Note 104 — Volume IV (continued 4)

This is not quite exact. Suetonius tells us that Vespasian employed himself as usual, and gave audience on his deathbed: but perhaps he had done better to have risen to give audience, and to have gone to bed again to die. This I know, that Vespasian, if not a great man, was at least a great prince; but it is not a time to put on the comedian at the hour of death.