 Calicula Part 1 of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Andrew Coleman The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus Translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forrester Calicula Part 1 Germanicus, the father of Gaius Caesar, and son of Drusus and the younger Antonia, was after his adoption by Tiberius, his uncle, preferred the Christorship five years before he had attained the legal age, and immediately upon the expiration of that office, to the consulship. Having been sent to the army in Germany, he restored order among the legions, who, upon the news of Augustus's death, obstinately refused to acknowledge Tiberius as emperor, and offered to place him at the head of the state, in which affair it is difficult to say whether his regard to filial duty or the firmness of his resolution was most conspicuous. Soon afterwards he defeated the enemy, and obtained the honors of a triumph. Being then made consul for the second time, before he could enter upon his office, he was obliged to set out suddenly for the east, where, after he had conquered the king of Armenia, and reduced Cappadocia into the form of a province, he died at Antioch of a lingering distemper in the thirty-fourth year of his age, not without the suspicion of being poisoned. For besides the livid spots which appeared all over his body, at a foaming at the mouth, when his corpse was burnt, the heart was found entire among the bones, its nature being such, as it is supposed, that when tinted by poison, it is indestructible by fire. It was a prevailing opinion that he was taken off by the contrivance of Tiberius and through the means of Nius Piso. This person, who was about the same time prefect of Syria, had made no secret of his position being such that he must either offend the father or the son, loaded Germanicus even during his sickness with the most unbounded and scurrilous abuse, both by word and deed, for which upon his return to Rome he narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by the people, and was condemned to death by the senate. It is generally agreed that Germanicus possessed all the noblest endowments of body and mind in a higher degree than had ever before fallen to the lot of any man. A handsome person, extraordinary courage, great proficiency in eloquence and other branches of learning, both Greek and Roman, besides a singular humanity and a behaviour so engaging as to captivate the affections of all about him. The slenderness of his legs did not correspond with the symmetry and beauty of his person in other respects, but this defect was at length corrected by his habit of riding after meals. In battle he often engaged and slew an enemy in single combat. He pleaded causes even after he had the honour of a triumph. Among other fruits of his studies he left behind him some Greek comedies. Both at home and abroad he always conducted himself in a manner the most unassuming. On entering any free and confederate town he never would be attended by his lictors. Whenever he heard in his travels of the tombs of illustrious men he made offerings over them to the infernal deities. He gave a common grave under a mound of earth to the scattered relics of the legionaries slain under Varus, and was the first to put his hand to the work of collecting and bringing them to the place of burial. He was so extremely mild and gentle to his enemies whoever they were or on what account so ever they bore him enmity that although Piso rescinded his decrees and for a long time severely harassed his dependence he never showed the smallest resentment until he found himself attacked by magical charms and implications. And even then the only steps he took was to renounce all friendship with him according to ancient custom and to exhort his servants to avenge his death if anything untoward should befall him. He reaped the fruit of his noble qualities in abundance being so much esteemed and beloved by his friends that Augustus to say nothing of his other relations being a long time in doubt whether he should not appoint him his successor at last ordered Tiberius to adopt him. He was so extremely popular that many authors tell us the crowds of those who went to meet him upon his coming to any place or to attend him at his departure were so prodigious that he was sometimes in danger of his life and that upon his return from Germany after he had quelled the mutiny in the army there all the cohorts of the Praetorian guards marched out to meet him notwithstanding the order that only two should go and that all the people of Rome both men and women of every age, sex and rank flocked as far as the 20th milestone to attend his entrance. At the time of his death however and afterwards they displayed still greater and stronger proofs of their extraordinary attachment to him. The day on which he died stones were thrown at the temples the altars of the gods demolished the household gods in some cases thrown into the streets and newborn infants exposed. It is even said that barbarous nations both those engaged in intestine wars and those in hostilities against us all agreed to a cessation of arms as if they had been mourning for some very near and common friend that some petty kings shaved their beards and their wives heads in token of their extreme sorrow and that the king of kings forbore his exercise of hunting and feasting with his nobles which amongst the Parthians is equivalent to a cessation of all business in a time of public mourning with us. At Rome upon the first news of his sickness the city was thrown into great consternation and grief waiting impatiently for further intelligence when suddenly in the evening a report without any certain author was spread that he was recovered upon which the people flocked with torches and victims to the capital and were in such haste to pay the vows they had made for his recovery that they almost broke open the doors. Tiberius was roused from out of his sleep with the noise of the people congratulating one another and singing about the streets Salve Roma, Salve Patria, Salvis est Germanicus Rome is safe, our country safe for our Germanicus is safe but when certain intelligence of his death arrived the mourning of the people could neither be assuaged by consolation nor restrained by edicts and it continued during the holidays in the month of December the atrocities of the subsequent times contributed much to the glory of Germanicus and the endearment of his memory all people supposing and with reason that the fear and awe of him had laid a restraint upon the cruelty of Tiberius which broke out soon afterwards Germanicus married Agrippina the daughter of Marcus Agrippa and Julia by whom he had nine children two of whom died in their infancy and another a few years after a sprightly boy whose effigy in the character of a Cupid Livio set up in the temple of Venus in the capital Augustus also placed another statue of him in his bed-chamber and used to kiss it as often as he entered the apartment the rest survived their father three daughters Agrippina, Drusilla and Livila who were born in three successive years and as many sons Nero, Drusus and Chius Caesar Nero and Drusus at the accusation of Tiberius were declared public enemies Chius Caesar was born on the day before the calends of September at the time his father and Chius Fontius Capito were consuls but where he was born is rendered uncertain from the number of places which are said to have given him birth Nius Lentulus Gaetulaecus says that he was born at Tiber Pliny the Younger in the country of the Treviri at a village called Ambiotinas above Confluentes and he alleges as a proof of it that altars are there shown with this inscription for Agrippina's childbirth some verses which were published in his reign intimate that he was born in the winter quarters of the legions in Castris Natus, Padreus Nutritius in Amis Yamdesignati Principis Omenerat born in the camp and trained in every toil which taught his sire the haughtiest foes to foil destined he seemed by fate to raise his name and rule the empire with Augustan fame I find in the public registers that he was born at Antium Pliny charges Gaetulaecus as guilty of an errant forgery merely to soothe the vanity of a conceited young prince by giving him the luster of being born in a city sacred to Hercules and says that he advanced this false assertion with a more assurance because the year before the birth of Chius Germanicus had a son of the same name born at Tiber concerning whose amiable childhood and premature death I have already spoken dates clearly prove that Pliny is mistaken for the writers of Augustus's history all agree that Germanicus at the expiration of his consulship was sent into Gaul after the birth of Chius Nor will the inscription upon the altar serve to establish Pliny's opinion because Agrippina was delivered of two daughters in that country and any childbirth without regard to sex is called Puerperium as the ancients were used to call girls Puerai and boys Puerli there is also extant a letter written by Augustus a few months before his death to his granddaughter Agrippina about the same Chius for there was then no other child of hers living under that name he writes as follows I gave orders yesterday for Tolarius and Ocellius to set out on their journey towards you if the gods permit with your child Chius upon the 15th of the Cannons of June I also sent with him a physician of mine and I wrote to Germanicus that he may retain him if he pleases Farewell my dear Agrippina and take what care you can to come safe and well to your Germanicus I imagine it is sufficiently evident that Chius could not be born at a place to which he was carried from the city when almost two years old the same considerations must likewise invalidate the evidence of the verses and the rather because the author is unknown the only authority therefore upon which we can depend in this matter is that of the acts and the public register especially as he