I. GERMANICUS, father of Gaius Caesar, son of Drusus and
the younger Antonia, after being adopted by his paternal uncle Tiberius
[4 A.D.], held the quaestorship [7 A.D.] five years before the legal age
and passed directly to the consulship [12 A.D.] [i.e., without
holding any of the intermediate offices of the cursus honorem].
When the death of Augustus [14 A.D.] was announced, he was sent to the
army in Germania, where it is hard to say whether his filial piety or
his courage was more conspicuous; for although all the legions
obstinately refused to accept Tiberius as
imperator emperor, and offered him the
rule of the state, he held them to their allegiance. And later he won a
victory over the enemy and celebrated a triumph [17 A.D.]. Then chosen
consul for a second time [18 A.D.], before he entered on his term he was
hurried off to restore order in the Orient, and after vanquishing the
king of Armenia and reducing Cappadocia to the form of a province, died
of a lingering illness at Antioch, in the thirty-fourth year of his age.
There was some suspicion that he was poisoned; for besides the dark
spots which appeared all over his body and the froth which flowed from
his mouth, after he had been reduced to ashes his heart was found entire
among his bones; and it is supposed to be a characteristic of that organ
that when steeped in poison it cannot be destroyed by fire.
II. Now the belief was that he met his death through the
wiles of Tiberius, aided and abetted by Gnaeus Piso. This man had been
made governor of Syria at about that time, and realizing that he must
give offence either to the father or the son, as if there were no
alternative, he never ceased to show the bitterest enmity towards
Germanicus in word and deed, even after the latter fell ill. In
consequence Piso narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by the people on
his return to Rome, and was condemned to death by the senate.
III. It is the general opinion that Germanicus possessed
all the highest qualities of body and mind, to a degree never equalled
by anyone; a handsome person, unequalled valor, surpassing ability in
the oratory and learning of Greece and Rome, unexampled kindliness, and
a remarkable desire and capacity for winning men's regard and inspiring
their affection. His legs were too slender for the rest of his figure,
but he gradually brought them to proper proportions by constant
horseback riding after meals. He often slew a foeman in hand-to-hand
combat. He pleaded causes even after receiving the triumphal regalia;
and among other fruits of his studies he left some Greek comedies.
Unassuming at home and abroad, he always entered the free and federate
towns without lictors. Wherever he came upon the tombs of distinguished
men, he always offered sacrifice to their shades. Planning to bury in
one mound the old and scattered relics of those who fell in the
overthrow of Varus, he was the first to attempt to collect and assemble
them with his own hand. Even towards his detractors, whosoever they were
and whatever their motives, he was so mild and lenient, that when Piso
was annulling his decrees and maltreating his dependents, he could not
make up his mind to break with him, until he found himself assailed also
by potions and spells. Even then he went no farther than formally to
renounce Piso's friendship in the old-time fashion, and to bid his
household avenge him, in case anything should befall him.
IV. He reaped plentiful fruit from these virtues, for he
was so respected and beloved by his kindred that Augustus (to say
nothing of the rest of his relatives) after hesitating for a long time
whether to appoint him his successor, had him adopted by Tiberius. He
was so popular with the masses, that, according to many writers,
whenever he came to any place or left one, he was sometimes in danger of
his life from the crowds that met him or saw him off; in fact, when he
returned from Germania after quelling the outbreak, all the cohorts of
the praetorian guard went forth to meet him, although orders had been
given that only two should go, and the whole populace, regardless of
age, sex, or rank, poured out of Rome as far as the twentieth milestone.
V. Yet far greater and stronger tokens of regard were
shown at the time of his death and immediately afterwards. On the day
when he passed away the temples were stoned and the altars of the gods
thrown down, while some flung their household gods into the street and
cast out their newly born children. Even barbarian peoples, so they say,
who were engaged in war with us or with one another, unanimously
consented to a truce, as if all in common had suffered a domestic
tragedy. It is said that some princes put off their beards and had their
wives' heads shaved, as a token of the deepest mourning; that even the
king of kings [of Parthia] suspended his exercise at hunting and the
banquets with his grandees, which among the Parthians is a sign of
public mourning.
VI. At Rome, when the community, in grief and
consternation at the first report of his illness, was awaiting further
news, and suddenly after nightfall a report at last spread abroad, on
doubtful authority that he had recovered, a general rush was made from
every side to the Capitol with torches and victims, and the temple gates
were all but torn off, that nothing might hinder them in their eagerness
to pay their vows. Tiberius was roused from sleep by the cries of the
rejoicing throng, who all united in singing:--- "Safe is Rome, safe too
our country, for Germanicus is safe." But when it was at last made known
that he was no more, the public grief could be checked neither by any
consolation nor edict, and it continued even during the festal days of
the month of December [the Saturnalia]. The fame of the deceased and
regret for his loss were increased by the horror of the times which
followed, since all believed, and with good reason, that the cruelty of
Tiberius, which soon burst forth, had been held in check through his
respect and awe for Germanicus.
VII. He had to wife Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Agrippa
and Julia, who bore him nine children. Two of these were taken off when
they were still in infancy, and one just as he was reaching the age of
boyhood, a charming child, whose statue, in the guise of Cupid, Livia
dedicated in the temple of the Capitoline Venus, while Augustus had
another placed in his bed chamber and used to kiss it fondly whenever he
entered the room. The other children survived their father, three girls,
Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla, born in successive years, and three
boys, Nero, Drusus, and Gaius Caesar. Nero and Drusus were adjudged
public enemies by the senate on the accusation of Tiberius.
VIII. Gaius Caesar was born the day before the Kalends of
September in the consulship of his father and Gaius Fonteius Capito
[August 31, 12 A.D.]. Conflicting testimony makes his birthplace
uncertain. Gnaeus Lentulus Gaetulicus writes that he was born at Tibur,
Plinius Secundus among the Treveri, in a village called Ambitarvium
above the Confluence. Pliny adds as proof that altars are shown there,
inscribed For the Delivery of Agrippina. Verses which were in
circulation soon after he began ruling indicate that he was begotten
in the winter-quarters of the legions: "He who was born in the camp and
reared mid the arms of his country, Gave at the outset a sign that he
was fated to rule." I myself find in the Acta Publica [the
official publication of important events] that he first saw the light at
Antium. Gaetulicus is shown to be wrong by Pliny, who says that he told
a flattering lie, to add some luster to the fame of a young and
vain-glorious prince from the city sacred to Hercules; and that he lied
with the more assurance because Germanicus really did have a son born to
him at Tibur, also called Gaius Caesar, of whose lovable disposition and
untimely death I have already spoken. Pliny has erred in his chronology;
for the historians of Augustus agree that Germanicus was not sent to
Germany until the close of his consulship, when Gaius was already born.
Moreover, the inscription on the altar adds no strength to Pliny's view,
for Agrippina twice gave birth to daughters in that region, and any
childbirth, regardless of sex, is called puerperium, since the
men of old called girls puerae, just as they called boys
puelli. Furthermore, we have a letter written by Augustus to his
granddaughter Agrippina, a few months before he died, about the Gaius in
question (for no other child of the name was still alive at that time),
reading as follows: "Yesterday I arranged with Talarius and Asillius to
bring your boy Gaius on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of June, if
it be the will of the gods. I send with him besides one of my slaves who
is a physician, and I have written Germanicus to keep him if he wishes.
Farewell, my own Agrippina, and take care to come in good health to your
Germanicus." I think it is clear enough that Gaius could not have been
born in a place to which he was first taken from Rome when he was nearly
two years old. This letter also weakens our confidence in the verses,
the more so because they are anonymous. We must then accept the only
remaining testimony, that of the public record, particularly since Gaius
loved Antium as if it were his native soil, always preferring it to all
other places of retreat, and even thinking, it is said, of transferring
thither the seat and abode of the empire through weariness of Rome.
