Short URL for this page:

https://bit.ly/SuetCal

Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars

p405 The Life of Caligula

1 1 Germanicus, father of Gaius Caesar, son of Drusus and the younger Antonia, after being adopted by his paternal uncle Tiberius, held the quaestorship five years before the legal age and passed directly to the consulship.1 When the death of Augustus was announced, he was sent to the army in Germany, 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 emperor, and offered him the rule of the state,2 he held them to their allegiance. And later he won a victory over the enemy and celebrated a triumph. 2 Then chosen consul for a second time, 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.

p407 2 1 Now the belief was that he met his death through the wiles of Tiberius, aided and abetted by Gnaeus Piso.3 This man had been made governor of Syria at about that time, and realising 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.

3 1 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,a unequalled valour, 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. 2 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. Unassuming4 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. 3 Even towards his detractors, whosoever they were and whatever their motives, he was so p409 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.5 Even then he went no further 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.6

4 1 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 Germany 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.

5 1 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.7 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 p411 a token of the deepest mourning; that even the king of kings8 suspended his exercise at hunting and the banquets with his grandees, which among the Parthians is a sign of public mourning.

6 1 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."

2 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.9

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.

7 1 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 p413 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.10

8 1 Gaius Caesar was born the day before the Kalends of September in the consulship of his father and Gaius Fonteius Capito. 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.b Pliny adds as proof that altars are shown there, inscribed "For the Delivery of Agrippina." Verses which were in circulation soon after he became emperor 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."

2 I myself find in the gazette11 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 lustre to the fame of a young and vainglorious 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.12 Pliny has p415 erred in his chronology; 3 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. 4 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."

5 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 there the seat and abode of the empire through weariness of Rome.

9 1 His surname Caligula13 he derived from a joke of the troops, because he was brought up in their p417 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.

10 1 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, 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 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. 2 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.

11 1 Yet even at that time he could not control p419 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.

12 1 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 Sejanus 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. 2 To have a better chance of realising 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 became emperor, and guaranteeing this promise by an oath and a written contract. Having through her wormed himself into Macro's favour, 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; p421 or even strangled the old man with his own hand, immediately ordering the crucifixion of a freedman who cried out at the awful deed. 3 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.

13 1 By thus gaining the throne 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."

14 1 When he entered the city, full and absolute 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 House, and no attention was paid to the wish of Tiberius, who in his will had p423 named his other grandson, still a boy, joint heir with Caligula.14 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.

2 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 Palace; some even vowed to fight as gladiators, and others posted placards offering their lives, if the ailing prince were spared.15 3 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.16

15 1 Gaius himself tried to rouse men's devotion by courting popularity in every way. After eulogising 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 urn 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 p425 to Rome, where he had them carried to the Mausoleum17 on two biers by the most distinguished men of the order of knights, 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 honour of his mother, providing a carriage to carry her image in the procession. 2 But in memory of his father he gave to the month of September the name of Germanicus.c After this, by a decree of the senate, he heaped upon his grandmother Antonia whatever honours Livia Augusta had ever enjoyed; took his uncle Claudius, who up to that time had been a Roman knight, as his colleague in the consulship; adopted his brother Tiberius on the day that he assumed the gown of manhood, and gave him the title of Chief of the Youth.18 3 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 propositions19 of the consuls: "Favour and good fortune attend Gaius Caesar and his sisters."

4 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 p427 he had done nothing to make anyone hate him, and that he had no ears for informers.

16 1 He banished from the city the sexual perverts called spintriae,20 barely persuaded not to sink them in the sea. The writings of Titus Labienus, Cremutius Cordus,21 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,22 a practice discontinued by Tiberius. 2 He allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself. He revised the lists of the Roman knights strictly and scrupulously, yet with due moderation, publicly taking their horses from those guilty of any wicked or scandalous act, but merely omitting to read the names of men convicted of lesser offences. To lighten the labour 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. 3 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-hundredth23 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. 4 To make it known that he encouraged every kind of p429 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 honours, 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.

17 1 He held four consulships, one from the Kalends of July for two months, a second from the Kalends of January for thirty days, a third up to the Ides of January, and the fourth until the seventh day before the Ides of the same month. Of all these only the last two were continuous.24 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. 2 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.

