The Empire. R O 
count of his passion, resurrection, and miracles. The em¬ 
peror, struck with the singularity of the statements, reported 
them to the senate, and desired that Christ should be 
ranked among the Gods of Rome. The senate, declined 
his request, and even ventured to command all Christians 
to leave the capital. Tiberius, however, is said to have 
issued another edict which threatened all who accused them 
with death, and thus permitted them to reside unmolested in 
Rome. 
Caligula succeeded to the empire under auspices the 
most favourable. His father, Germanicus, had been adored 
by the army and the people, and he himself had been bred 
among soldiers, and had shared in their toils. The congra¬ 
tulations of the senate and of the people met him as he ad¬ 
vanced to Rome, mourning over the dead body of Tiberius. 
Remote sovereigns courted his alliance, and the whole world 
seems to have given him the credit of every virtue. 
The early conduct of Caligula did not belie these extra¬ 
vagant expectations. He revived the institutions of Augus¬ 
tus that Tiberius had ruined. He reformed abuses; he 
unished the corruption of governors; he banished the 
pintriae; and restored the election of magistrates by popular 
suffrage. 
That such a character should at once change into a cruel 
and capricious tyrant, without any apparent motive, dis¬ 
poses us to place some confidence in the assertion, that a 
disorder which took place after his accession to power, had 
destroyed his intellects. Acts of individual cruelty were the 
first symptoms of his insanity. One Politus had loyally de¬ 
voted himself to death if the emperor should recover, and 
another, Secundus, had vowed to fight in the amphitheatre 
on the same account. No sooner had the emperor recovered, 
than he compelled them both to fulfill their vows. Gemel¬ 
lus, who had been left by his grandfather Tiberius co-heir 
with Caligula, was ordered and compelled to put himself to 
death. Silenus, the emperor’s father-in-law, was the next 
victim, and Gercinus, a senator of great probity, shared the 
same fate, for refusing to give false witness against Silenus. 
Among the numerous victims of his suspicion and avarice, 
was Macro, to whom Caligula was indebted for his sceptre. 
The absurd vanities of Caligula are as astonishing as his 
cruelties. He ordered divine honours to be paid to him, 
and he assumed the names of such of the gods as were at the 
time most agreeable to him. He decapitated the statues of 
Jupiter and some of the other deities, and ordered his own 
head to be put upon their trunks. He seated himself between 
Castor and Pollux, and commanded their worshippers to 
pay their adoration to him; and he finally added their 
temple to his palace in the form of a portico, in order that 
the gods might become his porters. 
He was not less notorious for the depravation of his appe¬ 
tites than for his ridiculous presumptions. There was scarcely 
a lady of any quality in Rome that escaped his lewdness; 
and, indeed, such was the degeneracy of the times, that there 
were few ladies who did not think this disgrace an honour. 
He committed incest with his three sisters, and at public 
feasts they lay with their heads upon his bosom by turns. 
Of these he prostituted Livia and Agrippina to his vile com¬ 
panions, and then banished Jhem as adulteresses and con¬ 
spirators against his person. * As for Brasilia, he took her 
from her husband Longinus, and kept her as his wife. Her 
he loved so affectionately, that, being sick, he appointed her 
as heiress of his empire and fortune; and as she happened 
to die before him, he made her a goddess. 
On one occasion, being preselit at the nuptials of Livia 
Orestilla with Piso, as soon as the solemnity was over, he 
commanded her to be brought to him as his own wife, and 
then dismissed her in a few days. He soon after banished 
her upon suspicion of cohabiting with her husband after she 
was parted from him. He was enamoured of Lollia Paulina, 
upon a bare relation of her grandmother’s beauty; and there¬ 
upon took her from her husband, who commanded in Mace¬ 
donia; notwithstanding which, he repudiated her as he had 
done the former, and likewise forbade her future marrying 
Vol. XXII. No. 1499. 
M E. The Empire. 265 
with any other. The wife who caught most firmly upon his 
affections was Milonia Caesonia. She continued with him 
during his reign; and he loved her so ridiculously, that he 
sometimes showed her to his soldiers dressed in armour, and 
sometimes to his companions stark naked. 
But of all his vices, his prodigality was the most remark¬ 
able, and that which in some measure gave rise to the rest. 
The luxuries of former emperors were simplicity itself, when 
compared to those which he practised. He contrived new 
ways of bathing, where the richest oils and most precious 
perfumes were exhausted with the utmost profusion. He 
found out dishes of immense value; and had even jewels, as 
we are told, dissolved among his sauces. 
For several days together he flung considerable sums of 
money among the people. He ordered ships of a prodigious 
bulk to be built of cedar, the stems of ivory inlaid with gold 
and jewels, the sails and tackling of various silks. He 
caused an infinite number of ships to be fastened to each 
other, so as to make a floating-bridge from Baiae to Puteoli, 
across an arm of the sea three miles and a half broad. The 
ships being placed in two rows, in form of a crescent, were 
secured to each other with anchors, chains, and cables. 
Over these were laid vast quantities of timber, and upon that 
earth, so as to make the whole resemble one of the streets of 
Rome. He next caused several houses to be built upon his 
new bridge, for the reception of himself and his attendants. 
Expenses like these, it may be naturally supposed, must 
have exhausted the most unbounded wealth; in fact, after 
reigning about a year, Caligula found his revenues totally 
exhausted; and a fortune of about 18,000,000 of our money, 
which Tiberius had amassed together, entirely spent. Now, 
therefore, his prodigality put him upon new methods of 
supplying the exchequer; and as before his profusion, so 
now his rapacity became boundless. He put in practice all 
kinds of rapine and extortion; while his principal study 
seemed to be the inventing new imposts and illicit confisca¬ 
tions. Every thing was taxed, to the very wages of the meanest 
tradesman. He caused freemen to purchase their freedom a 
second time; and poisoned many who had named him for 
their heir, to have the immediate possession of their fortunes. 
He kept a gaming-house, in which he himself presided, 
scrupling none of the meanest tricks in order to advance his 
gains. 
His insupportable and capricious cruelties produced many 
secret conspiracies against him; but these were for a while 
deferred, upon account of his intended expedition against the 
Germans and Britons, wlfich he undertook in the third year 
of his reign. Instead of conquering Britain, he only gave 
refuge to one of its banished princes; and this he described 
in a letter to the senate, as taking possession of the whole 
island. Instead of conquering Germany, he only led his 
army to the sea shore in Batavia. There disposing his en¬ 
gines and warlike machines with great solemnity, and draw¬ 
ing up his men in order of battle, he went on board his gal¬ 
ley, with which coasting along, he commanded his trumpets 
to sound, and the signal to be given as if for an engagement; 
upon which, his men having had previous orders, immedi¬ 
ately fell to gathering the shells that lay upon the shore into 
their helmets, terming them the spoils of the conquered 
ocean, worthy o f the palace and the capitol. 
After numberless instances of folly and cruelty in this 
expedition, he entered the city with an ovation ; while 
the senate passed the whole day in acclamations in his praise, 
and speeches filled with the most excessive flattery. On one 
occasion, Protogenes, who was one of the most intimate 
and the most cruel of Caligula’s favourites, coming into the 
house, was fawned upon by the whole body of the senate, 
and particularly by Proculus. Whereupon Protogenes with 
a fierce look, asked how one who was such an enemy to the 
emperor could be such a friend to him ? There needed no 
more to excite the senate against Proculus. They instantly 
seized upon him, and violently tore him in pieces. 
The continuation of this horrid reign was cut short by 
Cassius Cherea, a tribune of the praetorian bands. This 
3 Y was 