IX. His surname Caligula ["Little Boots"] he derived from
a joke of the troops, because he was brought up in their midst in the
dress of a common soldier. To what extent besides he won their love and
devotion by being reared in fellowship with them is especially evident
from the fact that when they threatened mutiny after the death of
Augustus and were ready for any act of madness, the mere sight of Gaius
unquestionably calmed them. For they did not become quiet until they saw
that he was being spirited away because of the danger from their
outbreak and taken for protection to the nearest town. Then at last they
became contrite, and laying hold of the carriage and stopping it, begged
to be spared the disgrace which was being put upon them.
X. He attended his father also on his expedition to
Syria. On his return from there he first lived with his mother and after
her banishment, with his great-grandmother Livia; and when Livia died
[29 A.D.], though he was not yet of age, he spoke her eulogy from the
rostra. Then he fell to the care of his grandmother Antonia and in the
nineteenth year of his age he was called to Capreae [the Isle of Capri]
by Tiberius, on the same day assuming the gown of manhood and shaving
his first beard, but without any such ceremony as had attended the
coming of age of his brothers. Although at Capreae every kind of wile
was resorted to by those who tried to lure him or force him to utter
complaints, he never gave them any satisfaction, ignoring the ruin of
his kindred as if nothing at all had happened, passing over his own
ill-treatment with an incredible pretence of indifference, and so
obsequious towards his grandfather and his household, that it was well
said of him that no one had ever been a better slave or a worse master.
XI. Yet even at that time he could not control his
natural cruelty and viciousness, but he was a most eager witness of the
tortures and executions of those who suffered punishment, revelling at
night in gluttony and adultery, disguised in a wig and a long robe,
passionately devoted besides to the theatrical arts of dancing and
singing, in which Tiberius very willingly indulged him,in the hope that
through these his savage nature might be softened. This last was so
clearly evident to the shrewd old man, that he used to say now and then
that to allow Gaius to live would prove the ruin of himself and of all
men, and that he was rearing a viper for the Roman people and a Phaethon
for the world.
XII. Not so very long afterward Gaius took to wife Junia
Claudilla, daughter of Marcus Silanus, a man of noble rank. Then
appointed augur in place of his brother Drusus, before he was invested
with the office he was advanced to that of pontiff; with strong
commendation of his dutiful conduct and general character; for since the
court was deserted and deprived of its other supports, after Seianus had
been suspected of hostile designs and presently put out of the way, he
was little by little encouraged to look forward to the succession. To
have a better chance of realizing this, after losing Junia in
childbirth, he seduced Ennia Naevia, wife of Macro, who at that time
commanded the praetorian guard, even promising to marry her if he becam
master over imperium, and guaranteeing this promise by an oath and a written
contract. Having through her wormed himself into Macro's favor, he
poisoned Tiberius, as some think, and ordered that his ring be taken
from him while he still breathed, and then suspecting that he was trying
to hold fast to it, that a pillow be put over his face; or even
strangled the old man with his own hand, immediately ordering the
crucifixion of a freedman who cried out at the awful deed. And this is
likely enough; for some writers say that Caligula himself later
admitted, not it is true that he had committed parricide, but that he
had at least meditated it at one time; for they say that he constantly
boasted, in speaking of his filial piety, that he had entered the
bedchamber of the sleeping Tiberius dagger in hand, to avenge the death
of his mother and brothers; but that, seized with pity, he threw down
the dagger and went out again; and that though Tiberius knew of this, he
had never dared to make any inquiry or take any action.
XIII. [37 A.D.] By thus gaining
imperium he fulfilled
the highest hopes of the Roman people, or I may say of all mankind,
since he was the prince most earnestly desired by the great part of the
provincials and soldiers, many of whom had known him in his infancy, as
well as by the whole body of the city populace, because of the memory of
his father Germanicus and pity for a family that was all but extinct.
Accordingly, when he set out from Misenum, though he was in mourning
garb and escorting the body of Tiberius, yet his progress was marked by
altars, victims, and blazing torches, and he was met by a dense and
joyful throng, who called him besides other propitious names their
"star," their "chick," their "babe," and their "nursling."
XIV. When he entered the city, full power
was at once put into his hands by the unanimous consent of the senate
and of the mob, which forced its way into the Senate, and no attention
was paid to the wish of Tiberius, who in his will had named his other
grandson, still a boy, joint heir with Caligula. So great was the public
rejoicing, that within the next three months, or less than that, more
than a hundred and sixty thousand victims are said to have been slain in
sacrifice.
A few days after this, when he crossed to the islands
near Campania, vows were put up for his safe return, while no one let
slip even the slightest chance of giving testimony to his anxiety and
regard for his safety. But when he fell ill, they all spent the whole
night about the Palatium; some even vowed to fight as gladiators, and
others posted placards offering their lives, if the ailing prince were
spared. To this unbounded love of his citizens was added marked devotion
from foreigners. Artabanus, for example, king of the Parthians, who was
always outspoken in his hatred and contempt for Tiberius, voluntarily
sought Caligula's friendship and came to a conference with the consular
governor; then crossing the Euphrates, he paid homage to the Roman
eagles and standards and to the statues of the Caesars.
XV. Gaius himself tried to rouse men's devotion by
courting popularity in every way. After eulogizing Tiberius with many
tears before the assembled people and giving him a magnificent funeral,
he at once posted off to Pandateria and the Pontian islands, to remove
the ashes of his mother and brother to Rome, and in stormy weather, too,
to make his filial piety the more conspicuous. He approached them with
reverence and placed them in the urns with his own hands. With no less
theatrical effect he brought them to Ostia in a bireme with a banner set
in the stern, and from there up the Tiber to Rome, where he had them
carried to the Mausoleum [of Augustus] on two biers by the most
distinguished men of the order of equites, in the middle of the
day, when the streets were crowded. He appointed funeral sacrifices,
too, to be offered each year with due ceremony, as well as games in the
Circus in honor of his mother, providing a carriage to carry her image
in the procession. But in memory of his father he gave to the month of
September the name of Germanicus. After this, by a single decree of the
senate, he heaped upon his grandmother Antonia whatever honors Livia
Augusta had ever enjoyed; took his uncle Claudius, who up to that time
had been a Roman eques, as his colleague in the consulship [37
A.D.]; adopted his brother Tiberius on the day that he assumed the gown
of manhood, and gave him the title of Princeps Iuventutis ["First
of the Youth"--originally the title of the commander of the equites
who were under forty-five and in active service; conferred on Caius and
Lucius Caesar by Augustus, the title became the designation of the heir
to the throne, and was later assumed by the emperors(sic) themselves]. He
caused the names of his sisters to be included in all oaths: "And I will
not hold myself and my children dearer than I do Gaius and his sisters";
as well as in the propositions of the consuls: " Favor and good fortune
attend Gaius Caesar and his sisters." With the same degree of popularity
he recalled those who had been condemned to banishment; took no
cognizance of any charges that remained untried from an earlier time;
had all documents relating to the cases of his mother and brothers
carried to the Forum and burned, to give no informer or witness occasion
for further fear, having first loudly called the gods to witness that he
had neither read nor touched any of them. He refused a note which was
offered him regarding his own safety, maintaining that he had done
nothing to make anyone hate him, and that he had no ears for informers.