18 1 He gave several gladiatorial shows, some in the amphitheatre of Taurus25 and some in the •Saepta, in which he introduced pairsd of African and p431 Campanian boxers, the pick of both regions. He did not always preside at the games in person, but sometimes assigned the honour to the magistrates or to friends. 2 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 gifts26 of various kinds, and gave each man a basket of victuals. During the feasting he sent his share to a Roman knight 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. 3 He also gave many games in the Circus, lasting from early morning until evening, introducing between the races now a baiting of panthers27 and now the manoeuvres of the game called Troy; some, too, of special splendour, 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 neighbouring balconies,28 as he was inspecting the outfit of the Circus from the Gelotian house .

19 1 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,29 by bringing together merchant ships from all sides and anchoring them in a double line, afterwards a mound of earth was heaped upon them and fashioned in the manner of the Appian Way. 2 Over this bridge he rode back and forth for two successive days, the first day on a p433 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. 3 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 the emperor's confidential courtiers, was that Thrasyllus the astrologer had declared to Tiberius, when he was worried about his successor and inclined towards his natural grandson,30 that Gaius had no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding about over the gulf of Baiae with horses.

20 1 He also gave shows in foreign lands, Athenian games31 at Syracuse in Sicily, and miscellaneous games at Lugdunum in Gaul; 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,32 unless they elected rather to be beaten with rods or thrown into the neighbouring river.

21 1 He completed the public works which had been half finished under Tiberius, namely the temple p435 of Augustus and the •theatre of Pompey. He likewise began an aqueduct in the region near Tibur and an amphitheatre beside the Saepta, the former finished by his successor Claudius,33 while the latter was abandoned. At Syracuse he repaired the city walls, which had fallen into ruin though 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,34 and he had already sent a chief centurion to survey the work.

22 1 So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell of his career as a monster.

After he had assumed various surnames (for he was called "Pious," "Child of the Camp," "Father of the Armies," and "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."35

And he came near assuming a crown at once and changing the semblance of a principate into the form of a monarchy.36 2 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,37 should be brought from p437 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. 3 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 of the emperor in gold, which was dressed each day in clothing such as he wore himself. The richest citizens used all their influence to secure the priesthoods of his cult and bid high for the honour. The victims were flamingoes, peacocks, black grouse, guinea-hens38 and pheasants, offered day by day each after its own kind. 4 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 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 thee."39 But finally won by entreaties, as he reported, and even invited to live with the god, he built a bridge over the temple to the Deified Augustus, and thus joined his Palace to the Capitol.e Presently, to be nearer yet, he laid the foundations of a new house in the court of the Capitol.

23 1 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 p439 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,40 on the ground that they were disastrous and ruinous to the Roman people. 2 He often called his great-grandmother Livia Augusta "a Ulysses in petticoats,"41 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 decurion42 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 honour, but viewed her burning pyre from his dining-room. 3 He had his brother43 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 p441 Claudius, he spared him merely as a laughing-stock.

24 1 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. 2 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. 3 The rest of his sisters he did not love with so great affection, nor honour so highly, but often prostituted them to his favourites; 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.

p443 25 1 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. 2 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 had her put away, with the command never to have intercourse with anyone. 3 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 honour 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. 4 This babe, whom he named Julia Drusilla, he carried to the temples of all the goddesses, finally placing p445 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.

26 1 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 Mark Antony by Antony's 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.

2 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 hand44 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. 3 When the consuls forgot to make proclamation of his birthday, he deposed them, and left the state for three days without its highest magistrates.45 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.

4 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 p447 with cudgels; in the confusion more than twenty Roman knights were crushed to death, with as many matrons and a countless number of others. At the plays in the theatre, sowing discord between the commons and the knights, he scattered the gift tickets46 ahead of time, to induce the rabble to take the seats reserved for the equestrian order. 5 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 decrepit gladiators against mangy wild beasts, and have sham fights47 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.

27 1 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,48 but merely taking his place in the middle of a colonnade, he bade them be led away "from baldhead to baldhead."49 2 A man who had made a vow to fight in the arena,50 if the emperor 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 p449 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. 3 Many men of honourable 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 criticising one of his shows, or for never having sworn by his Genius.51 4 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 knight on being thrown to the wild beasts loudly protested his innocence, he took him out, cut off his tongue, and put him back again.

