1Piso was completing his thirty-first year, with a reputation better than his fortune. 1Of his brothers, Magnus had been killed by Claudius, Crassus by Nero: he himself, long an exile, for four days a Caesar, was preferred to his elder brother by a hurried adoption only so that he might be killed first. 1Titus Vinius lived fifty-seven years with a varied character. 1His father was of a praetorian family, his maternal grandfather one of the proscribed. 1His first military service was disgraceful: he had had as his commander Calvisius Sabinus, whose wife, with a perverse desire to view the layout of the camp, entered it by night in soldier's dress, and, after trying the watches and the other duties of the service with the same wantonness, dared to commit adultery in the headquarters itself; and Titus Vinius was charged as guilty of this offence.
1So by order of Gaius 1Caesar he was loaded with chains, then released when times changed, and after an unchecked career of office, put in command of a legion after his praetorship and approved, he was later tainted with a slave's disgrace, on the charge of having stolen a gold cup at Claudius' banquet, and on the following day Claudius ordered that Vinius alone of all the guests be served on earthenware. 1But Vinius governed Narbonese Gaul as proconsul strictly and honestly; 1then, dragged over the brink by his friendship with Galba, he was bold, cunning, ready, and, as he had set his mind, wicked or industrious, with the same energy.
1The will of Titus Vinius was made void by the size of his wealth; Piso's last wishes were upheld by his poverty.