XVI. He banished from the city the sexual monsters called
spintriae, barely persuaded not to sink them in the sea. The
writings of Titus Labienus, Cremutius Cordus, and Cassius Severus, which
had been suppressed by decrees of the senate, he allowed to be hunted
up, circulated, and read, saying that it was wholly to his interest that
everything which happened be handed down to posterity. He published the
accounts of the empire, which had regularly been made public by
Augustus, a practice discontinued by Tiberius. He allowed the
magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself. He
revised the lists of the Roman equites strictly and scrupulously, yet
with due moderation, publicly taking their horses from those guilty of
any wicked or scandalous set, but merely omitting to read the names of
men convicted of lesser offences. To lighten the labor of the jurors, he
added a fifth division to the previous four. He tried also to restore
the suffrage to the people by reviving the custom of elections. He at
once paid faithfully and without dispute the legacies named in the will
of Tiberius, though this had been set aside, as well as in that of Julia
Augusta, which Tiberius had suppressed. He remitted the tax of a
two-hundredth on auction sales in Italy; made good to many their losses
from fires; and whenever he restored kings to their thrones, he allowed
them all the arrears of their taxes and their revenue for the
meantime---for example, to Antiochus of Commagene, a hundred million
sesterces that had accrued to the Treasury. To make it known that he
encouraged every kind of noble action, he gave eight hundred thousand
sesterces to a freedwoman, because she had kept silence about the guilt
of her patron, though subjected to the utmost torture. Because of these
acts, besides other honors, a golden shield was voted him, which was to
be borne every year to the Capitol on an appointed day by the colleges
of priests, escorted by the senate, while boys and girls of noble birth
sang the praises of his virtues in a choral ode. It was further decreed
that the day on which he began to reign should be called the Parilia,
as a token that the city had been founded a second time.
XVII. He held four consulships, one from the Kalends of
July for two months [37 A.D.], a second from the Kalends of January for
thirty days [39 A.D.], a third up to the Ides of January [40 A.D.], and
the fourth until the seventh day before the Ides of the same month [41
A.D.]. Of all these only the last two were continuous. The third he
assumed at Lugdunum without a colleague, not as some think, through
arrogance or disregard of precedent, but because at that distance from
Rome he had been unable to get news of the death of the other consul
just before the day of the Kalends. He twice gave the people a largess
of three hundred sesterces each, and twice a lavish banquet to the
senate and the equestrian order, together with their wives and children.
At the former of these he also distributed togas to the men, and to the
women and children scarves of red and scarlet. Furthermore, to make a
permanent addition to the public gaiety, he added a day to the
Saturnalia, and called it Juvenalis.
XVIII. He gave several gladiatorial shows, some in the
amphitheater of Taurus and some in the Saepta, in which he introduced
pairs of African and Campanian boxers, the pick of both regions. He did
not always preside at the games in person, but sometimes assigned the
honor to the magistrates or to friends. He exhibited stage-plays
continually, of various kinds and in many different places, sometimes
even by night, lighting up the whole city. He also threw about
gift-tokens of various kinds, and gave each man a basket of victuals.
During the feasting he sent his share to a Roman eques opposite
him, who was eating with evident relish and appetite, while to a senator
for the same reason he gave a commission naming him praetor out of the
regular order. He also gave many games in the Circus, lasting from early
morning until evening, introducing between the races now a baiting of
panthers and now the manoeuvres of the game called Troy; some,
too, of special splendor, in which the Circus was strewn with red and
green, while the charioteers were all men of senatorial rank. He also
started some games off-hand, when a few people called for them from the
neighboring balconies as he was inspecting the outfit of the Circus from
the Gelotian house.
XIX. Besides this, he devised a novel and unheard of kind
of pageant; for he bridged the gap between Baiae and the mole at Puteoli,
a distance of about thirty-six hundred paces, by bringing together
merchant ships from all sides and anchoring them in a double line, after
which a mound of earth was heaped upon them and fashioned in the manner
of the Appian Way. Over this bridge he rode back and forth for two
successive days, the first day on a caparisoned horse, himself
resplendent in a crown of oak leaves, a buckler, a sword, and a cloak of
cloth of gold; on the second, in the dress of a charioteer in a car
drawn by a pair of famous horses, carrying before him a boy named Dareus,
one of the hostages from Parthia, and attended by the entire praetorian
guard and a company of his friends in Gallic chariots. I know that many
have supposed that Gaius devised this kind of bridge in rivalry of
Xerxes, who excited no little admiration by bridging the much narrower
Hellespont; others, that it was to inspire fear in Germany and Britain,
on which he had designs, by the fame of some stupendous work. But when I
was a boy, I used to hear my grandfather say that the reason for the
work, as revealed by his the emperor's
confidential courtiers, was that Thrasyllus the astrologer had declared to Tiberius, when he was worried
about his sucessor and inclined towards his natural grandson, that
Gaius had no more chance of ruling becoming emperor than of riding about over
the gulf of Baiae with horses.
XX. He also gave shows in foreign lands, Athenian games
at Syracuse in Sicily, and miscellaneous games at Lugdunum in Gallia; at
the latter place also a contest in Greek and Latin oratory, in which,
they say, the losers gave prizes to the victors and were forced to
compose eulogies upon them, while those who were least successful were
ordered to erase their writings with a sponge or with their tongue
unless they elected rather to be beaten with rods or thrown into the
neighboring river.
XXI. He completed the public works which had been half
finished under Tiberius, namely the temple of Augustus and the theater
of Pompeius. He likewise began an aqueduct in the region near Tibur and
an amphitheater beside the Saepta, the former finished by his successor
Claudius, while the latter was abandoned. At Syracuse he repaired the
city walls, which had fallen into ruin through lapse of time, and the
temples of the gods. He had planned, besides, to rebuild the palace of
Polycrates at Samos, to finish the temple of Didymaean Apollo at
Ephesus, to found a city high up in the Alps, but, above all, to dig a
canal through the Isthmus in Greece, and he had already sent a chief
centurion to survey the work.
XXII. So much for Caligula as
princeps emperor; we must now tell
of his career as a monster. After he had assumed various surnames (for
he was called Pius ["Pious"], Castrorum Filius ["Child of
the Camp"], Pater Exercituum ["Father of the Armies"] and
Optimus Maximus Caesar ["Greatest and Best of Caesars"]), chancing
to overhear some kings, who had come to Rome to pay their respects to
him, disputing at dinner about the nobility of their descent, he cried:
"Let there be one Lord, one King." And he came near assuming a crown at
once and changing the semblance of a principate into the form of a
monarchy. But on being reminded that he had risen above the elevation
both of princes and kings, he began from that time on to lay claim to
divine majesty; for after giving orders that such statues of the gods as
were especially famous for their sanctity or their artistic merit,
including that of Jupiter of Olympia, should be brought from Greece, in
order to remove their heads and put his own in their place, he built out
a part of the Palace as far as the Forum, and making the temple of
Castor and Pollux its vestibule, he often took his place between the
divine brethren, and exhibited himself there to be worshipped by those
who presented themselves; and some hailed him as Jupiter Latiaris. He
also set up a special temple to his own godhead, with priests and with
victims of the choicest kind. In this temple was a life-sized statue
..in gold, which was dressed each day in clothing such as he
wore himsel, The richest citizens used all their influence to secure the
priesthoods of his cult and bid high for the honor. The victims were
flamingoes, peacocks, black grouse, guinea-hens a and pheasants, offered
day by day each after its own kind. At night he used constantly to
invite the full and radiant moon to his embraces and his bed, while in
the daytime he would talk confidentially with Jupiter Capitolinus, now
whispering and then in turn putting his ear to the mouth of the god, now
in louder and even angry language; for he was heard to make the threat:
"Lift me up, or I'll lift you." But finally won by entreaties, as he
reported, and even invited to live with the god, he built a bridge over
the temple of the Deified Augustus, and thus joined his Palace to the
Capitol. Presently, to be nearer yet, he laid the foundations of a new
house in the court of the Capitol.