always preferred Antium to every other place of retirement and entertained for it all that fondness which is commonly attached to one's native soil it is said too that upon his growing weary of the city he designed to have transferred thither the seat of empire it was to the jokes of the soldiers in the camp that he owed the name of Caligula he having been brought up among them in the dress of a common soldier how much his education amongst them recommended him to their favour and affection was sufficiently apparent in the mutiny upon the death of Augustus when the mere sight of him appeased their fury though it had risen to a great height for they persisted in it until they observed that he was sent away to a neighbouring city to secure him against all danger then at last they began to relent and stopping the chariot in which he was conveyed earnestly deprecated the odium to which such a proceeding would expose them he likewise attended his father in his expedition to Syria after his return he lived first with his mother and when she was banished with his great-grandmother Livia Augusta in praise of whom after her decease though then only a boy he pronounced a funeral aeration in the rostra he was then transferred to the family of his grandmother Antonia and afterwards in the 20th year of his age being called by Tiberius to Capri he in one and the same day assumed the manly habit and shaved his beard but without receiving any of the honours which had been paid to his brothers on a similar occasion while he remained in that island many insidious artifices were practised to extort from him complaints against Tiberius but by his circumspection he avoided falling into the snare he effected to take no more notice of the ill treatment of his relations than if nothing had befallen them with regard to his own sufferings he seemed utterly insensible of them and behaved with such obsequiousness to his grandfather and all about him that it was justly said of him there never was a better servant nor a worse master but he could not even then conceal his natural disposition to cruelty and lewdness he delighted in witnessing the infliction of punishments and frequented taverns and body houses in the night time disguised in a periwig and a long coat and was passionately addicted to the theatrical arts of singing and dancing all these levities Tiberius readily connived at in hopes that they might perhaps correct the roughness of his temper which the sagacious old man so well understood that he often said that Caius was destined to be the ruin of himself and all mankind and that he was rearing a hydra for the people of Rome and a phyton for all the world not long afterwards he married Junior Claudilla the daughter of Marcus Silanus a man of the highest rank being then chosen augur in the room of his brother Drusus before he could be inaugurated he was advanced to the pontificate with no small commendation of his dutiful behaviour and great capacity the situation of the court likewise was at this time favourable to his fortunes as it was now left destitute of support so Janus being suspected and soon afterwards taken off and he was by degrees flattered with the hope of succeeding Tiberius in the empire in order more effectually to secure this object upon Junior's dying in child-bed he engaged in a criminal commerce with Enya Naivya the wife of Macro at that time prefect of the Praetorian cohorts promising to marry her if he became emperor to which he bound himself not only by an oath but by a written obligation under his hand having by her means insinuated himself into Macro's favour summer of opinion that he attempted to poison Tiberius and ordered his ring to be taken from him before the breath was out of his body and that because he seemed to hold it fast he caused a pillow to be thrown upon him squeezing him by the throat at the same time with his own hand one of his freedmen crying out at this horrid barbarity he was immediately crucified these circumstances are far from being improbable as some authors relate that afterwards though he did not acknowledge his having care hand in the death of Tiberius yet he frankly declared that he had formally entertained such a design and as a proof of his affection for his relations he would frequently boast that to revenge the death of his mother and brothers he had entered the chamber of Tiberius when he was asleep with a pognad but being seized with a fit of compassion threw it away and retired and that Tiberius, though aware of his intention does not make any inquiries or attempt revenge having thus secured the imperial power he fulfilled by his elevation the wish of the Roman people I may venture to say, of all mankind for he had long been the object of expectation and desire to the greater part of the provincials and soldiers who had known him when a child and to the whole people of Rome from their affection for the memory of Germanicus his father and compassion for the family almost entirely destroyed upon his moving from Mycenum therefore although he was in mourning and following the corpse of Tiberius he had to walk amidst altars, victims and lighted torches with prodigious crowds of people everywhere attending him in transports of joy and calling him besides other auspicious names by those of their star, their chick, their pretty puppet and bantling immediately on his entering the city by the joint acclamations of the senate and people who broke into the senate house Tiberius' will was set aside it having left his other grandson then a minor co-air with him the whole government and administration of affairs was placed in his hands so much to the joy and satisfaction of the public that in less than three months after above 160,000 victims are said to have been offered in sacrifice upon his going a few days afterwards to the nearest islands on the coast of Campania vows were made for his safe return every person emulously testifying their care and concern for his safety and when he fell ill the people hung about the plaitium all night long some vowed in public handbills to risk their lives in the combats of the amphitheatre and others to lay them down for his recovery to this extraordinary love entertained for him by his countrymen was added an uncommon regard by foreign nations even Arta Barnas, king of the Parthians who had always manifested hatred and contempt for Tiberius solicited his friendship came to hold a conference with his consular lieutenant and passing the Euphrates paid the highest honours to the Eagles the Roman standards and the images of the Caesars Caligula himself inflamed this devotion by practising all the arts of popularity after he had delivered with floods of tears a speech in praise of Tiberius and buried him with the utmost pomp he immediately hastened over to Pandeteria and the Pontian Islands to bring thence the ashes of his mother and brother and to testify the great regard he had for their memory he performed the voyage in a very tempestuous season he approached their remains with profound veneration and deposited them in the urns with his own hands having brought them in grand solemnity to Austria with an ensign flying in the stern of the galley and thence up the Tiber to Rome they were born by persons of the first distinction in the equestrian order on two buyers into the mausoleum at Noon Day he appointed yearly offerings to be solemnly and publicly celebrated their memory besides Circassian games to that of his mother and a chariot with her image to be included in the procession the month of September he called Germanicus in honour of his father by a single decree of the senate he heaped upon his grandmother Antonia all the honours which have been ever conferred on the Empress Livia his uncle Claudius who till then continued in the equestrian order he took for his colleague in the consulship he adopted his brother Tiberius on the day he took upon him the manly habit and conferred upon him the title of Prince of the Youths as for his sisters he ordered these words to be added to the oaths of allegiance to himself nor will I hold myself or my own children more dear than I do Caius and his sisters and commanded all resolutions proposed by the consuls in the senate to be prefaced thus may what we are going to do prove fortunate and happy to Caius Caesar and his sisters with the like popularity he restored all those who had been condemned and banished and granted an act of indemnity against all impeachments and past offences to relieve the informers and witnesses against his mother and brothers from all apprehension he brought the records of their trials into the forum and there burnt them calling loudly on the gods to witness that he had not read or handled them the memorial which was offered him relative to his own security he would not receive declaring that he had done nothing to make anyone his enemy and said at the same time he had no ears for informers the spintrii those panderers to unnatural lusts he banished from the city being prevailed upon not to throw them into the sea as he had intended the writings of Titus Lebianus Cordus Cremutius and Cassius Severus which had been suppressed by an act of the senate he permitted to be drawn from obscurity and universally read observing that it would be for his own advantage to have the transactions of former times delivered to posterity he published accounts of the proceedings of the government a practice which had been introduced by Augustus but discontinued by Tiberius he granted the magistrates a full and free jurisdiction without any appeal to himself he made a very strict and exact review of the Roman knights but conducted it with moderation publicly depriving of his horse every night who lay under the stigma of anything base and dishonorable but passing over the names of those knights who were only guilty of venial faults falling over the list of the order to lighten the labours of the judges he added a fifth class to the former four he attempted likewise to restore