A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

CALIGULA.

CALIGULA.

batred; it became a matter of pleasure and amusement with him. Once during a public fight of
"wild beasts in the Circus, when there were no more
criminals to enter the arena, he ordered persons to
be taken at random from among the spectators, and
to be thrown before the wild beasts, but that they
might not be able to cry out or curse their destroyer, he ordered their tongues to be cut out.
Often when he was taking his meals, he would
order men to be tortured to death before his eyes,
that he might have the pleasure of witnessing their
agony. Once when, during a horse-race, the people
were more favourably disposed to one of his competitors than to himself, he is said to have exclaimed, "Would that the whole Roman people
had only one head,"
But his cruelty was not greater than his voluptuousness and obscenity. He carried on an incestuous intercourse with his own sisters, and when
Drusilla, the second of them, died, he raved like a
madman with grief, and commanded her to be
worshipped as a divinity. No Roman lady was
safe from his attacks, and his marriages were as
disgracefully contracted as they were ignominiously
dissolved. The only woman that exercised a lasting influence over him was Caesonia. A point
which still more shews the disordered state of his
brain is, that in his self-veneration he went so far
as to consider himself a god: he would appear
in public sometimes in the attire of Bacchus, Apollo, or Jupiter, and even of Venus and Diana; he
would frequently place himself in the temple
of Castor and Pollux, between the statues of
these divinities, and order the people who entered
the temple to worship him. He even built a temple to himself as Jupiter Latiaris, and appointed
priests to attend to his worship and offer sacrifices to him. This temple contained his statue
in gold, of the size of life, and his statue was
dressed precisely as he was. The wealthiest Romans were appointed his priests, but they had to
purchase the honour with immense sums of money.
He sometimes officiated as his own priest, making
his horse Incitatus, which he afterwards raised to
the consulship, his colleague. No one but a complete madman would have been guilty of things
like these.
The sums of money which he squandered almost
surpass belief. During the first year of his reign
he nearly drained the treasury, although Tiberius
had left in it the sum of 720 millions of sesterces.
One specimen may serve to shew in what senseless manner he spent the money. That he might
be able to boast of having marched over the sea as
over dry land, he ordered a bridge of boats to be
constructed across the channel between Baiae and
Puteoli, a distance of three Roman miles and six
hundred paces. After it was covered with earth
and houses built upon it, he rode across it in triumph, and gave a splendid banquet on the middle
of the bridge. In order to amuse himself on this
occasion in his usual way, he ordered numbers of
the spectators whom he had invited to be thrown
into the sea. As the regular revenues of the state
were insufficient to supply him with the means of
such mad extravagance, he had recourse to robberies, public sales of his estates, unheard-of taxes,
and every species of extortion that could be devised. In order that no means of getting money
might remain untried, he established a public
brothel in his own palace, and sent out his servants

to invite men of all classes to avail themselves of
it. On the birth of his daughter by Caesonia, he
regularly acted the part of a beggar in order to
obtain money to rear her. He also madd known
that he would receive presents on new year's day,
and on the first of January he posted himself in
the vestibule of his palace, to accept the presents
that were brought him by crowds of people. Things
like these gradually engendered in him a love of
money itself without any view to the ends it is to
serve, and he is said to have sometimes taken a
delight in rolling himself in heaps of gold. After
Italy and Rome were exhausted by his extortions,
his love of money and his avarice compelled him to
seek other resources. He turned his eyes to Gaul,
and under the pretence of a war against the Germans, he marched, in A. D. 40, with an army to
Gaul to extort money from the wealthy inhabitants
of that country. Executions were as frequent here
as they had been before in Italy. Lentulus Gaetulicus and Aemilius Lepidus were accused of having formed a conspiracy and were put to death,
and the two sisters of Caligula were sent into exile
as guilty of adultery and accomplices of the conspiracy. Ptolemaeus, the son of king Juba, was
exiled merely on account of his riches, and was
afterwards put to death. It would be endless and
disgusting to record here all the acts of cruelty, insanity, and avarice, of which his whole reign, with
the exception of the first few months, forms one
uninterrupted succession. He concluded his predatory campaign in Gaul by leading his army to
the coast of the ocean, as if he would cross over to
Britain; he drew them up in battle array, and
then gave them the signal--to collect shells,
which he called the spoils of conquered Ocean..
After this he returned to Rome, where he acted
with still greater cruelty than before, because he
thought the honours which the senate conferred.
upon him too insignificant and too human for a
god like him. Several conspiracies were formed
against him, but were discovered, until at length
Cassius Chaerea, tribune of a praetorian cohort,
Cornelius Sabinus, and others, entered into one
which was crowned with success. Four months
after his return from Gaul, on the 24th of January
A. D. 41, Caligula was murdered by Chaerea near
the theatre, or according to others, in his own
palace while he was hearing some boys rehearse the
part they were to perform in the theatre. His wife
and daughter were likewise put to death. His
body was secretly conveyed by his friends to the
horti Lamiani, half burnt, and covered over with a
light turf. Subsequently, however, his sisters,
after their return from exile, ordered the body to
be taken out, and had it completely burnt and
buried. (Sueton. Caligula; Dion Cass. lib. lix.;
Joseph. Ant. xix. 1; Aurel. Vict. De Caes. 3;
Zonar. x. 6.)
In the coin annexed the obverse represents the
head of Caligula, with the inscription c. CAESAR
AVG. GERM. P. M. TR. POT., and the reverse that
of Augustus, with the inscription DIvvs AVG.
PATER PATRIAE. [L. S.]