XXIII. He did not wish to be thought the grandson of
Agrippa, or called so, because of the latter's humble origin; and he
grew very angry if anyone in a speech or a song included Agrippa among
the ancestors of the Caesars. He even boasted that his own mother was
born in incest, which Augustus had committed with his daughter Julia;
and not content with this slur on the memory of Augustus, he forbade the
celebration of his victories at Actium and off Sicily by annual
festivals, on the ground that they were disastrous and ruinous to the
Roman people. He often called his great-grandmother Livia Augusta "a
Ulysses in petticoats," and he had the audacity to accuse her of low
birth in a letter to the senate, alleging that her maternal grandfather
had been nothing but a decurion of Fundi; whereas it is proved by public
records that Aufidius Lurco held high offices at Rome. When his
grandmother Antonia asked for a private interview, he refused it except
in the presence of the praefect Macro, and by such indignities and
annoyances he caused her death; although some think that he also gave
her poison. After she was dead, he paid her no honor, but viewed her
burning pyre from his dining-room. He had his brother Tiberius put to
death without warning, suddenly sending a tribune of the soldiers to do
the deed; besides driving his father-in-law Silanus to end his life by
cutting his throat with a razor. His charge against the latter was that
Silanus had not followed him when he put to sea in stormy weather, but
had remained behind in the hope of taking possession of the city in case
he should be lost in the storm; against Tiberius, that his breath
smelled of an antidote, which he had taken to guard against being
poisoned at his hand. Now as a matter of fact, Silanus was subject to
sea-sickness and wished to avoid the discomforts of the voyage, while
Tiberius had taken medicine for a chronic cough, which was growing
worse. As for his uncle Claudius, he spared him merely as a
laughingstock.
XXIV. He lived in habitual incest with all his sisters,
and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while
his wife reclined above. Of these he is believed to have violated
Drusilla when he was still a minor, and even to have been caught lying
with her by his grandmother Antonia, at whose house they were brought up
in company. Afterwards, when she was the wife of Lucius Cassius Longinus,
an ex-consul, he took her from him and openly treated her as his lawful
wife; and when ill, he made her heir to his property and the throne.
When she died, he appointed a season of public mourning, during which it
was a capital offence to laugh, bathe, or dine in company with one's
parents, wife, or children. He was so beside himself with grief that
suddenly fleeing the city by night and traversing Campania, he went to
Syracuse and hurriedly returned from there without cutting his hair or
shaving his beard. And he never afterwards took oath about matters of
the highest moment, even before the assembly of the people or in the
presence of the soldiers, except by the godhead of Drusilla. The rest of
his sisters he did not love with so great affection, nor honor so
highly, but often prostituted them to his favorites; so that he was the
readier at the trial of Aemilius Lepidus to condemn them, as
adulteresses and privy to the conspiracies against him; and he not only
made public letters in the handwriting of all of them, procured by fraud
and seduction, but also dedicated to Mars the Avenger, with an
explanatory inscription, three swords designed to take his life.
XXV. It is not easy to decide whether he acted more
basely in contracting his marriages, in annulling them, or as a husband.
At the marriage of Livia Orestilla to Gaius Piso, he attended the
ceremony himself, gave orders that the bride be taken to his own house,
and within a few days divorced her; two years later he banished her,
because of a suspicion that in the meantime she had gone back to her
former husband. Others write that being invited to the wedding banquet,
he sent word to Piso, who reclined opposite to him: "Don't take
liberties with my wife," and at once carried her off with him from the
table, the next day issuing a proclamation that he had got himself a
wife in the manner of Romulus and Augustus. When the statement was made
that the grandmother of Lollia Paulina, who was married to Gaius Memmius,
an ex-consul commanding armies, had once been a remarkably beautiful
woman, he suddenly called Lollia from the province, separated her from
her husband, and married her, then in a short time he put her away, with
the command never to have intercourse with anyone. Though Caesonia was
neither beautiful nor young, and was already mother of three daughters
by another, besides being a woman of reckless extravagance and
wantonness, he loved her not only more passionately but more faithfully,
often exhibiting her to the soldiers riding by his side, decked with
cloak, helmet and shield, and to his friends even in a state of nudity.
He did not honor her with the title of wife until she had borne him a
child, announcing on the selfsame day that he had married her and that
he was the father of her babe. This babe, whom he named Julia Drusilla,
he carried to the temples of all the goddesses, finally placing her in
the lap of Minerva and commending to her the child's nurture and
training. And no evidence convinced him so positively that she was
sprung from his own loins as her savage temper, which was even then so
violent that she would try to scratch the faces and eyes of the little
children who played with her.
XXVI. It would be trivial and pointless to add to this an
account of his treatment of his relatives and friends, Ptolemy, son of
king Juba, his cousin (for he was the grandson of Marcus Antonius by
Antonius' daughter Selene), and in particular Macro himself and even
Ennia, who helped him to the throne; all these were rewarded for their
kinship and their faithful services by a bloody death. He was no whit
more respectful or mild towards the senate, allowing some who had held
the highest offices to run in their togas for several miles beside his
chariot and to wait on him at table, standing napkin in hand a either at
the head of his couch, or at his feet. Others he secretly put to death,
yet continued to send for them as if they were alive, after a few days
falsely asserting that they had committed suicide. When the consuls
forgot to make proclamation of his birthday, he deposed them, and left
the state for three days without its highest magistrates. He flogged his
quaestor, who was charged with conspiracy, stripping off the man's
clothes and spreading them under the soldiers' feet, to give them a firm
footing as they beat him. He treated the other orders with like
insolence and cruelty. Being disturbed by the noise made by those who
came in the middle of the night to secure the free seats in the Circus,
he drove them all out with cudgels; in the confusion more than twenty
Roman equites were crushed to death, with as many matrons and a
countless number of others. At the plays in the theater, sowing discord
between the people and the equites, he scattered the gift tickets ahead
of time, to induce the rabble to take the seats reserved for the
equestrian order. At a gladiatorial show he would sometimes draw back
the awnings when the sun was hottest and give orders that no one be
allowed to leave; then removing the usual equipment, he would match
worthless and decrepit gladiators against mangy wild beasts, and have
sham fights between householders who were of good repute, but
conspicuous for some bodily infirmity. Sometimes too he would shut up
the granaries and condemn the people to hunger.
XXVII. The following are special instances of his innate
brutality. When cattle to feed the wild beasts which he had provided for
a gladiatorial show were rather costly, he selected criminals to be
devoured, and reviewing the line of prisoners without examining the
charges, but merely taking his place in the middle of a colonnade, he
bade them be led away "from baldhead to baldhead." A man who had made a
vow to fight in the arena if he recovered, he compelled to keep
his word, watched him as he fought sword in hand, and would not let him
go until he was victorious, and then only after many entreaties. Another
who had offered his life for the same reason, but delayed to kill
himself, he turned over to his slaves, with orders to drive him through
the streets decked with sacred boughs and fillets, calling for the fulfilment of his vow, and finally hurl him from the embankment. Many
men of honorable rank were first disfigured with the marks of
branding-irons and then condemned to the mines, to work at building
roads, or to be thrown to the wild beasts; or else he shut them up in
cages on all fours, like animals, or had them sawn asunder. Not all
these punishments were for serious offences, but merely for criticizing
one of his shows, or for never having sworn by his Genius. He
forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter
for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner
immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to
gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability. He had the manager of
his gladiatorial shows and beast-baitings beaten with chains in his
presence for several successive days, and would not kill him until he
was disgusted at the stench of his putrefied brain. He burned a writer
of Atellan farces alive in the middle of the arena of the amphitheatre,
because of a humorous line of double meaning. When a Roman eques
on being thrown to the wild beasts loudly protested his innocence, he
took him out, cut off his tongue, and put him back again.
XXVIII. Having asked a man who had been recalled from an
exile of long standing, how in the world he spent his time there, the
man replied by way of flattery: "I constantly prayed the gods for what
has come to pass, that Tiberius might die and you
rule."
Thereupon Caligula, thinking that his exiles were likewise praying for
his death, sent emissaries from island to island to butcher them all.
Wishing to have one of the senators torn to pieces, he induced some of
the members to assail him suddenly, on his entrance into the Senate,
with the charge of being a public enemy, to stab him with their
styluses, and turn him over to the rest to be mangled; and his cruelty
was not sated until he saw the man's limbs, members, and bowels dragged
through the streets and heaped up before him.