to the people their ancient right of voting in the choice of magistrates he paid very honourably and without any dispute the legacies left by Tiberius in his will though it had been set aside as likewise those left by the will of Livia Augusta which Tiberius had annulled he remitted the hundredth penny due to the government in all auctions throughout Italy he made up to many their losses sustained by fire and when he restored their kingdoms to any princes he likewise allowed them all the arrears of the taxes and revenues which had accrued in the interval as in the case of Antiochus of Comergin where the confiscation would have amounted to a hundred millions of cisterces to prove to the world that he was ready to encourage good examples of every kind he gave to a freedwoman 80,000 cisterces for not discovering a crime committed by her patron though she had been put to exquisite torture for that purpose for all these acts of beneficence amongst other honours a golden shield was decreed to him which the colleges of priests were to carry annually upon a fixed day into the capital with the senate attending and the youth of the nobility of both sexes celebrating the praise of his virtues in songs it was likewise ordained that the day on which he succeeded the empire should be called Pallelia in token of the city's being at that time as it were new founded he held the consulship four times the first from the calends of July for two months the second from the calends of January for thirty days the third until the aides of January and the fourth until the seventh of the same aides of these the two last he held successively the third he assumed by his sole authority at Lyon not as some are of opinion from arrogance or neglect of rules but because at that distance it was impossible for him to know that his colleague had died a little before the beginning of the new year he twice distributed to the people a bounty of three hundred cisterces a man and as often gave a splendid feast to the senate and the equestrian order with their wives and children in the latter he presented to the men forensic garments and to the women and children purple scarves to make a perpetual addition to the public joy forever he added to the Saturnalia one day which he called juvenileis he exhibited some combats of gladiators either in the amphitheater of Taurus or in the scepter with which he intermingled troops of the best pugilists from Campania and Africa he did not always preside in person upon these occasions but sometimes gave a commission to magistrates or friends to supply his place he frequently entertained the people with stage plays of various kinds and in several parts of the city and sometimes by night when he caused the whole city to be lighted he likewise gave various things to be scrambled for among the people and distributed to every man a basket of bread with other vitals upon this occasion he sent his own chair to a roman knight who was seated opposite to him and was enjoying himself by eating heartily to a senator who was doing the same he sent an appointment of Praetor Extraordinary he likewise exhibited a great number of Circassian games from morning until night intermixed with the hunting of wild beasts from Africa or the Trojan exhibition some of these games were celebrated with peculiar circumstances the circus being overspread with Vermillion and Chris Light and none drove in the chariot races who were not of the senator in order for some of these he suddenly gave the signal when upon his viewing from the Jello Tiana the preparations in the circus he was asked to do so by a few persons in the neighbouring galleries he invented besides a new kind of spectacle such as had never been heard of before for he made a bridge of about three miles and a half in length from Bay Eye to the Mall of Poteoli collecting trading vessels from all quarters mooring them in two rows by their anchors and spreading earth upon them to form a viaduct after the fashion of the Appian Way this bridge he crossed and recrossed for two days together the first day mounted on a horse richly comparison wearing on his head a crown of oak leaves armed with a battle axe, a Spanish buckler and a sword and in a cloak made of cloth of gold the day following in the habit of charioteer standing in a chariot drawn by two hybrid horses having with him a young boy, Darius by name one of the Parthian hostages with a cohort of the Praetorian guards attending him and a party of his friends in cars of gallish make most people I know are of opinion that this bridge was designed by Caius in imitation of Xerxes who to the astonishment of the world laid a bridge over the helispont which is somewhat narrower than the distance betwixt Bay Eye and Poteoli others however thought that he did it to strike terror in Germany and Britain which he was upon the point of invading by the fame of some prodigious work but for myself when I was a boy I heard my grandfather say that the reason assigned by some courtiers who were in habits of the greatest intimacy with him was this when Tiberius was in some anxiety about the nomination of a successor and rather inclined to pitch upon his grandson Thracilus the astrologer had assured him that Caius would no more be emperor and he would ride on horseback across the Gulf of Bay Eye he likewise exhibited public diversions in Sicily Grecian games at Syracuse and attic plays at Lyon in Gaul besides a contest for preeminence in the Grecian and Roman eloquence in which we are told that such as were baffled bestowed rewards upon the best performers and were obliged to compose speeches in their praise but that those who performed the worst were forced to blot out what they had written with a sponge or their tongue unless they preferred to be beaten with a rod or plunged overhead and ears into the nearest river he completed the works which were left unfinished by Tiberius namely the Temple of Augustus and the Theatre of Pompey he began likewise the aqueduct from the neighborhood of Tiber there was an amphitheater near the scepter of which works one was completed by his successor Claudius and the other remained as he left it the walls of Syracuse which had fallen to decay by length of time he repaired as he likewise did the temples of the gods he formed plans for rebuilding the palace of Polycretes at Samos finishing the Temple of the Didemian Nepolo at Biletus and building a town on a ridge of the Alps but above all for cutting through the Isthmus in Achia and even Centurion of the first rank to measure out the work End of Caligula Part 1 Recording by Andrew Coleman Caligula Part 2 of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus This is a Librivox recording All Librivox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit Librivox.org Recording by Andrew Coleman The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus Translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forrester Caligula Part 2 We have spoken of him as a prince What remains to be said of him bespeaks him rather a monster than a man He assumed a variety of titles such as Dutiful, The Pius, The Child of the Camp The Father of the Armies and The Greatest and Best Caesar Upon hearing some kings who came to the city to pay him court Conversing together at supper about their illustrious descent he exclaimed He was strongly inclined to assume the diadem and change the form of government from imperial to regal but being told that he far exceeded the grandeur of kings and princes he began to arrogate to himself a divine majesty He ordered all the images of the gods which were famous either for their beauty or the veneration paid them among which was that of Jupiter Olympus to be brought from Greece that he might take their heads off and put on his own Having continued part of the plaitium as far as the Forum and the Temple of Castor and Pollux being converted into a kind of vestibule to his house He often stationed himself between the twin brothers and so presented himself to be worshipped by all votaries some of whom saluted him by the name of Jupiter Latianus He also instituted a temple and priests with choicest victims in honor of his own divinity In his temple stood a statue of gold the exact image of himself which was daily dressed in garments corresponding with those he wore himself The most opulent persons in the city offered themselves as candidates for the honor of being his priests and purchased it successively at an immense price The victims were flamingos peacocks, bustards, guinea fowls turkey and pheasant hens each sacrificed on their respective days On nights when the moon was full he was in the constant habit of inviting her to his embraces and his bed In the daytime he talked in private to Jupiter Captain Linus One while whispering to him at another turning his ear to him Sometimes he spoke aloud at him reeling language for he was overheard to threaten the God thus I am an ear, I go say raise thou me up, or I'll Until being at last prevailed upon by the entreaties of the God as he said to take up his abode with him he built a bridge over the temple of the deified Augustus by which he joined the plaitium to the capital Afterwards that he might be still nearer he laid the foundations of a new palace in the very court of the capital He was unwilling to be thought or called the grandson of a gripper because of the obscurity of his birth and he was offended if anyone either in prose or verse ranked him amongst the Caesars He said that his mother was the fruit of an incestuous commerce maintained by Augustus with his daughter Julia and not content with his vile reflection upon the memory of Augustus he forbade his victories at Actium and on the coast of Sicily to be celebrated as usual affirming that they had been most pernicious and fatal to the Roman people he called his grandmother Livia Augusta Ulysses in a woman's dress and had the indecency to reflect upon her in a letter to the Senate as of mean birth and ascended by the