicated by our ancestors in the temple of the Mother of Gods; hence the Claudii had been accounted sacred and numbered among deities, and so additional sanctity ought to be given to a spot where heaven showed such honour to the emperor.