XXIX. He added to the enormity of his crimes by the
brutality of his language. He used to say that there was nothing in his
own character which he admired and approved more highly than what he
called his "lasting power", that is, his shameless impudence [a sexual
innuendo]. When his grandmother Antonia gave him some advice, he was not
satisfied merely not to listen but replied: "Remember that I have the
right to do anything to anybody." When he was on the point of killing
his brother, and suspected that he had taken drugs as a precaution
against poison, he cried: "What! an antidote against Caesar?" After
banishing his sisters, he made the threat that he not only had islands,
but swords as well. An ex-praetor who had retired to Anticyra for his
health, sent frequent requests for an extension of his leave, but
Caligula had him put to death, adding that a man who had not been helped
by so long a course of hellebore needed to be bled. On signing the list
of prisoners who were to be put to death later, he said that he was
clearing his accounts. Having condemned several Gauls and Greeks to
death in a body, he boasted that he had subdued Gallograecia.
XXX. He seldom had anyone put to death except by numerous
slight wounds, his constant order, which soon became well-known, being:
"Strike so that he may feel that he is dying." When a different man than
he had intended had been killed, through a mistake in the names, he said
that the victim too had deserved the same fate. He often uttered the
familiar line of the tragic poet [Accius, Trag., 203]: --- "Let
them hate me, so they but fear me." He often inveighed against all the
senators alike, as adherents of Seianus and informers against his mother
and brothers, producing the documents which he pretended to have burned,
and upholding the cruelty of Tiberius as forced upon him, since he could
not but believe so many accusers. He constantly tongue-lashed the
equestrian order as devotees of the stage and the arena. Angered at the
rabble for applauding a faction which he opposed, he cried: "I wish the
Roman people had but a single neck," and when the brigand Tetrinius was
demanded, he said that those who asked for him were Tetriniuses also.
Once a band of five retiarii in tunics, matched against the same
number of secutores, yielded without a struggle; but when their
death was ordered, one of them caught up his trident and slew all the
victors. Caligula bewailed this in a public proclamation as a most cruel
murder, and expressed his horror of those who had had the heart to
witness it
XXXI. He even used openly to deplore the state of his
times, because they had been marked by no public disasters, saying that
the rule of Augustus had been made famous by the Varus massacre, and
that of Tiberius by the collapse of the amphitheatre at Fidenae, while
his own was threatened with oblivion because of its prosperity, and
every now and then he wished for the destruction of his armies, for
famine, pestilence, fires, or a great earthquake.
XXXII. His acts and words were equally cruel, even when
he was indulging in relaxation and given up to amusement and feasting.
While he was lunching or revelling capital examinations by torture were
often made in his presence, and a soldier who was an adept at
decapitation cut off the heads of those who were brought from prison. At
Puteoli, at the dedication of the bridge that he contrived, as has been
said, after inviting a number to come to him from the shore, on a sudden
he had them all thrown overboard; and when some caught hold of the
rudders of the ships, he pushed them off into the sea with boathooks and
oars. At a public banquet in Rome he immediately handed a slave over to
the executioners for stealing a strip of silver from the couches, with
orders that his hands be cut off and hung from his neck upon his breast,
and that he then be led about among the guests, preceded by a placard
giving the reason for his punishment. When a murmillo from the
gladiatorial school fought with him with wooden swords and fell on
purpose, he stabbed him with a real dagger and then ran about with a
palm-branch, as victors do. Once when he stood by the altar dressed as a
popa and a victim was brought up, he raised his mallet on high
and slew the cultrarius. At one of his more sumptuous banquets he
suddenly burst into a fit of laughter, and when the consuls, who were
reclining next him, politely inquired at what he was laughing, he
replied: "What do you suppose, except that at a single nod of mine both
of you could have your throats cut on the spot?"
XXXIII. As a sample of his humor, he took his place
beside a statue of Jupiter, and asked the tragic actor Apelles which of
the two seemed to him the greater, and when he hesitated, Caligula had
him flayed with whips, extolling his voice from time to time, when the
wretch begged for mercy, as passing sweet even in his groans. Whenever
he kissed the neck of his wife or sweetheart, he would say: "Off comes
this beautiful head whenever I give the word." He even used to threaten
now and then that he would resort to torture if necessary, to find out
from his dear Caesonia why he loved her so passionately.
XXXIV. He assailed mankind of almost every epoch with no
less envy and malice than insolence and cruelty. He threw down the
statues of famous men, which for lack of room Augustus had moved from
the court of the Capitol to the Campus Martius, and so utterly
demolished them that they could not be set up again with their
inscriptions entire; and thereafter he forbade the erection of the
statue of any living man anywhere, without his knowledge and consent. He
even thought of destroying the poems of Homer, asking why he should not
have the same privilege as Plato, who excluded Homer from his ideal
commonwealth. More than that, he all but removed the writings and the
busts of Vergil and of Titus Livius from all the libraries, railing at
the former as a man of no talent and very little learning, and the
latter as a verbose and careless historian. With regard to lawyers too,
as if intending to do away with any practice of their profession, he
often threatened that he would see to it, by Heaven, that they could
give no advice contrary to his wish.
XXXV. He took from all the noblest of the city the
ancient devices of their families, from Torquatus his collar, from
Cincinnatus his lock of hair, from Gnaeus Pompeius the surname Magnus
belonging to his ancient race. After inviting Ptolemy, whom I have
mentioned before, to come from his kingdom, and receiving him with
honor, he suddenly had him executed for no other reason than that when
giving a gladiatorial show, he noticed that Ptolemy on entering the
theatre attracted general attention by the splendor of his purple cloak.
Whenever he ran across handsome men with fine heads of hair [for he
himself was bald], he disfigured them by having the backs of their heads
shaved. There was a certain Aesius Proculus, son of a chief centurion,
called Colosseros [ "Giant Love"] because of his remarkable size
and handsome appearance; this man Caligula ordered to be suddenly
dragged from his seat in the amphitheater and led into the arena, where
he matched him first against a Thracian and then against a heavy-armed
gladiator; when Proculus was victor in both contests, Caligula gave
orders that he be bound at once, clad in rags, and then put to death,
after first being led about the streets and exhibited to the women. In
short, there was no one of such low condition or such abject fortune
that he did not envy him such advantages as he possessed. Since the king
of Nemi [the priest of Diana at Nemi, who must be a fugitive slave and
obtain his office by slaying his predecessor] had now held his
priesthood for many years, he hired a stronger adversary to attack him.
When an essedarius[a gladiator who fought from a chariot] called
Porius was vigorously applauded on the day of one of the games for
setting his slave free after a victory, Caligula rushed from the
amphitheater in such haste that he trod on the fringe of his toga and
went headlong down the steps, fuming and shouting: "The people that rule
the world give more honor to a gladiator for a trifling act than to
their consecrated principes or to the one still present with them."
XXXVI. He respected neither his own chastity nor that of
anyone else. He is said to have had unnatural relations with Marcus
Lepidus, the pantomimic actor Mnester, and certain hostages. Valerius
Catullus, a young man of a consular family, publicly proclaimed that he
had violated him and worn himself out in commerce with him. To
say nothing of his incest with his sisters and his notorious passion for
the concubine Pyrallis, there was scarcely any woman of rank whom he did
not approach. These as a rule he invited to dinner with their husbands,
and as they passed by the foot of his couch, he would inspect them
critically and deliberately, as if buying slaves, even putting out his
hand and lifting up the face of anyone who looked down in modesty; then
as often as the fancy took him he would leave the room, sending for the
one who pleased him best, and returning soon afterward with evident
signs of what had occurred, he would openly commend or criticize his
partner, recounting her charms or defects and commenting on her conduct.
To some he personally sent a bill of divorce in the name of their absent
husbands, and had it entered in the public records.
