Part 110

Cains Cæsar, son of Germanicus, owed his nickname, Caligula, to the soldiers of his father's command, among whom he was a great favorite in his childhood. The name was derived from "Caliga," a kind of foot covering worn by the common soldiers, and is sometimes translated "Little Boots." "Having … 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. … Immediately on his entering the city, by the joint acclamations of the senate, and people, who broke into the senate-house, Tiberius's will was set aside, it having left his other grandson, then a minor, coheir 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. … To this extraordinary love entertained for him by his countrymen was added an uncommon regard by foreign nations. … Caligula himself inflamed this devotion by practising all the arts of popularity. … 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 knight who lay under the stigma of any thing base and dishonourable. … He attempted likewise to restore to the people their ancient right of voting in the choice of magistrates. … He twice distributed to the people a bounty of 300 sesterces a man, and as often gave a splendid feast to the senate and the equestrian order, with their wives and children. … {2703} 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 exhibited a great number of circensian games from morning until night; intermixed with the hunting of wild beasts from Africa. … Thus far we have spoken of him as a prince. What remains to be said of him bespeaks him rather a monster than a man. … 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 Olympius, to be brought from Greece, that he might take the heads off, and put on his own. Having continued part of the Palatium 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 Latialis. He also instituted a temple and priests, with choicest victims, in honour of his own divinity. … The most opulent persons in the city offered themselves as candidates for the honour of being his priests, and purchased it successively at an immense price. … In the day-time he talked in private to Jupiter Capitolinus; one while whispering to him, and another turning his ear to him. … He was unwilling to be thought or called the grandson of Agrippa, because of the obscurity of his birth. … He said that his mother was the fruit of an incestuous commerce maintained by Augustus with his daughter Julia. … He lived in the habit of incest with an his sisters. … Whether in the marriage of his wives, in repudiating them, or retaining them, he acted with greater infamy, it is difficult to say." Some senators, "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 send for, as if they were still alive, and after a few days pretended that they had laid violent hands upon themselves. … 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, while 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' [a proverbial expression, meaning, without distinction.—Translator's foot-note]. … 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 high-ways, 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. … He compelled parents to be present at the execution of their sons. … 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.' … Being incensed at the people's applauding a party at the Circensian games in opposition to him, he exclaimed, 'I wish the Roman people had but one neck.' … He used also to complain aloud of the state of the times, because it was not rendered remarkable by any public calamities. … 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 was 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. … He never had the least regard either to the chastity of his own person, or that of others. … Besides his incest with his sisters … there was hardly any lady of distinction with whom he did not make free. … Only once in his life did he take an active part in military affairs. … He resolved upon an expedition into Germany. … 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 word 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 pretorian knights, into the adjoining wood, where, lopping branches from the trees, and forming trophies of them, he returned by torch-light, upbraiding those who did not follow him with timorousness and cowardice. … At last, as if resolved to make war in earnest, he drew up his army upon the shore of the ocean, with his balistæ 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 sea shells, and fill their helmets and the folds of their dress with them, calling them 'the spoils of the ocean due to the Capitol and the Palatium.' As a monument of his success he raised a lofty tower. … He was crazy both in body and mind, being subject, when a boy, to the falling sickness. … 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."

_Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars: Caligula (translated by A. Thomson)._

ALSO IN: _C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapters 47-48 (volume 5)._

_S. Baring-Gould, The Tragedy of the Cæsars, volume 2._

ROME: A. D. 41. The murder of Caligula. Elevation of Claudius to the throne by the Prætorians. Beginning of the domination of the soldiery.

