SECT. 4. CAIUS.
AN evil Emperor is gone, but a worse is to succeed him. Caius the son of Germani∣cus, a bad child of a good father, inheriting the love and favour of the people for his fathers sake, till he forfeited it, by his reserving the qualities of Tiberius. He was surnamed Caligula, from a garb that he wore in the Camp, in which he was bred and edu∣cated: from whence he had the love of the Souldiers, till his barbarous nature lost it. It may seem incredible, that a worse disposition should ever be found than that of Tibe∣rius, but the old Politician saw that this was so much beyond it, that it would do him credit: some impute the fault to his bloody Nurse one Pressilla a Campanian, the custom of which Country it was, that the women when they were to give their children suck, they first anointed the Nipple with the blood of an Hedg-hog, to the end their children might be the more fierce and cruel. This woman was as savage above the rest of the Na∣tion, as they were above other women, for her breasts were all hairy over, like the beards of men, and her activity and strength in martial exercises inferiour to few of the Infantry of Rome. One day as she was giving Caligula the Pap, being angry at a young child that stood by her, she took it and tore it in pieces, and with the blood thereof anointed her breasts and so set her nursling Caius to suck both blood and milk. But had not his infan∣cy been educated in such a Butchery, the school of his youth had been enough to have ha∣bituated him to mischief. For being brought up in the sight, and at the elbow of Tibe∣rius, it would have served to have corrupted the best nature that could be; but this of his was either never good, or at least was spoiled long before. Yet had he reasonably well learned his Tutors art of dissimulation, so that he hid those Serpentine conditions, not only before Tiberius his death, but also a while after he had obtained the Empire. Only he that had taught him to weave this mantle of dissembling could spie through it, insomuch that he would profess, That Caius lived for the destruction of him and all others. And that he hatched up a snake for the Roman Empire, and a Phaeton for all the world. And it proved so both to him and them. For when Tiberius lay a gasping stifled with a pillow prest upon him, he also throtled him with his hand, and crucified one of his servants that cried out upon the hideousness of the fact. And as for his demeanor toward the State, a little time will give too lamentable witness.