XXXVII. In reckless extravagance he outdid the prodigals
of all times in ingenuity, inventing a new sort of baths and unnatural
varieties of food and feasts; for he would bathe in hot or cold perfumed
oils, drink pearls of great price dissolved in vinegar, and set before
his guests loaves and meats of gold, declaring that a man ought either
to be frugal or Caesar. He even scattered large sums of money among the
people from the roof of the Basilica Julia for several days in
succession. He also built Liburnian galleys with ten banks of oars, with
sterns set with gems, parti-colored sails, huge spacious baths,
colonnades, and banquet-halls, and even a great variety of vines and
fiuit trees; that on board of them he might recline at table from an
early hour, and coast along the shores of Campania amid songs and
choruses. He built villas and country houses with utter disregard of
expense, caring for nothing so much as to do what men said was
impossible. So he built moles out into the deep and stormy sea,
tunnelled rocks of hardest flint, built up plains to the height of
mountains and razed mountains to the level of the plain; all with
incredible dispatch, since the penalty for delay was death. To make a
long story short, vast sums of money, including the 2,700,000,000
sesterces which Tibelius Caesar had amassed, were squandered by him in
less than the revolution of a year.
XXXVIII. Having thus impoverished himself, from very need
he turned his attention to pillage through a complicated and cunningly
devised system of false accusations, auction sales, and imposts. He
ruled that Roman citizenship could not lawfully be enjoyed by those
whose forefathers had obtained it for themselves and their descendants,
except in the case of sons, since "descendants" ought not to be
understood as going beyond that degree; and when certificates of the
deified Julius and Augustus were presented to him, he waved them aside
as old and out of date. He also charged that those estates had been
falsely returned, to which any addition had later been made from any
cause whatever. If any chief centurions since the beginning of Tiberius
as princeps '
reign had not named him that emperor
or himself among their heirs, he set
aside their wills on the ground of ingratitude; also the testaments of
all others, as null and void, if anyone said that they had intended to
make Caesar their heir when they died. When he had roused such fear in
this way that he came to be named openly as heir by strangers among
their intimates and by parents among their children, he accused them of
making game of him by continuing to live after such a declaration, and
to many of them he sent poisoned dainties. He used further to conduct
the trial of such cases in person, naming in advance the sum which he
proposed to raise at each sitting, and not rising until it was made up.
Impatient of the slightest delay, he once condemned in a single sentence
more than forty who were accused on different counts, boasting to Caesonia, when she woke after a nap, of the great amount of business he
had done while she was taking her afternoon sleep. Appointing an
auction, he put up and sold what was left from all the shows, personally
soliciting bids and running them up so high, that some who were forced
to buy articles at an enormous price and were thus stripped of their
possessions, opened their veins. A well-known incident is that of
Aponius Saturninus; he fell asleep on one of the benches, and as the
auctioneer was warned by Gaius not to overlook the praetorian gentleman
who kept nodding to him, the bidding was not stopped until thirteen
gladiators were knocked down to the unconscious sleeper at nine million
sesterces.
XXXIX. When he was in Gaul and had sold at immense
figures the jewels, furniture, slaves, and even the freedmen of his
sisters who had been condemned to death, finding the business so
profitable, he sent to the city for all the paraphernalia of the old
palace, seizing for its transportation even public carriages and animals
from the bakeries; with the result that bread was often scarce at Rome
and many who had cases in court lost them from inability to appear and
meet their bail. To get rid of this furniture, he resorted to every kind
of trickery and wheedling, now railing at the bidders for avarice and
because they were not ashamed to be richer than he, and now feigning
regret for allowing common men to acquire the property of princes.
Having learned that a rich provincial had paid those who issued the
emperor's invitations two hundred thousand sesterces, to be smuggled in
among the guests at one of his dinner-parties, he was not in the least
displeased that the honor of dining with him was rated so high; but when
next day the man appeared at his auction, he sent a messenger to hand
him some trifle or other at the price of two hundred thousand sesterces
and say that he should dine with Caesar on his personal invitation.
XL. He levied new and unheard of taxes, at first through
the publicans and then, because their profit was so great, through the
centurions and tribunes of the praetorian guard; and there was no class
of commodities or men on which he did not impose some form of tariff. On
all eatables sold in any part of the city he levied a fixed and definite
charge; on lawsuits and legal processes begun anywhere, a fortieth part
of the sum involved, providing a penalty in case anyone was found guilty
of compromising or abandoning a suit; on the daily wages of porters, an
eighth; on the earnings of prostitutes, as much as each received for one
embrace; and a clause was added to this chapter of the law, providing
that those who had ever been prostitutes or acted as panders should be
liable to this public tax, and that even matrimony should not be exempt.
XLI. When taxes of this kind had been proclaimed, but not
published in writing, inasmuch as many offences were committed through
ignorance of the letter of the law, he at last, on the urgent demand of
the people, had the law posted up, but in a very narrow place and in
excessively small letters, to prevent the making of a copy. To leave no
kind of plunder untried, he opened a brothel in his palace, setting
apart a number of rooms and furnishing them to suit the grandeur of the
place, where matrons and freeborn youths should stand exposed. Then he
sent his pages about the fora and basilicas, to invite young men and old
to enjoy themselves, lending money on interest to those who came and
having clerks openly take down their names, as contributors to Caesar's
revenues. He did not even disdain to make money from play, and to
increase his gains by falsehood and even by perjury. Having on one
occasion given up his place to the player next him and gone into the
courtyard, he spied two wealthy Roman knights passing by; he ordered
them to be seized at once and their property confiscated and came back
exultant, boasting that he had never played in better luck.
XLII. But when his daughter was born, complaining of his
narrow means, and no longer merely of the burdens of a ruler but of
those of a father as well, he took up contributions for the girl's
maintenance and dowry. He also made proclamation that he would receive
New Year's gifts, and on the Kalends of January took his place in the
entrance to the Palace, to clutch the coins which a throng of people of
all classes showered on him by handfuls and lapfuls. Finally, seized
with a mania for feeling the touch of money, he would often pour out
huge piles of gold pieces in some open place, walk over them barefooted,
and wallow in them for a long time with his whole body.
XLIII. He had but one experience with military affairs or
war, and then on a sudden impulse; for having gone to Mevania to visit
the river Clitumnus and its grove, he was reminded of the necessity of
recruiting his body-guard of Batavians and was seized with the idea of
an expedition to Germania. So without delay he assembled legions and
auxiliaries from all quarters, holding levies everywhere with the utmost
strictness, and collecting provisions of every kind on an unheard of
scale. Then he began his march and made it now so hurriedly and rapidly,
that the praetorian cohorts were forced, contrary to all precedent, to
lay their standards on the pack-animals and thus to follow him; again he
was so lazy and luxurious that he was carried in a litter by eight
bearers, requiring the inhabitants of the towns through which he passed
to sweep the roads for him and sprinkle them to lay the dust.
XLIV. On reaching his camp, to show his vigilance and
strietness as a commander, he dismissed in disgrace the generals who
were late in bringing in the auxiliaries from various places, and in
reviewing his troops he deprived many of the chief centurions who were
well on in years of their rank, in some cases only a few days before
they would have served their time, giving as a reason their age and
infirmity; then railing at the rest for their avarice, he reduced the
rewards given on completion of full military service to six thousand
sesterces. All that he accomplished was to receive the surrender of
Adminius, son of Cynobellinus king of the Britons, who had been banished
by his father and had deserted to the Romans with a small force; yet as
if the entire island had submitted to him, he sent a grandiloquent
letter to Rome, commanding the couriers who carried it to ride in their
post-chaise all the way to the Forum and the Senate, and not to deliver
it to anyone except the consuls, in the temple of Mars the Avenger,
before a full meeting of the senate.