28 1 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 become emperor." Thereupon Caligula, thinking that his exiles were likewise praying for his death, p451 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 House, with the charge of being a public enemy, to stab him with their •styles, 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.

29 1 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 ἀδιατρεψία,52 that is to say, his shameless impudence. When his grandmother Antonia gave him some advice, he was not satisfied merely 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. 2 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.

30 1 He seldom had anyone put to death except by numerous slight wounds, his constant order, which p453 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:53

"Let them hate me, so they but fear me."

2 He often inveighed against all the senators alike, as adherents of Sejanus and informers against his mother and brothers, producing the documents which he pretended to have burned,54 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,55 he said that those who asked for him were Tetriniuses also. 3 Once a band of five retiarii56 in tunics, matched against the same number of secutores,56 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.

31 1 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,57 and that of Tiberius by the collapse of the amphitheatre at Fidenae,58 while his own was threatened with p455 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.

32 1 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 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,59 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. 2 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 murmillo60 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. 3 Once when he stood by the altar dressed as a popa,61 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, p457 except that at a single nod of mine both of you could have your throats cut on the spot?"

33 1 As a sample of his humour, 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 torture62 if necessary, to find out from his dear Caesonia why he loved her so passionately.

34 1 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. 2 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 literary 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, p459 he often threatened that he would see to it, by Heaven, that they could give no advice contrary to his wish.

35 1 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 Great belonging to his ancient race. After inviting Ptolemy, whom I have mentioned before,63 to come from his kingdom and receiving him with honour, 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 splendour of his purple cloak. 2 Whenever he ran across handsome men with fine heads of hair,64 he disfigured them by having the backs of their heads shaved. There was a certain Aesius Proculus, son of a chief centurion, called Colosseros65 because of his remarkable size and handsome appearance; this man Caligula ordered to be suddenly dragged from his seat in the amphitheatre 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. 3 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 Nemi66 had now held his priesthood for many years, he hired a stronger adversary to attack him. When an essedarius67 called Porius was vigorously applauded on the day of one of the games for setting his slave free after a victory, Caligula p461 rushed from the amphitheatre 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 honour to a gladiator for a trifling act than to their deified emperors or to the one still present with them."

36 1 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 the emperor 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. 2 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 afterwards with evident signs of what had occurred, he would openly commend or criticise his partner, recounting her charms or defects and commenting on her conduct.f To some he personally sent a bill of divorce in the name of their absent husbands, and had it entered in the public records.

37 1 In reckless extravagance he outdid the prodigals of all times in ingenuity, inventing a new sort of baths and unnatural varieties of food p463 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 commons from the roof of the basilica Julia for several days in succession. 2 He also built Liburnian galleys68 with ten banks of oars, with sterns set with gems, particoloured sails, huge spacious baths, colonnades, and banquet-halls, and even a great variety of vines and fruit 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. 3 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 Tiberius Caesar had amassed, were squandered by him in less than the revolution of a year.

38 1 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" p465 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. 2 He also charged that those estates had been falsely returned, to which any addition had later been made from any cause whatever.69 If any chief centurions since the beginning of Tiberius' reign had not named 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 had 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. 3 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 siesta.

4 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 p467 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 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.

39 1 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,70 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. 2 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 honour 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.

40 1 He levied new and unheard of taxes, at p469 first through the publicans and then, because their profit was so great, through the centurions and tribunes of the praetorian guard;g 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;g 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.

41 1 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 pages71 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. 2 He did not even disdain to make money from play, and to p471 increase his gains by falsehood and even by perjury. Having on one occasion given up his place to the player next to 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.

42 1 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,72 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.73 Finally, seized with a mania for feeling the touch of money, he would often pour out huge piles of goldpieces in some open place, walk over them barefooted, and wallow in them for a long time with his whole body.

43 1 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 Clitumnus74 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 Germany. 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 p473 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.

44 1 On reaching his camp, to show his vigilance and strictness 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.75

2 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-chaise76 all the way to the Forum and the House, and not to deliver it to anyone except the consuls, in the temple of Mars the Avenger,77 before a full meeting of the senate.

45 1 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 p475 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.78 2 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."79

3 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."

46 1 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 ballistas80 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 p477 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.81 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."

47 1 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,82 but on a grander scale than had ever before been known, since the goods of all were at their disposal.