mother's side from a grandfather who was only one of the municipal magistrates of Vondi whereas it is certain from the public records that Alphidius Lerco held high offices at Rome his grandmother Antonia desiring a private conference with him he refused to grant it unless macro the prefect of the Praetorian Guards were present indignities of this kind and ill usage were the cause of her death but something he also gave her poison nor did he pay the smallest respect to her memory after her death but witnessed the burning from his private apartment his brother Tiberius who had no expectation of any violence was suddenly dispatched by military tribunes sent by his order for that purpose he forced Salinas, his father-in-law to kill himself by cutting his throat with a razor the pretext he alleged for these murders was that the latter had not followed him upon his putting to sea in stormy weather but stayed behind with a view of seizing the city if he should perish the other he said smelt of an antidote which he had taken to prevent his being poisoned by him whereas Salinas was only afraid of being seasick and the disagreeableness of a voyage and Tiberius had merely taken a medicine for an habitual cough which was continually growing worse as for his successor Claudius he only saved him for a laughing stock he lived in the habit of incest with all his sisters and at table when much company was present he placed each of them in turns below him whilst his wife reclined above him it is believed that he deflowered one of them, Drusilla before he had assumed the robe of manhood and was even caught in her emplaces by his grandmother Antonia with whom they reeducated together when she was afterwards married to Cassius Longinus a man of consular rank he took her from him and kept her constantly as if she were his lawful wife in a fit of sickness and by his will appointed her Air S both of his estate and the Empire after her death he ordered a public mourning for her during which it was capital for any person to laugh use the bath or suck with his parents, wife or children being inconsolable under his affliction he went hastily and in the night time from the city going through Campania to Syracuse he suddenly returned without shaving his beard or trimming his hair nor did he ever afterwards in matters of the greatest importance not even in the assemblies of the people or before the soldiers swear any otherwise than by the divinity of Drusilla the rest of his sisters he did not treat with so much fondness or regard but frequently prostituted them to his catamites he therefore the more readily condemned them in the case of Emilius Lebedus as guilty of adultery and privy to that conspiracy against him nor did he only divulge their own handwriting relative to the affair which he procured by base and lewd means but likewise consecrated to Mars the Avenger three swords which have been prepared to stab him with an inscription setting forth the occasion of their consecration whether in the marriage of his wives in repudiating them or retaining them he acted with greater infamy it is difficult to say being at the wedding of Caius Piso with Livia Orestilla he ordered the bride to be carried to his own house but within a few days divorced her and two years after banished her because it was thought that upon her divorce she returned to the embraces of her former husband some say that being invited to the wedding supper he sent a messenger to Piso who sat opposite to him in these words do not be too fond with my wife and that he immediately carried her off next day he published a proclamation importing that he had got a wife as Romulus and Augustus had done Lolia Paulina who was married to a man of consular rank in command of an army he suddenly called from the province where she was with her husband upon mention being made that her grandmother was formally very beautiful and married her but he soon afterwards parted with her interdicting her from having ever afterwards any commerce with man he loved with the most passionate and constant affection Sezonia who was neither handsome nor young and was besides the mother of three daughters by another man the wanton of unbounded lasciviousness her he would frequently exhibit to the soldiers dressed in a military cloak with shield and helmet and riding by his side to his friends he even showed her naked after she had a child he honoured her with the title of wife it one earned the same day declaring himself her husband and father of the child of which she was delivered he named it Julia Drusilla and carrying it round the temples of all the goddesses laid it on the lap of Minerva to whom he recommended the care of bringing up and instructing her he considered her as his own child for no better reason than her savage temper which was such even in her infancy that she would attack with her nails the face and eyes of the children that play with her it would be of little importance as well as disgusting to add to all this an account of the manner in which he treated his relations and friends as Ptolemy King Juba's son, his cousin for he was the grandson of Mark Antony by his daughter Salini and especially Macro himself and Enya likewise by whose assistance he had obtained the emperor all of whom for their reliance and eminent services he rewarded with violent deaths nor was he more mauled or respectful in his behaviour towards the senate some who had borne the highest offices in the government he suffered to run by his litter in their togas for several miles together and to attend him at supper sometimes at the head of his couch sometimes at his feet with napkins others of them after he had privately put them to death he nevertheless continued to sin for as if they were still alive and after a few days pretended that they had laid violent hands upon themselves the consuls having forgotten to give public notice of his birthday he displaced them and the republic was three days without anyone in that high office a quiet store who was said to be concerned in a conspiracy against him he scourged severely having first stripped off his clothes and spread them under the feet of the soldiers employed in the work that they might stand the more firm the other orders likewise he treated with the same insolence and violence being disturbed by the noise of people taking their places at midnight in the circus as they were to have free admission he drove them all away with clubs in this tumult above twenty roman knights were squeezed to death with as many matrons with a great crowd besides when stage plays were acted to occasion disputes between the people and the knights he distributed the money tickets sooner than usual that the seats assigned to the knights might be all occupied by the mob in the spectacles of gladiators sometimes when the sun was violently hot he would order the curtains which covered the amphitheatre to be drawn aside and forbade any person to be let out withdrawing at the same time the usual apparatus for the entertainment and presenting wild beasts almost pine to death the most sorry gladiators decrepit with age and fit only to work the machinery and decent housekeepers who are markable for some bodily infirmity sometimes shutting up the public granaries he would oblige the people to starve for a while he evinced the savage barbarity of his temper chiefly by the following indications when flesh was only to be had at a high price for feeding his wild beasts reserved for the spectacles he ordered that criminals should be given them to be devoured and upon inspecting them in a row when he stood in the middle of the portico without troubling himself to examine their cases he ordered them to be dragged away from bald-pate to bald-pate of one person who had made a vow for his recovery to combat with a gladiator he exacted its performance nor would he allow him to desist until he came of conqueror and after many entreaties another who had vowed to give his life for the same cause having shrunk from the sacrifice he delivered a dawned as a victim with garlands and fillets to boys who were to drive him through the streets calling on him to fulfil his vow until he was thrown headlong from the ramparts after disfiguring many persons of honourable rank by branding them in the face with hot irons he condemned them to the mines to work in repairing the highways or to fight with wild beasts or tying them by the neck and heels in the manner of beasts carried to slaughter would shut them up in cages or saw them asunder nor were these severities merely inflicted for crimes of great enormity but for making remarks on his public games or for not having sworn by the genius of the emperor he compelled parents to be present at the execution of their sons and to one who excused himself on account of indisposition he sent his own litter another he invited to his table immediately after he had witnessed the spectacle and coolly challenged him to jest and be merry he ordered the overseer of the spectacles and wild beasts to be scourged in fetters during several days successively in his own presence and did not put him to death until he was disgusted with a stench of his putrified brain he burned alive in the centre of the arena of the amphitheatre the writer of a vase for some witty verse which had a double meaning a Roman knight who had been exposed to the wild beasts crying out that he was innocent he called him back and having had his tongue cut out remanded him to the arena asking a certain person whom he recalled after a long exile how he used to spend his time he replied with flattery I was always praying the gods for what has happened that Iberias might die and you be emperor concluding therefore that those he had himself banished also prayed for his death he sent orders round the islands to have them all put to death being very desirous to have a senator torn to pieces he employed some persons to call him a public enemy fall upon him as he entered the senate house stab him