XLV. Presently, finding no one to fight with, he had a
few Germans of his body-guard taken across the river and concealed
there, and word brought him after luncheon with great bustle and
confusion that the enemy were close at hand. Upon this he rushed out
with his friends and a part of the praetorian cavalry to the woods close
by, and after cutting the branches from some trees and adorning them
like trophies, he returned by torchlight, taunting those who had not
followed him as timorous and cowardly, and presenting his companions and
the partners in his victory with crowns of a new kind and of a new name,
ornamented with figures of the sun, moon and stars, and called
exploratoriae. Another time some hostages were taken from a common
school and secretly sent on ahead of him, when he suddenly left a
banquet and pursued them with the cavalry as if they were runaways,
caught them, and brought them back in fetters, in this farce too showing
immoderate extravagance. On coming back to the table, when some
announced that the army was assembled, he urged them to take their
places just as they were, in their coats of mail. He also admonished
them in the familiar line of Vergil to "bear up and save themselves for
better days." Meanwhile he rebuked the absent senate and people in a
stern edict because "while Caesar was fighting and exposed to such
dangers they were indulging in revels and frequenting the theatres and
their pleasant villas."
XLVI. Finally, as if he intended to bring the war to an
end, he drew up a line of battle on the shore of the Ocean, arranging
his ballistas and other artillery; and when no one knew or could imagine
what he was going to do, he suddenly bade them gather shells and fill
their helmets and the folds of their gowns, calling them "spoils from
the Ocean, due to the Capitol and Palatine." As a monument
of his victory he erected a lofty tower, from which
lights were to shine at night to guide the course of ships, as from the
Pharos [the lighthouse at Alexandria]. Then, promising the soldiers a
gratuity of a hundred denarii each, as if he had shown unprecedented
liberality, he said, "Go your way happy; go your way rich."
XLVII. Then turning his attention to his triumph, in
addition to a few captives and deserters from the barbarians he chose
all the tallest of the Gauls, and as he expressed it, those who were
"worthy of a triumph," as well as some of the chiefs. These he reserved
for his parade, compelling them not only to dye their hair red and to
let it grow long, but also to learn the language of the Germans and
assume barbarian names. He also had the triremes in which he had entered
the Ocean carried overland to Rome for the greater part of the way. He
wrote besides to his financial agents to prepare for a triumph at the
smallest possible cost, but on a grander scale than had ever before been
known, since the goods of all were at their disposal.
XLVIII. Before leaving the province he formed a design of
unspeakable cruelty, that of butchering the legions that had begun the
mutiny years before just after the death of Augustus, because they had
beleagured his father Germanicus, their leader, and himself, at the time
an infant; and though he was with difficulty turned from this mad
purpose, he could by no means be prevented from persisting in his desire
to decimate them. Accordingly he summoned them to an assembly without
their arms, not even wearing their swords, and surrounded them with
armed horsemen. But seeing that some of the legionaries, suspecting his
purpose, were stealing off to resume their arms, in case any violence
should be offered them, he fled from the assembly and set out for the
city in a hurry, turning all his ferocity upon the senate, against which
he uttered open threats, in order to divert the gossip about his own
dishonor. He complained among other things that he had been cheated of
his fairly earned triumph; whereas a short time before he had himself
given orders that on pain of death no action should be taken about his
honors.
XLIX. Therefore, when he was met on the road by envoys
from that distinguished body, begging him to hasten his return, he
roared, "I will come, and this will be with me," frequently smiting the
hilt of the sword which he wore at his side. He also made proclamation
that he was returning, but only to those who desired his presence, the
equestrian order and the people, for to the senate he would never more
be fellow-citizen nor prince. He even forbade any of the senators to
meet him. Then giving up or postponing his triumph, he entered the city
on his birthday in an ovation; and within four months he perished,
having dared great crimes and meditating still greater ones. For he had
made up his mind to move to Antium, and later to Alexandria, after first
slaying the noblest members of the two orders. That no one may doubt
this, let me say that among his private papers two books were found with
different titles, one called The Sword and the other The
Dagger, and both containing the names and marks of identification of
those whom he had doomed to death. There was found besides a great chest
full of divers kinds of poisons, which they say were later thrown into
the sea by Claudius and so infected was it as to kill the fish, which
were thrown up by the tide upon the neighboring shores.
L. He was very tall and extremely pale, with an unshapely
body, but very-thin neck and legs. His eyes and temples were hollow, his
forehead broad and grim, his hair thin and entirely gone on the top of
his head, though his body was hairy. Because of this to look upon him
from a higher place as he passed by, or for any reason whatever to
mention a goat, was treated as a capital offence. While his face was
naturally forbidding and ugly, he purposely made it even more savage,
practicing all kinds of terrible and fearsome expressions before a
mirror. He was sound neither of body nor mind. As a boy he was troubled
with the falling sickness [presumably epilepsy], and while in his youth
he had some endarance, yet at times because of sudden faintness he was
hardly able to walk, to stand up, to collect his thoughts, or to hold up
his head. He himself realized his mental infirmity, and thought at times
of going into retirement and clearing his brain. It is thought that his
wife Caesonia gave him a drug intended for a love potion, which,
however, had the effect of driving him mad. He was especially tormented
with sleeplessness; for he never rested more than three hours at night,
and even for that length of time he did not sleep quietly, but was
terrified by strange apparitions, once, for example, dreaming that the
spirit of the Ocean talked with him. Therefore, weary of lying in bed
wide awake during the greater part of the night, he would now sit upon
his couch, and now wander through the long colonnades, crying out from
time to time for daylight and longing for its coming.
LI. I think I may fairly attribute to mental weakness the
existence of two exactly opposite faults in the same person, extreme
assurance and, on the other hand, excessive timorousness. For this man,
who so utterly despised the gods, was wont at the slightest thunder and
lightning to shut his eyes, to muffle up his head, and if they
increased, to leap from his bed and hide under it. In his journey
through Sicily, though he made all manner of fun of the miracles in
various places, he suddenly fled from Messana by night, panic-stricken
by the smoke and roaring from Aetna's crater. Full of threats as he was
also against the barbarians, when he was riding in a chariot through a
narrow defile on the far side of the Rhine, and someone said that there
would be no slight panic if the enemy should appear anywhere, he
immediately mounted a horse and hastily returned to the bridges. Finding
them crowded with camp servants and baggage, in his impatience of any
delay he was passed along from hand to hand over the men's heads. Soon
after, hearing of an uprising in Germania, he made preparations to flee
from the city and equipped fleets for the purpose, finding comfort only
in the thought that the provinces across the sea would at any rate be
left him, in case the enemy should be victorious and take possession of
the summits of the Alps, as the Cimbri, or even of the city, as the
Senones had once done. And it was this, I think, that later inspired his
assassins with the idea of pretending to the riotous soldiers that he
had laid hands on himself in terror at the report of a defeat.
LII. In his clothing, his shoes, and the rest of his
attire he did not follow the usage of his country and his
fellow-citizens; not always even that of his sex; or in fact, that of an
ordinary mortal. He often appeared in public in embroidered cloaks
covered with precious stones, with a long-sleeved tunic and bracelets;
sometimes in silk a and in a woman's robe; now in slippers or buskins;
again in boots, such as the emperor's body-guard wear, and at times in
the low shoes which are used by females. But oftentimes he exhibited
himself with a golden beard, holding in his hand a thunderbolt, a
trident, or a caduceus, emblems of the gods, and even in the garb of
Venus. He frequently wore the dress of a triumphing general, even before
his campaign, and sometimes the breastplate of Alexander the Great,
which he had taken from his sarcophagus.
LIII. As regards liberal studies, he gave little
attention to literature but a great deal to oratory, and he was as ready
of speech and eloquent as you please, especially if he had occasion to
make a charge against anyone. For when he was angry, he had an abundant
flow of words and thoughts, and his voice and delivery were such that
for very excitement he could not stand still and he was clearly heard by
those at a distance. When about to begin an harangue, he threatened to
draw the sword of his nightly labors, and he had such scorn of a
polished and elegant style that he used to say that Seneca, who was very
popular just then, composed "mere school exercises," and that he was
"sand without lime." He had the habit, too, of writing replies to the
successful pleas of orators and composing accusations and defences of
important personages who were brought to trial before the senate; and
according as his stylus had run most easily, he brought ruin or relief
to each of them by his speech, while he would also invite the equestrian
order by proclamation to come in and hear him.