48 1 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,83 because they had beleagueredº 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 decimate84 them. Accordingly he summoned them to an assembly without their arms, not even wearing their swords, and surrounded them with armed horsemen. 2 But seeing that some of the legionaries, suspecting his purpose, were stealing off p479 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 dishonour. 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 honours.

49 1 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. 2 He even forbade anyone of the senators to meet him. Then giving up or postponing his triumph, he entered the city on his birthday in an ovation;85 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. 3 That no one may doubt this, let me say that among his private papers two notebooks 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 p481 by Claudius and so infected it as to kill the fish, which were thrown up by the tide upon the neighbouring shores.

50 1 He was very tall and extremely pale, with an unshapely body, but very thin neck and legs.86 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, practising all kinds of terrible and fearsome expressions before a mirror.

2 He was sound neither of body nor mind. As a boy he was troubled with the falling sickness,87 and while in his youth he had some endurance, 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 realised 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. 3 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 p483 out from time to time for daylight and longing for its coming.

51 1 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. 2 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. 3 Soon after, hearing of an uprising in Germany, 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 soldiers88 that he had laid hands on himself in terror at the report of a defeat.

p485 52 1 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 silk89 and in a woman's robe;90 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.91

53 1 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. 2 When about to begin an harangue, he threatened to draw the sword of his nightly labours, 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 of writing replies to the successful pleas of orators and composing accusations and defences of important personages p487 who were brought to trial before the senate; and according as his pen had run most easily, he brought ruin or relief to each of them by his speech,92 while he would also invite the equestrian order by proclamation to come in and hear him.

54 1 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,93 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. 2 Indeed, on the day when he was slain he seems to have ordered an all-night vigil94 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,95 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,96 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.

55 1 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 p489 favourite was dancing, he had him dragged from his seat and scourged him with his own hand. When a Roman knight 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." 2 He gave some Thracian gladiators command of his German body-guard. He reduced the amount of armour of the murmillones.97 When one Columbus had won a victory, but had suffered from 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 faction98 that he constantly dined and spent the night in their stable,99 and in one of his revels with them he gave the driver Eutychus two million sesterces in gifts.100 3 He used to send his soldiers on the day before the games and order silence in the neighbourhood, to prevent the horse Incitatus101 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.

56 1 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 favourable opportunity, two men made p491 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 at 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.

2 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 watchword 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.102

57 1 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. 2 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 p493 his guards; and from the former, the murder of a second distinguished personage, such as had taken place long before on that same day.103 The soothsayer Sulla too, when Gaius consulted him about his horoscope, declared that inevitable death was close at hand. 3 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. 4 As he was sacrificing, he was sprinkled with the blood of a flamingo,104 and the pantomimic actor Mnester danced a tragedy105 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,"106 in which the chief actor falls as he is making his escape and vomits blood, several understudies107 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.

58 1 On the ninth day before the Kalends of February 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 p495 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 to 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. 2 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,"108º and that then the tribune Cornelius Sabinus, who was the other conspirator and faced Gaius, stabbed him in the breast. 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,"109 and as Gaius looked around, he split his jawbone with a blow of his sword. 3 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,110 and presently the Germans of his body-guard, and they slew several of his assassins, as well as some inoffensive senators.

59 1 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 p497 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,i 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.

60 1 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 favour 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.111

The Editor's Notes:

1 That is, without holding the intermediate offices; the interval between his quaestorship and consulship was five years.

❦

2 Cf. Tib. xxv.2.

❦

3 Cf. Tib. lii.3.

❦

4 See note on Tib. xxvi.1.

❦

5 Fuller details are given by Tac. Ann. 2.69.5. Such spells were often inscribed on leaden tablets (defixiones; plumbeis tabulis, Tac.), specimens of which have come down to us.

❦

6 See note on Aug. ci.3.

❦

7 See note on Tib. vii.2.

❦

8 A title originally applied to the king of Persia and transferred to the king of the Parthians.

❦

9 The Saturnalia, see Index and cf. note on Aug. lxxi.1.

❦

10 Cf. Tib. liv.

❦

11 The acta publica or acta diurna, an official publication of important events.

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Thayer's Note: For further details, see the article Acta in Smith's

❦

12 Chap. vii.

❦

13 "Little Boots" (though really singular number). The caliga, or half-boot, was regularly worn by the soldiers.