with their stilets and deliver him to the rest to tear asunder nor was he satisfied until he saw the limbs and bowels of the man after they had been dragged through the streets piled up in a heap before him he aggravated his barbarous actions by language equally outrageous there is nothing in my nature, said he that I commend or approve so much as my adiotrepsia in flexible rigor upon his grandmother Antonias giving him some advice as if it was a small matter to pay no regard to it he said to her, remember that all things are lawful for me when about to murder his brother whom he suspected of taking antidotes against poison he said, see then an antidote against Caesar and when he banished his sisters he told them in a menacing tone that he had not only islands at command but likewise swords won a Praetorian rank having sent several times for Manticura whether he had gone for his health to have his leave of absence prolonged he ordered him to be put to death adding these words, bleeding is necessary for one that has taken hellbore so long and found no benefit it was his custom every tenth day to sign the lists of prisoners appointed for execution and this he called, clearing his accounts and having condemned several Gauls and Greeks at one time he exclaimed in triumph, I have conquered Gallogrisia he generally prolonged the sufferings of his victims by causing them to be inflicted by slight and frequently repeated strokes this being his well-known and constant order strike so that he may feel himself die having punished one person for another by mistaking his name he said, he deserved it quite as much he had frequently in his mouth these words of the Tragedian odorant, dumb, Medjvant I scorn their hatred if they do but fear me he would often invade against all the Senators without exception, as clients of Sogenus and informers against his mother and brothers producing the memorials which he had pretended to burn and excusing the cruelty of Tiberius as necessary since it was impossible to question the veracity of such a number of accusers he continually reproached the whole equestrian order as devoting themselves to nothing but acting on the stage and fighting as gladiators being incensed at the peoples applauding a party at the Circassian games in opposition to him he exclaimed, I wish the Roman people had but one neck when Tertrinius the high woman was denounced he said his persecutors too were all Tertriniuses five Retiari in tunics fighting in a company yielded without a struggle to the same number of opponents and being ordered to be slain one of them taking up his lance again killed all the conquerors this he lamented in a proclamation as a most cruel butchery and cursed all those who had borne the sight of it he used also to complain aloud of the state of the times because it was not rendered remarkable by any public calamities for while the reign of Augustus had been made memorable to posterity by the disaster of Varus and that of Tiberius by the fall of the theater at Fidenai his was likely to pass into oblivion from an uninterrupted series of prosperity and at times he wished for some terrible slaughter of his troops a famine, a pestilence, conflagrations or an earthquake even in the midst of his diversions while gaming or feasting this savage ferocity both in his language and actions never forsook him persons were often put to the torture in his presence whilst he was dining or carousing a soldier who as an adept in the art of beheading used at such times to take off the heads of prisoners who were brought in for that purpose at Putioli at the dedication of the bridge which he planned as already mentioned he invited a number of people to come to him from the shore and then suddenly threw them headlong into the sea thrusting down with poles and oars those who to save themselves had got hold of the rudders of the ships at Rome in a public feast a slave having stolen some thin plates of silver with which the couches were inlaid he delivered him immediately to an executioner with orders to cut off his hands and lead him round the guests with them hanging from his neck before his breast at a label signifying the cause of his punishment a gladiator who was practising with him and voluntarily threw himself at his feet he stabbed with a pognard and then ran about with a palm branch in his hand after the manner of those who are victorious in the games when a victim was be offered upon an altar he clad in the habit of the Popeye and holding the axe aloft for a while at last instead of the animal slaughtered an officer who attended to cut up the sacrifice and at a sumptuous entertainment he fell suddenly into a varnet fit of laughter and upon the consuls who reclined next to him respectfully asking him the occasion nothing, replied he but that upon a single nod of mine you might both have your throats cut among many other jests this was one as he stood by the statue of Jupiter he asked Appellis the Tragedian which of them he thought was biggest upon his demurring about it he lashed him most severely now then commending his voice whilst he entreated for mercy as being well modulated even when he was venting his grief as often as he kissed the neck of his wife or mistress he would say so beautiful a throat must be cut whenever I please and now and then he would threaten to put his dear Sisonia to the torture that he might discover why he loved her so passionately in his behaviour towards men of almost all ages he discovered a decree of jealousy and malignity equal to that of his cruelty and pride he so demolished and disbursed the statues of several illustrious persons which had been removed by Augustus for want of room from the court of the capital into the campus Martius that it was impossible to set them up again with their inscriptions entire and for the future he forbade any statue whatever to be erected without his knowledge and leave he had thoughts too of suppressing Homer's poems for why, said he, may not I do what Plato has done before me who excluded him from his commonwealth he was likewise very near banishing the writings and the busts of Virgil and Levi from all libraries censuring one of them as a man of no genius and very little learning and the other as a verbose and careless historian he often talked of the lawyers as if he intended to abolish their profession by Hercules, he would say I shall put it out of their power to answer any questions in law otherwise than by referring to me he took from the noblest persons in the city the ancient marks of distinction used by their families the color from Torquatus from Sincenatus the curl of hair and from Nius Pompey the surname of Great belonging to that ancient family Ptolemy mentioned before whom he invited from his kingdom and received with great honours he's suddenly put to death for no other reason but because he observed that upon entering the theatre at a public exhibition he attracted the eyes of all the spectators by the splendour of his purple robe as often as he met with handsome men who had fine heads of hair he would order the back of their heads to be shaved to make them appear ridiculous there was one Isius Proculus the son of a centurion of the first rank who for his great stature and fine proportions was called the colossal him he ordered to be dragged from his seat in the arena he had matched with a gladiator in light armour and afterwards with another completely armed upon his worsting them both commanded him forthwith to be bound to be led clothed in rags up and down the streets of the city and after being exhibited in that plight to the women to be then butchered there was no man of so abject or mean condition whose excellency in any kind he did not envy having many years enjoyed the honour of the priesthood he procured a still stronger antagonist to oppose him one Porius who fought in a chariot having been victorious in an exhibition and in his joy given freedom to a slave was applauded so vehemently that Caligula rose in such haste from his seat that treading upon the hem of his toga he tumbled down the steps full of indignation and crying out a people who are masters of the world pay great in respect to a gladiator for a trifle than to princes admitted amongst the gods or to my own majesty here present amongst them he never had the least regard either to the chastity of his own person or that of others he is said to have been inflamed with an unnatural passion for Marcus Leptus Mnester an actor in pantomimes and for certain hostages and to have engaged with them in the practice of mutual pollution Valerius Catullus a young man of a consular family bald aloud in public that he had been exhausted by him in that abominable act besides his incest with his sisters and his notorious passion for Pilaris the prostitute there was hardly any lady of distinction with whom he did not make free he used commonly to invite them with their husbands to supper and as they passed by the couch on which he reclined at table examine them very closely like those who traffic in slaves and if anyone from modesty held down her face he raised it up with his hand afterwards, as often as he was in the humour he would quit the room send for her he liked best and in a short time return with marks of recent disorder about them he would then commend or disparage her in the presence of the company recounting the charms or defects of her person and behaviour in private to some he sent a divorce in the name of their absent husbands and ordered it to be registered in the public acts in the devices of his profuse expenditure he surpassed all the protocols that ever lived inventing a new kind of bath with strange dishes and suppers washing in precious unguents both warm and cold drinking pearls of immense value dissolved in vinegar and serving up for his guests loaves and other vitals modelled in gold often saying that a man ought either to be a good economist or an emperor besides, he scattered money to a prodigious amount among the people