LIV. Moreover, he devoted himself with much enthusiasm to
arts of other kinds and of great variety, appearing as a Thracian
gladiator, as a charioteer, and even as a singer and dancer, fighting
with the weapons of actual warfare, and driving in circuses built in
various places; so carried away by his interest in singing and dancing
that even at the public performances he could not refrain from singing
with the tragic actor as he delivered his lines, or from openly
imitating his gestures by way of praise or correction. Indeed, on the
day when he was slain he seems to have ordered an all-night vigil for
the sole purpose of taking advantage of the licence of the occasion to
make his first appearance on the stage. Sometimes he danced even at
night, and once he summoned three consulars to the Palace at the close
of the second watch, and when they arrived in great and deathly fear, he
seated them on a stage and then on a sudden burst out with a great din
of flutes and clogs, dressed in a cloak and a tunic reaching to his
heels, and after dancing a number went off again. And yet varied as were
his accomplishments, the man could not swim.
LV. Toward those to whom he was devoted his partiality
became madness. He used to kiss Mnester, an actor of pantomimes, even in
the theatre, and if anyone made even the slightest sound while his
favorite was dancing, he had him dragged from his seat and scourged him
with his own hand. When a Roman eques created a disturbance, he
sent a centurion to bid him go without delay to Ostia and carry a
message for him to King Ptolemy in Mauretania; and its purport was this:
"Do neither good nor ill to the man whom I have sent you." He gave some
Thracian gladiators command of his German body-guard. He reduced the
amount of armor of the murmillones [a type of gladiator]. When
one Columbus had won a victory, but had suffered a slight wound, he had
the place rubbed with a poison which he henceforth called Columbinum;
at least that name was found included in his list of poisons. He was so
passionately devoted to the green faction [in the Circus races] that he
constantly dined and spent the night in their stables, and in one of his
revels with them he gave the driver Eutychus two million sesterces in
gifts. He used to send his soldiers on the day before the games and
order silence in the neighborhood, to prevent the horse Incitatus
from being disturbed. Besides a stall of marble, a manger of ivory,
purple blankets and a collar of precious stones, he even gave this horse
a house, a troop of slaves and furniture, for the more elegant
entertainment of the guests invited in his name; and it is also said
that he planned to make him consul.
LVI. During this frantic and riotous career several
thought of attempting his life. But when one or two conspiracies had
been detected and the rest were waiting for a favorable opportunity, two
men made common cause and succeeded, with the connivance of his most
influential freedmen and the officers of the praetorian guard; for
although the charge that these last were privy to one of the former
conspiracies was false, they realised that Caligula hated and feared
them. In fact, he exposed them to great odium by once taking them aside
and declaring, drawn sword in hand, that he would kill himself, if they
too thought he deserved death; and from that time on he never ceased
accusing them one to the other and setting them all at odds. When they
had decided to attempt his life at the exhibition of the Palatine games,
as he went out at noon, Cassius Chaerea, tribune of a cohort of the
praetorian guard, claimed for himself the principal part; for Gaius used
to taunt him, a man already well on in years, with voluptuousness and
effeminacy by every form of insult. When he asked for the watch word
Gaius would give him "Priapus" or "Venus," and when Chaerea had occasion
to thank him for anything, he would hold out his hand to kiss, forming
and moving it in an obscene fashion.
LVII. His approaching murder was foretold by many
prodigies. The statue of Jupiter at Olympia, which he had ordered to be
taken to pieces and moved to Rome, suddenly uttered such a peal of
laughter that the scaffoldings collapsed and the workmen took to their
heels; and at once a man called Cassius turned up, who declared that he
had been bidden in a dream to sacrifice a bull to Jupiter. The Capitol
at Capua was struck by lightning on the Ides of March, and also the room
of the doorkeeper of the Palace at Rome. Some inferred from the latter
omen that danger was threatened to the owner at the hands of his guards;
and from the former, the murder of a second distinguished personage,
such as had taken place long before on that same day. The soothsayer
Sulla, too, when Gaius consulted him about his horoscope, declared that
inevitable death was close at hand. The lots of Fortune at Antium warned
him to beware of Cassius, and he accordingly ordered the death of
Cassius Longinus, who was at the time proconsul of Asia, forgetting that
the family name of Chaerea was Cassius. The day before he was killed he
dreamt that he stood in heaven beside the throne of Jupiter and that the
god struck him with the toe of his right foot and hurled him to earth.
Some things which had happened on that very day shortly before he was
killed were also regarded as portents. As he was sacrificing, he was
sprinkled with the blood of a flamingo, and the pantomimic actor Mnester
danced a tragedy which the tragedian Neoptolemus had acted years before
during the games at which Philip king of the Macedonians was
assassinated. In a farce called Laureolus, in which the chief
actor falls as he is making his escape and vomits blood, several
understudies so vied with one another in giving evidence of their
proficiency that the stage swam in blood. A nocturnal performance
besides was rehearsing, in which scenes from the lower world were
represented by Egyptians and Aethiopians.
LVIII. On the ninth day before the Kalends of February
[January 24, 41 A.D.], at about the seventh hour he hesitated whether or
not to get up for luncheon, since his stomach was still disordered from
excess of food on the day before, but at length he came out at the
persuasion of his friends. In the covered passage through which he had
to pass, some boys of good birth, who had been summoned from Asia to
appear on the stage, were rehearsing their parts, and he stopped to
watch and encourage them; and had not the leader of the troop complained
that he had a chill, he would have returned and had the performance
given at once. From this point there are two versions of the story: some
say that as he was talking with the boys, Chaerea came up behind, and
gave him a deep cut in the neck, having first cried, "Take that," and
that then the tribune Cornelius Sabinus, who was the other conspirator
and faced Gaius, stabbed him in the breast [part of the ritual at the
sacrifice was that the slayer raised his axe with the question "Shall I
do it?" to which the priest replied "Take that"]. Others say that
Sabinus, after getting rid of the crowd through centurions who were in
the plot, asked for the watchword, as soldiers do; and that when Gaius
gave him "Jupiter," he cried "So be it," [another formula at a sacrifice
was "receive the fulfillment of your omen", i.e., in naming
Jupiter, the god of the thunderbolt and sudden death], and as Gaius
looked around, he split his jawbone with a blow of his sword. As he lay
upon the ground and with writhing limbs called out that he still lived,
the others dispatched him with thirty wounds; for the general signal was
" Strike again." Some even thrust their swords through his privates. At
the beginning of the disturbance his bearers ran to his aid with their
poles [with which they carried his litter], and presently the Germans of
his body-guard, and they slew several of his assassins, as well as some
inoffensive senators.
LIX. He lived twenty-nine years and ruled three years,
ten months and eight days. His body was conveyed secretly to the gardens
of the Lamian family, where it was partly consumed on a hastily erected
pyre and buried beneath a light covering of turf; later his sisters on
their return from exile dug it up, cremated it, and consigned it to the
tomb. Before this was done, it is well known that the caretakers of the
gardens were disturbed by ghosts, and that in the house where he was
slain not a night passed without some fearsome apparition, until at last
the house itself was destroyed by fire. With him died his wife Caesonia,
stabbed with a sword by a centurion, while his daughter's brains were
dashed out against a wall.
LX. One may form an idea of the state of those times by
what followed. Not even after the murder was made known was it at once
believed that he was dead, but it was suspected that Gaius himself had
made up and circulated the report, to find out by that means how men
felt towards him. The conspirators too had not agreed on a successor,
and the senate was so unanimously in favor of re-establishing the
republic that the consuls called the first meeting, not in the senate
house, because it had the name Julia, but in the Capitol; while some in
expressing their views proposed that the memory of the Caesars be done
away with and their temples destroyed. Men further observed and
commented on the fact that all the Caesars whose forename was Gaius
perished by the sword, beginning with the one who was slain in the times
of Cinna [Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo, slain in 87 B.C.---though the
Dictator's father died a natural death, as did also Gaius Caesar,
grandson of Augustus].