Thayer's Note: For full details and sources on the caliga, see the article in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

❦

14 See Tib. lxxvi.

❦

15 They were compelled to fulfil their vows; see chap. xxvii.2.

❦

16 Cf. Vit. ii.4.

❦

17 Of Augustus; see Aug. c.4.

❦

18 Originally the title of the commander of the knights who were under forty-five and in active service. Conferred on C. and L. Caesar by Augustus, it became the designation of the heir to the throne, and was later assumed by the emperors themselves.

❦

19 The consuls in making propositions to the senate began with a set formula (cf. Aug. lviii.2, Jul. lxxx.2), wishing success to the emperor, or in earlier days to the State.

❦

20 See Tib. xliii.1.

❦

21 Cf. Aug. xxxv.2.

❦

22 See Aug. xxviii.1 and ci.4.

❦

23 Ducentesimam (sc. partem), one half of one per cent.

❦

24 An error, since he was consul in 39, 40, and 41.

❦

25 See Aug. xxix.5.

❦

26 To be scrambled for by the spectators.

❦

27 Africanae, supply bestiae and see Index.

❦

28 On the houses adjoining the Circus; called Maeniana (p431)after a certain Maenius, who was supposed to have been the first to build such balconies.

❦

29 •Over three and a half Roman miles.

❦

30 See Tib. lv.

❦

31 See note on Tib. vi.4 .

❦

32 Obviously not a choice, but determined by the degree of success of the contestants.

❦

33 See Claud. xx.i.

❦

34 Cf. Jul. xliv.3.

❦

35 Iliad 2.204.

❦

36 Under Caligula the so‑called "principate" had become an absolute monarchy. Caligula proposed to assume the pomp of a king.

❦

37 The chryselephantine statue of Zeus by Pheidias; see chap. lvii.1.

❦

38 numidicae and meleagrides are the same.

❦

39 Iliad, 23.724, where after a long and indecisive wrestling bout Ajax thus challenges Odysseus to settle the contest. Ἀνάειρε is doubtless used in a double sense, perhaps with aposiopesis, "Raise me up (to heaven), or thee I'll —."

❦

40 See Aug. xvi.1.

❦

41 The stola was the characteristic dress of the Roman matron, as the toga was that of the man.

❦

42 See note on Tib. xxxvii.3.

❦

43 By adoption; see chap. xv.2.

❦

44 Or perhaps, in short linen tunics.

❦

45 This remark shows the regard in which the empty title of "consul" was still held.

❦

46 The reason for the term decimas, if the reading be correct, is uncertain; cf. note on Aug. xli.2. Obviously his purpose was to lead the rabble to occupy the knights' seats before the plays began, and thus to start a fight.

❦

47 The meaning of paegniarii is uncertain; they may have carried arma lusoria or arms incapable of causing death. See Friedländer, Roman Life and Manners, Eng. trans. iv. p179.

❦

48 The elogium was the tablet on which the charge against the prisoner was recorded.

❦

49 It seems probable that there happened to be a bald-headed man at each end of the line; the expression became proverbial.

❦

50 See chap. xiv.2.

❦

51 See Aug. lx.

❦

52 "Immobility," a Stoic virtue. Since in Gaius this took the form of callous indifference to suffer and to public opinion, it became inverecundia.

❦

53 Accius, Trag., 203.

❦

54 See chap. xv.4.

❦

55 For punishment, or to fight in the arena.

❦

56 See Index and Friedländer, op.cit. (p446, ftn. b) iv, 171 ff.

Thayer's Note: The retiarii, secutores, murmillones (or mirmillones), and essedarii were types of gladiators. In lieu of Friedländer, for comprehensive details and sources on all of these, see this section of the article Gladiatores in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

❦

57 See Aug. xxiii.1.

❦

58 See Tib. xl.

❦

59 See chap. xix.

❦

60 See note on chap. xxx.3.

❦

61 The popa knocked down the victim with a mallet or with the back of an axe-head, and the cultrarius then cut the animal's throat.