from the top of the Julian Basilica during several days successively he built two ships with ten banks of oars after the Libernian fashion the poops of which blazed with jewels and the cells were of various party colours they were fitted up with ample bars galleries and saloons and supplied with a great variety of planes and other fruit trees in these he would sail in the daytime along the coast of Campania feasting amidst dancing and concerts of music in building his palaces and villas there was nothing he desired to effect so much in defiance of all reason as what was considered impossible accordingly, moulds were formed in the deep and adverse sea rocks of the hardest stone cut away planes raised to the height of mountains with a vast mass of earth and the tops of mountains leveled by digging and all these were to be executed with incredible speed for the least remissness was a capital offence not to mention particulars he spent enormous sums and the whole treasures which have been amassed by Tiberius Caesar amounting to 2700 millions of Cisterces within less than a year having therefore quite exhausted these funds and being in want of money he had recourse to plundering the people by every mode of false accusation confiscation and taxation that could be invented he declared that no one had any right to the freedom of Rome although their ancestors had acquired it for themselves and their posterity unless they were sons for that none beyond that degree ought to be considered as posterity when the grants of the Divine Julius and Augustus were produced to him he only said that he was very sorry they were obsolete and out of date he also charged all those with making false returns who, after the taking of the census had by any means whatever increased their property he annulled the wills of all who have been centurions of the first rank as testimonies of their basing gratitude if from the beginning of Tiberius's reign they had not left either that prince or himself their heir he also set aside the wills of all others if any person only pretended to say that they designed their death to leave Caesar their heir the public becoming terrified at this proceeding he was now appointed joint heir with their friends and in the case of parents with their children by persons unknown to him those who lived any considerable time after making such a will he said were only making game of him and accordingly he sent many of them poisoned cakes he used to try such causes himself fixing previously the sum he proposed to raise during the sitting and after he had secured it quitting the tribunal the patient of the least delay he condemned by a single sentence forty persons against whom there were different charges boasting to Sezonia when she awoke how much business he had dispatched while she was taking her midday sleep he exposed to sale by auction the remains of the apparatus used in the public spectacles and exacted such biddings and raised the prices so high that some of the purchasers were ruined and bled themselves to death there is a well-known story told of Aponius Saturninus who happening to fall asleep as he sat on a bench at the sale Caus called out to the auctioneer not to overlook the Praetorian personage who nodded to him so often and accordingly the salesman went on pretending to take the nods for tokens of assent until thirteen gladiators were knocked down to him nine millions of cisterces he being in total ignorance of what was doing end of Caligula part 2 recording by Andrew Coleman Caligula part 3 from the lives of the 12 Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquilus this is a Libravox recording all Libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information please visit Libravox.org recording by Andrew Coleman the lives of the 12 Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquilus translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forrester Caligula part 3 having also sold in Gaul all the clothes, furniture, slaves and even freedmen belonging to his sisters at prodigious prices after their condemnation he was so much delighted with his gains that he sent to Rome for all the furniture of the old palace pressing for its conveyance all the carriages let to hire in the city with the horses and mules belonging to the bakers so that they often wanted bread at Rome and many who had suits at law in progress lost their causes because they could not make their appearance in due time according to their recognisances in the sale of this furniture every artifice of fraud and imposition was employed sometimes he would rail at the bidders for being niggardly and ask them if they were not ashamed to be richer than he was at another he would effect to be sorry that the property of princes should be passing into the hands of private persons he had found out that rich provincial had given 200,000 cesterces to his chamberlains for an underhand invitation to his table and he was much pleased to find that honour valued at so higher rate the day following as the same person was sitting at the sale he sent him some baubles for which he told him he must pay 200,000 cesterces and that he should suck with Caesar upon his own invitation he levied new taxes and such as were never before known at first by the publicans but afterwards because their profit was enormous by centurions and tribunes of the Praetorian guards no description of property or persons being exempted from some kind of tax or other for all eatables brought into the city a certain excise was exacted for all lawsuits or trials in whatever court the 40th part of the sum in dispute and such as were convicted of compromising litigations were made liable to a penalty out of the daily wages of the porters he received an eighth and from the gains of common prostitutes what they received for one favour granted there was a clause in the law that all boards who kept women for prostitution or sale should be liable to pay and that marriage itself should not be exempted these taxes being imposed but the act by which they were levied never submitted to public inspection great grievances were experienced from the want of sufficient knowledge of the law at length on the urgent demands of the Roman people he published the law but it was written in a very small hand and posted up in a corner so that no one could make a copy of it to leave no sort of gain untried he opened brothels in the palladium with a number of selves furnished suitably to the dignity of the place in which married women and free born youths were ready for the reception of visitors he sent likewise his nomenclatures about the forums and courts to invite people of all ages the old as well as the young to his brothel to come and satisfy their lusts and he was ready to lend his customers money upon interest Clarks attending to take down their names in public as persons who contributed to the emperor's revenue another method of raising money which he thought not below his notice was gaming which by the help of lying and perjury he turned to considerable account leaving once the management of his play to his partner in the game he stepped into the court and observing two rich Roman knights passing by he ordered them immediately to be seized and their estates confiscated then returning in great glee he boasted that he had never made a better throw in his life after the birth of his daughter complaining of his poverty and the burdens to which he was subjected not only as an emperor but a father he made a general collection for her maintenance and fortune he likewise gave public notice that he would receive New Year's gifts on the calends of January following and accordingly stood in the vestibule of his house to clutch the presents which people of all ranks threw down before him by hand falls and lap falls at last being seized with an invincible desire of feeling money taking off his slippers he repeatedly walked over great heaps of gold coin spread upon the spacious floor and then laying himself down rolled his whole body in gold over and over again only once in his life did he take an active part in military affairs and then not from any set purpose but during his journey to Mervania to see the grove and river of Clitumnus being recommended to recruit a body of Batavians who attended him he resolved upon an expedition into Germany immediately he drew together several legions and auxiliary forces for more quarters and made everywhere new levies with the utmost rigor collecting supplies of all kinds such as never had been assembled upon the like occasion he set forward on his march and pursued it sometimes with so much haste and precipitation that the Praetorian cohorts were obliged contrary to custom to pack their standards on horses or mules and so follow him at other times he would march so slow and luxoriously that he was carried in a litter by eight men ordering the roads to be swept by the people of the neighbouring towns and sprinkled with water to lay their dust on arriving at the camp in order to show himself an active general and severe disciplinarian he cashiered the lieutenants who came up late with the auxiliary forces from different quarters in reviewing the army he deprived of their companies most of the centurions of the first rank who had now served their legal time in the wars some whose time would have expired in a few days alleging against them their age and infirmity and railing at the covetous disposition of the rest of them he reduced the bounty due to those who had served out their time to the sum of six thousand cisterces though he only received the submission of Adminius the son of Cunabalene, a British king who being driven from his native country by his father came over to him with a small body of troops yet as if the whole island had been surrendered to him he dispatched magnificent letters to Rome ordering the bearers to proceed in their carriages directly up to the forum and the senate house and not to deliver the letters but