❦

62 Literally, "the cords," as an instrument of torture; cf. Tib. lxii.2. On the whole passage cf. Calig. xxv.3 and l.2.

❦

63 See chap. xxvi.1.

❦

64 He himself was bald; see chap. l.1.

❦

65 The "Giant Cupid" from κολοσσός and ἔρως.

❦

66 The priest of Diana at Nemi, who must be a fugitive slave and obtain his office by slaying his predecessor.

❦

67 A gladiator who fought from a British chariot; see note on chap. xxx.3.

❦

68 The Liburnian galleys, so‑called from a people of Illyricum, were famous for their speed. They commonly had but one or two banks of oars.

❦

69 That is, if anyone chanced to have received an addition to his income since the last census, he charged him with having made a false report to the censors, and of course confiscated his estate.

❦

70 The part occupied by Augustus and Tiberius, to which Caligula had made some additions.

❦

71 See note on Aug. xix.1.

❦

72 See Aug. lvii.1.

❦

73 Sinus means the bosom of the toga, which was often used as a pocket.

❦

74 Celebrated for its beautiful scenery, described by Pliny, Epist. 8.8 (Latin • English).

Thayer's Note: Mevania, now the rather small Umbrian town of Bevagna, with many remains of its Roman past (q.v.), was in Antiquity a fairly important regional center. The source of the Clitumnus river is still a beautiful place and a tourist attraction: for a photograph and further links, see my diary, Sept. 12, 1998. The river is also famous today for a small Roman temple in nearly pristine condition, about 2 km away (Oct. 22, 1997 • Sept. 11, 1998). For a photograph of Caligula's visit — well, of a late‑19c stage curtain in nearby Trevi depicting it — with full details on what is depicted, its accuracy, the theatre, and further links, see my diary, Oct. 21, 1998.

❦

75 Half the amount established by Augustus; see Dio, 55.23.

❦

76 Ordinarily such vehicles were allowed to pass through the city streets only before sunrise or during the last two hours of the day. See Friedländer, Roman Life and Manners, Eng. trans. iv. p28.

❦

77 See Aug. xxix.2.

❦

78 From exploratores, scouts or rangers.

❦

79 Aen. 1.207.

❦

80 One of the various kinds of "torsion-engines" (tormenta) used by the Romans. The ballista cast stones, the catapulta large arrows or darts.

Thayer's Note: For comprehensive details and sources, see the article Tormentum in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

❦

81 The lighthouse at Alexandria.

❦

82 To the privy-purse, of course.

❦

83 See chap. ix.

❦

84 See Aug. xxiv.2.

Thayer's Note: For fuller details, see the article Decimatio in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

❦

85 See note on Aug. xxii.

❦

86 Cf. chap. iii.1.

❦

87 See Jul. xlv.1.

❦

88 After his murder; probably referring to the praetorians.

❦

89 Men were forbidden to wear silk garments; see Tac. Ann. 2.33, ne vestis serica viros foedaret.

❦

90 The cyclas was a kind of robe worn by women and embroidered with gold and purple.

Thayer's Note: For comprehensive details and sources, see the article Cyclas in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

❦

91 Cf. Aug. xviii.1.

❦

92 That is, if he succeeded better in his accusation, he took sides against the defendant, and vice versa, regardless of justice.

❦

93 Cf. chap. xxxii.2.

❦

94 A festival in honour of some god of goddess, celebrated with feasting, dancing, and plays of all kinds.

❦

95 About midnight, since the night was divided into four vigiliae.

❦

96 The scabellum was attached to the feet of dancers and sounded an accompaniment to their movements.

❦

97 See note on chap. xxx.3. He disliked the murmillones, as the opponents of his favourites, the Thracians.

❦

98 The charioteers in the Circus were divided into four parties, distinguished by their colours, which were red, white, blue, and green. Domitian added two more; see Dom. vii.1.

❦

99 The "stable" was in reality a kind of club, containing the quarters of the drivers as well as the stalls of the horses.

❦

100 The host at a dinner party often gave gifts to his guests (p489)to take away with them (hence called by the Greek name apophoreta); cf. Aug. lxxv.

❦

101 Swift, "Flyer."

❦

102 Cf. Aug. xlv.4.

❦

103 Referring of course to the assassination of Julius Caesar.

❦

104 See chap. xxii.3.

❦

105 It was called Cinyras, and its story is told by Ovid, Metam. 10.298 ff.

❦

106 Its name was derived from a famous highwayman; cf. Juv. 8.186.

❦

107 The actors secundarum partium entertained the spectators after a play by imitating the actions of the star.

❦

108 Part of the ritual at a sacrifice. The slayer raised his axe with the question "Agone?" "Shall I do the deed (i.e., strike)?" To which the priest replied "Hoc age." Cf. Galba, xx.1, ut hoc agerent ac ferirent. Chaerea addressed himself.