to the consuls in the temple of Mars and in the presence of a full assembly of the senators soon after this there being no hostilities he ordered a few Germans of his guard to be carried over and placed in concealment on the other side of the Rhine and were to be brought him after dinner that an enemy was advancing with great impetuosity this being accordingly done he immediately threw himself with his friends and a party of the Praetorian knights into the adjoining wood where lopping branches from the trees and forming trophies of them he returned by torchlight upgrading those who did not follow him with timorousness and cowardice but he presented the companions and sharers of his victory with crowns of a new form and under a new name having the sun, moon and stars represented on them and which he called exploratory eye again some hostages were by his order taken from the school and privately sent off upon notice of which he immediately rose from table pursued them with the cavalry as if they had run away and coming up with them brought them back in fetters proceeding to an extravagant pitch of ostentation likewise in this military comedy upon his again sitting down to table it being reported to him that the troops were all reassembled he ordered them to sit down as they were in their armour animating them in the words of that well-known verse of Virgil Durate, et vos met rabus savate secundis bear up and save yourselves for better days in the meantime he reprimanded the senate and people of Rome in a very severe proclamation for reveling and frequenting the diversions of the circus and theatre and enjoying themselves at their villas whilst their emperor was fighting and exposing himself to the greatest dangers at last as if resolved to make war in earnest he drew up his army upon the shore of the ocean with his balistai and other engines of war and while no one could imagine what he intended to do on a sudden commanded them to gather up the seashells and fill their helmets and the folds of their dress with them calling them the spoils of the ocean due to the capital and the palatium as a monument of his success he raised a lofty tower upon which, as at Pheros he ordered lights to be burnt in the night time for the direction of ships at sea and then promising the soldiers a donative of a hundred denarii, a man as if he had surpassed the most eminent examples of generosity go your ways, said he, and be merry go ye are rich in making preparations for his triumph besides the prisoners and deserters from the barbarian armies he picked out the men of greatest stature in all Gaul such as he said were fittest to grace a triumph with some of the chiefs and reserved them to appear in the procession obliging them not only to dye their hair yellow and let it grow long but to learn the German language and assume the names commonly used in that country he ordered likewise the galleys in which he had entered the ocean to be conveyed to Rome a great part of the way by land and wrote to his controllers in the city to make proper preparations for a triumph against his arrival at a small expense as possible but on a scale such as had never been seen before since they had full power over the property of everyone before he left the province he formed a design of the most horrid cruelty to massacre the legions which had mutinied upon the death of Augustus for seizing and detaining by force his father Germanicus their commander and himself then an infant in the camp though he was with great difficulty dissuaded from this rash attempt yet neither the most urgent entreaties nor representations could prevent him from persisting in the design of decimating these legions accordingly he ordered them to assemble unarmed without so much as their swords and then surrounded them with armed horse but finding that many of them suspecting that violence was intended were making off to arm in their own defence he quitted the assembly as fast as he could and immediately marched for Rome bending now all his fury against the senate whom he publicly threatened to divert the general attention from the clamour excited by his disgraceful conduct amongst other pretexts of offence he complained that he was defrauded of a triumph which was justly his due though he had just before forbidden upon pain of death any honour to be decreed him in his march he was weighted upon by deputies in the senatorian order in treating him to hasten his return he replied to them I will come, I will come and this with me striking at the same time the hilt of his sword he issued likewise this proclamation I am coming but for those only who wish for me the equestrian order and the people for I shall no longer treat the senate as their fellow citizen or prince he forbade any of the senators to come to meet him and either abandoning or deferring his triumph he entered the city innovation on his birthday within four months from this period he was slain after he had perpetrated enormous crimes and while he was meditating the execution if possible of still greater he had entertained a design of removing to Antium and afterwards to Alexandria having first cut off the flower of the equestrian and senatorian orders this is placed beyond all question by two books which were found in his cabinet under different titles one being called the sword and the other the dagger they both contained private marks and the names of those who were devoted to death there was also found a large chest filled with a variety of poisons which being afterwards thrown into the sea by order of Claudius I said to have so infected the waters that the fish were poisoned and cast dead by the tide upon the neighbouring shores he was tall of a pale complexion ill-shaped his neck and legs very slender his eyes and temples hollow his brows broad and knit his hair thin and the crown of the head bald the other parts of his body were much covered with hair on this account it was reckoned a capital crime for any person to look down from above as he was passing by or so much as to name a goat his countenance which was naturally hideous and frightful obviously rendered more so forming it before a mirror into the most horrible contortions he was crazy both in body and mind being subject when a boy to the falling sickness when he arrived at the age of manhood he endured fatigue tolerably well but still occasionally he was liable to a faintness during which he remained incapable of any effort he was not insensible of the disorder of his mind and sometimes had thoughts of retiring to clear his brain it is believed that his wife Sisonia administered him a love potion which threw him into a frenzy what most of all disordered him was want of sleep for he seldom had more than three or four hours rest in a night and even then his sleep was not sound but disturbed by strange dreams fancying among other things that a form representing the ocean spoke to him being therefore often weary with lying awake so long sometimes he sat up in his bed at others walked in the longest porticoes about the house and from time to time invoked and looked out for the approach of day this crazy constitution of his mind may I think very justly be ascribed two faults which he had of a nature directly repugnant one to the other namely an excessive confidence and the most abject timidity for he who affected so much to despise the gods was ready to shut his eyes and wrap up his head in his cloak at the slightest storm of thunder and lightning and if it was violent he got up and hit himself under his bed in his visit to Sicily after ridiculing many strange objects which that country affords he ran away suddenly in the night from Messini terrified by the smoke and rumbling at the summit of Mount Etna and though in words he was very valiant against the barbarians yet upon passing a narrow defile in Germany in his light car surrounded by a strong body of his troops someone happening to say there would be no small consternation amongst us if an enemy were to appear he immediately mounted his horse and rode towards the bridges in great haste but finding them blocked up with camp followers and baggage wagons he was in such a hurry that he caused himself to be carried in men's hands over the heads of the crowd soon afterwards upon hearing that the Germans were again in rebellion he prepared to quit Rome and equipped a fleet comforting himself with this consideration that if the enemy should prove victorious and possess themselves of the heights of the Alps as the Kimbrie had done or of the city as the Sononese formally did he should still have in reserve the Transmarine provinces hence it was I suppose that it occurred to his assassins to invent the story intended to pacify the troops who mutinied at his death that he had laid violent hands upon himself in a fit of terror occasioned by the news brought him of the defeat of his army in the fashion of his clothes shoes and all the rest of his dress he did not wear what was either national or properly civic or peculiar to the male sex or appropriate to mere mortals he often appeared abroad in a short coat of stout cloth richly embroidered and blazing with jewels in a tunic with sleeves and with bracelets upon his arms sometimes all in silks and habited like a woman at other times in the crepe die or buskins sometimes in the sort of shoes used by the light armed soldiers or in the sock used by women and commonly with a golden beard fixed to his chin holding in his hand a thunderbolt a trident or a caducus marks of distinction belonging to the gods only sometimes too he appeared in the habit of Venus he wore very commonly the triumphal ornaments even before his expedition and sometimes the breastplate of Alexander the Great taken out of his coffin with regard to the liberal sciences he was little conversant in philology but applied himself with aciduity to the study of eloquence being indeed in point of enunciation tolerably elegant and ready and in his perorations when he was moved to anger there was an abundant flow of words and periods in speaking his action was vehement at his voice so strong that he was heard at a great distance when winding up an harangue he threatened to draw the sword of his lucubration holding a loose and smooth style in such contempt said Seneca who was then much admired wrote only detached essays and that his language was nothing but sand without line he often wrote answers to the speeches of successful orators and employed himself in composing accusations or vindications of eminent persons who were impeached before the senate and gave his vote for or against the party accused according to his success in speaking inviting the equestrian order by proclamation to hear him he also zealously applied himself to the practice of several other arts of different kinds such as fencing charioteering singing and dancing in the first of these he practised with the weapons used in war and drove the chariot in circuses built in several places he was so extremely fond of singing and dancing that he could not refrain in the theatre from singing with the tragedians and imitating the gestures of the actors either by way of applause or correction a night exhibition which he had ordered the day he was slain was thought to be intended for no other reason than to take the opportunity afforded by the licentiousness of the season to make his first appearance upon the stage sometimes also he danced in the night summoning once to the plaitium in the second watch of the night three men of consular rank who feared the words from the message he placed them on the proscenium of the stage and then suddenly came bursting out with a loud noise of flutes and castanets dressed in a mantle and tunic reaching down to his heels having danced after song he retired yet he who had acquired such dexterity in other exercises never learnt to swim those for whom he once conceived a regard he favoured even to madness he used to kiss Mnesta the pantomimic actor publicly in the theatre and if any person made the least noise when he was dancing he would order him to be dragged from his seat and scourged him with his own hand a Roman knight once making some bustle he sent him by a centurion an order to depart forthwith for Ostia and carry a letter from him to King Ptolemy in Mauritania the letter was comprised in these words do neither good nor harm to the bearer he made some gladiators captains of his German guards he deprived the gladiators called mermolones of some of their arms one Columbus coming off with a victory in a combat but being slightly wounded he ordered some poison to be infused in the wound which he thence called columbinum for thus it was certainly named with his own hand in a list of other poisons he was so extravagantly fond of the party of charioteers whose colours were green that he supped and lodged for some time constantly in the stable where their horses were kept at a certain revel he made a present of two millions of cisterces to onchithecus a driver of a chariot the day before the Circassian games he used to send his soldiers to enjoin silence in the neighbourhood that the repose of his horse in Catatus might not be disturbed for this favourite animal besides a marble stable an ivory manger purple housings and a jewelled frontlet he appointed a house with a retinue of slaves and fine furniture for the reception of such as were invited in the horse's name to suck with him it is even said that he intended to make him consul in this frantic and savage career numbers had formed designs for cutting him off but one or two conspiracies being discovered and others postponed for want of opportunity at last two men concerted a plan together and accomplished their purpose not without the privity of some of the greatest favourites amongst his freedmen and the prefects of the Praetorian Guards because having been named though falsely as concerned in one conspiracy against him they perceived that they were suspected and become objects of his hatred for he had immediately endeavoured to render them obnoxious to the soldiery drawing his sword and declaring that he would kill himself if they thought him worthy of death and ever after he was continually accusing them to one another and setting them all mutually at variance the conspirators having resolved to fall upon him as he returned at noon from the Palatine Games Cassius Caria Tribune of the Praetorian Guards claimed the part of making the onset this Caria was now an elderly man and had been often reproached by Caius for effeminacy when he came for the watchword the latter would give priapus or venus and if on any occasion he returned thanks would offer him his hand to kiss making with his fingers an obscene gesture his approaching fate was indicated by many prodigies the Statue of Jupiter at Olympia which he had ordered to be taken down and brought to Rome suddenly burst out into such a violent fit of laughter that the machines employed in the work giving way the workmen took to their heels when this accident happened there came up a man named Cassius who said that he was commanded in a dream to sacrifice a ball to Jupiter the capital act Capua was struck with lightning upon the Ides of March as was also at Rome the apartment of the chief porter of the plaitium some construed the latter into a presage that the master of the place was in danger from his own guards and the other they regarded as a sign that an illustrious person would be cut off as had happened before on that day Silla the astrologer being consulted by him respecting his nativity assured him that death would unavoidably and speedily befall him the oracle of fortune at Antium likewise forewarned him of Cassius on which account he had given orders for putting to death Cassius Longinus at that time proconsolovatia not considering that Kyria bore also that name the day preceding his death he dreamt that he was standing in heaven near the throne of Jupiter who giving him a push with a great toe of his right foot he fell headlong upon the earth some things which happened the very day of his death and only a little before it were likewise considered as ominous presages of that event whilst he was at sacrifice he was bespattered with the blood of a flamingo at Menesta the pantomimic actor performed in a play which the tragedian Neoptolamus had formally acted at the games in which Philip the king of Macedon was slain and in the piece called L'Orealus in which the principal actor running out in a hurry and falling vomited blood several of the inferior actors vying with each other to give the best specimen of their art made the whole stage flow with blood a spectacle had been purposed to be performed that night in which the fables of the infernal regions were to be represented by Egyptians and Ethiopians on the 9th of the Callens of February at about the 7th hour of the day after hesitating whether he should rise to dinner as his stomach was disordered by what he had eaten the day before at last by the advice of his friends he came forth in the vaulted passage through which he had to pass were some boys of noble extraction who had been brought from Asia to act upon the stage waiting for him in a private corridor and he stopped to see and speak to them and had not the leader of the party said that he was suffering from cold he would have gone back and made them act immediately respecting what followed two different accounts are given some say that whilst he was speaking to the boys Carrier came behind him and gave him a heavy blow on the neck with his sword first crying out take this that then a tribune by name Cornelius Sabinus another of the conspirators ran him through the breast others say that the crowd being kept at a distance by some centurions who were in the plot Sabinus came according to custom for the word and that Caius gave him Jupiter upon which Carrier cried out be it so and then on his looking ground clove one of his jaws with a blow as he lay on the ground crying out that he was still alive the rest dispatched him with 30 wounds for the word agreed upon among them all was strike again some likewise ran their swords through his privy parts upon the first bustle the litter bearers came running in with their poles to his assistance and immediately afterwards his German bodyguards who killed some of the assassins and also some senators who had no concern in the affair he lived 29 years and reigned three years ten months and eight days his body was carried privately into the Lamian gardens it was half burnt upon a pile hastily raised and then had some earth carelessly thrown over it it was afterwards disinterred by his sisters on their return from banishment burnt to ashes and buried before this was done it is well known that the keepers of the gardens were greatly disturbed by apparitions and that not a night passed without some terrible alarm or other in the house where he was slain until it was destroyed by fire his wife Cisonia was killed with him being stabbed by a centurion and his daughter had her brains knocked out against a wall of the miserable condition of those times any person may easily from an estimate in the following circumstances when his death was made public it was not immediately credited people entertained a suspicion that a report of his being killed had been contrived and spread by himself with a view of discovering how they stood affected towards him nor had the conspirators fixed upon anyone to succeed him the senators were so unanimous in their resolution to assert the liberty of their country that the consuls assembled them at first not in the usual place of meeting because it was named after Julius Caesar but in the capital some proposed to abolish the memory of the Caesars and level their temples with the ground it was particularly remarked on this occasion that all the Caesars who had the Plinomen of Caes died by the sword from the Caesars Caesar who was slain in the times of Kinner End of Caligula Recording by Andrew Coleman