❦

109 Another formula "Receive the fulfilment of your omen", i.e., in naming Jupiter, the god of the thunderbolt and sudden death. "Qui legendum vidit iratum, verum vidit: hoc est aliquid Latine dicere, cum alterum nihil sit," Gronovius.

❦

110 With which they carried his litter.

❦

111 Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo, slain in 87 B.C. But the Dictator's father died a natural death, as did also Gaius Caesar, grandson of Augustus; see Aug. lxv.1.

Thayer's Notes:

a A life-size contemporary portrait bronze statue of Germanicus was found in Amelia in 1963; see this page (where a click opens the small photos full-size).

❦

b This is not to be found in the Natural History. Pliny, who served part of his military career in Germany, wrote a number of other works which have not survived, including a history of the German wars.

❦

c Suetonius says elsewhere (Dom. 13.3) that Caligula named September Germanicus after himself: so either the name did not stick but Domitian opportunistically tried it a second time, or Suetonius has confused things. At any rate, for photographic evidence of the month name, see this page.

❦

d "Pairs" is a mistranslation. Caterva means a group, a mass, a team. The only other time the word (or rather, a derivative) is used by Suetonius — Aug. 45 — it has no reference to any particular number, rather to a free-for‑all style of street fighting (catervarios oppidanos), what we would call a rumble: think West Side Story.

❦

e This is the only source for Caligula's bridge. Yet while Suetonius is usually a reliable source, and his father, a contemporary, would have seen it, if you have been to Rome and seen the lay of the land you have good grounds to wonder just how true this story is. The Palatine and the Capitoline Hill are some 300 meters apart, and since the suspension principle was not used by the Romans for any solid bridge, that distance would have to have been spanned by a bridge on massive piers sunk into parts of the Roman Forum: a huge engineering project for so brief a reign as Caligula's, and one of which no trace has been found. One would also expect contemporary writers to have mentioned it.

No less an authority than Platner, in his Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (s.v. Pons Caligulae), has believed in this bridge, calling it a "foot bridge". Now if it was not on piers, it would have had to be a rope bridge: but it takes a fair amount of guts to negotiate one, and Caligula almost certainly was not made of the right stuff to do it (see for example chap. 51). In Pagan and Christian Rome, pp101‑102, Rodolfo Lanciani addresses the whole question and concludes that there was no bridge, rather a series of short walkways from building to building, something like those in downtown Minneapolis: and this does seem to be the most sensible solution.

❦

f Loeb's Victorian translation. Suetonius wrote singula enumerans bona malave corporis atque concubitus: "enumerating one by one the good and bad features of her body and of their intercourse".

❦

g The publicans, familiar to the average reader only from the pages of the New Testament, were private individuals to whom the collection of taxes was farmed out by the government for a commission: for comprehensive details and sources, see the article Publicani in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Caligula quite reasonably attempted to establish a modern system of tax collection, replacing local private contractors by public servants and thus lowering the government's overhead. The reform failed because local people know where the skeletons are and can extract more revenue; but mostly because public servants have no motivation to turn the screws on delinquent taxpayers, especially if they're not too well paid and thus easy to bribe.

❦

h A misleading translation, due no doubt to delicacy, of the Latin uno concubitu: Caligula wasn't charging a tax equal to the minimal price of a hug, but raking in that of an entire sex act at the going rate. I would be tempted to translate, in 21c American colloquial idiom, "for one trick", were it not that some customers buy more than one, and even 2000 years after the fact, I cannot bring myself to favor the tax collector.

❦

i Considering Suetonius' notorious taste for rumour and gossip, I cannot help wondering whether the source of this one might just be the name of the gardens, and some 1st‑century wag making a pun on burying the 29‑year‑old Caligula so appropriately, right where the Lamiae would get at him: these were vampire-like female spirits that cast about to drink the blood of young men. Once loose in the general population, a joke of this kind — the only connection between the Lamiae and the gardens of the Lamia family is that of sound — would eventually turn into "it is well known. . . ".