"If we may believe our accounts, the tyrant's overthrow was due not to abhorrence of his crimes or indignation at his assaults on the Roman liberties, so much as to resentment at a private affront. Among the indiscretions which seem to indicate the partial madness of the wretched Caius, was the caprice with which he turned from his known foes against his personal friends and familiars. … No one felt himself secure, neither the freedmen who attended on his person, nor the guards who watched over his safety. {2704} Among these last was Cassius Chærea, tribune of a prætorian cohort, whose shrill woman's voice provoked the merriment of his master, and subjected him to injurious insinuations. Even when he demanded the watchword for the night the emperor would insult him with words and gestures. Chærea resolved to wipe out the affront in blood. He sought Callistus and others … and organized with them and some of the most daring of the nobles a plot against the emperor's life. … The festival of the Palatine games was fixed on for carrying the project into effect. Four days did Caius preside in the theatre, surrounded by the friends and guards who were sworn to slay him, but still lacked the courage. On the fifth and last, the 24th of January 794 [A. D. 41], feeling indisposed from the evening's debauch, he hesitated at first to rise. His attendants, however, prevailed on him to return once more to the shows; and as he was passing through the vaulted passage which led from the palace to the Circus, he inspected a choir of noble youths from Asia, who were engaged to perform upon the stage. … Caius was still engaged in conversation with them when Chærea and another tribune, Sabinus, made their way to him: the one struck him on the throat from behind with his sword, while the other was in the act of demanding the watchword. A second blow cleft the tyrant's jaw. He fell, and drawing his limbs together to save his body, still screamed, 'I live! I live!' while the conspirators thronging over him, and crying, 'again! again!' hacked him with thirty wounds. The bearers of his litter rushed to his assistance with their poles, while his body-guard of Germans struck wildly at the assassins, and amongst the crowd which surrounded them, killed, it was said, more than one senator who had taken no part in the affair. … When each of the conspirators had thrust his weapon into the mangled body, and the last shrieks of its agony had been silenced, they escaped with all speed from the corridor in which it lay; but they had made no dispositions for what was to follow, and were content to leave it to the consuls and senate, amazed and unprepared, to decide on the future destiny of the republic. … Some cohorts of the city guards accepted the orders of the consuls, and occupied the public places under their direction. At the same time the consuls, Sentins Saturninus and Pomponins Secundus, the latter of whom had been substituted for Caius himself only a few days before, convened the senate. … The first act of the sitting was to issue an edict in which the tyranny of Caius was denounced, and a remission of the most obnoxious of his taxes proclaimed, together with the promise of a donative to the soldiers. The fathers next proceeded to deliberate on the form under which the government should be henceforth administered. On this point no settled principles prevailed. Some were ready to vote that the memory of the Cæsars should be abolished, their temples overthrown, and the free state of the Scipios and Catos restored; others contended for the continuance of monarchy in another family, and among the chiefs of nobility more than one candidate sprang up presently to claim it. The debate lasted late into the night; and in default of any other specific arrangement, the consuls continued to act as the leaders of the commonwealth. … But while the senate deliberated, the prætorian guards had resolved. … In the confusion which ensued on the first news of the event, several of their body had flung themselves furiously into the palace, and begun to plunder its glittering chambers. None dared to offer them any opposition; the slaves and freedmen fled or concealed themselves. One of the inmates, half hidden behind a curtain in an obscure corner, was dragged forth with brutal violence; and great was the intruders' surprise when they recognised him as Claudius, the long despised and neglected uncle of the murdered emperor. He sank at their feet almost senseless with terror: but the soldiers in their wildest mood still respected the blood of the Cæsars, and instead of slaying or maltreating the suppliant, the brother of Germanicus, they hailed him, more in jest perhaps than earnest, with the title of Imperator, and carried him off to their camp. … In the morning, when it was found that the senate had come to no conclusion, and that the people crowding about its place of meeting were urging it with loud cries to appoint a single chief, and were actually naming him as the object of their choice, Claudius found courage to suffer the prætorians to swear allegiance to him, and at the same time promised them a donative of 15,000 sesterces apiece. … The senators assembled once again in the temple of Jupiter; but now their numbers were reduced to not more than a hundred, and even these met rather to support the pretensions of certain of their members, who aspired to the empire … than to maintain the cause of the ancient republic. But the formidable array of the prætorians, who had issued from their camp into the city, and the demonstrations of the popular will, daunted all parties in the assembly. … Presently the Urban cohorts passed over, with their officers and colours, to the opposite side. All was lost; the prætorians, thus reinforced, led their hero to the palace, and there he commanded the senate to attend upon him. Nothing remained but to obey and pass the decree, which had now become a formal act of investiture, by which the name and honours of Imperator were bestowed upon the new chief of the commonwealth. Such was the first creation of an emperor by the military power of the prætorians. … Surrounded by drawn swords Claudius had found courage to face his nephew's murderers, and to vindicate his authority to the citizens, by a strong measure of retribution, in sending Chærea and Lupus, with a few others of the blood-embrued, to immediate execution. … Claudius was satisfied with this act of vigour, and proceeded, with a moderation but little expected, to publish an amnesty for all the words and acts of the late interregnum. Nevertheless for thirty days he did not venture to come himself into the Curia. … The personal fears, indeed, of the new emperor contributed, with a kindly and placable disposition, to make him anxious to gain his subjects' good-will by the gentleness and urbanity of his deportment. … His proclamation of amnesty was followed by the pardon of numerous exiles and criminals, especially such as were suffering under sentence for the crime of majestas. … The popularity of the new prince, though manifested, thanks to his own discretion, by no such grotesque and impious flatteries as attended on the opening promise of Caius, was certainly not less deeply felt. … {2705} The confidence indeed of the upper classes, after the bitter disappointment they had so lately suffered, was not to be so lightly won. The senate and knights might view their new ruler with indulgence, and hope for the best; but they had been too long accustomed to regard him as proscribed from power by constitutional unfitness, as imbecile in mind, and which was perhaps in their estimation even a worse defect, as misshapen and half-developed in physical form, to anticipate from him a wise or vigorous administration. … In another rank he would have been exposed perhaps in infancy; as the son of Drusus and Antonia he was permitted to live: but he became from the first an object of disgust to his parents, who put him generally out of their sight, and left him to grow up in the hands of hirelings without judgment or feeling. … That the judgment of one from whom the practical knowledge of men and things had been withheld was not equal to his learning, and that the infirmities of his body affected his powers of decision, his presence of mind, and steadfastness of purpose, may easily be imagined: nevertheless, it may be allowed that in a private station, and anywhere but at Rome, Claudius would have passed muster as a respectable, and not, perhaps, an useless member of society. The opinion which is here given of this prince's character may possibly be influenced in some degree by the study of his countenance in the numerous busts still existing, which represent it as one of the most interesting of the whole imperial series. If his figure, as we are told, was tall, and when sitting appeared not ungraceful, his face, at least in repose, was eminently handsome. But it is impossible not to remark in it an expression of pain and anxiety which forcibly arrests our sympathy. It is the face of an honest and well-meaning man, who feels himself unequal to the task imposed upon him. … There is the expression of fatigue both of mind and body, which speaks of midnight watches over books, varied with midnight carouses at the imperial table, and the fierce caresses of rival mistresses. There is the glance of fear, not of open enemies, but of pretended friends; the reminiscence of wanton blows, and the anticipation of the deadly potion. Above all, there is the anxious glance of dependence, which seems to cast about for a model to imitate, for ministers to shape a policy, and for satellites to execute it. The model Claudius found was the policy of the venerated Augustus; but his ministers were the most profligate of women, and the most selfish of emancipated slaves. … The commencement of the new reign was marked by the renewed activity of the armies on the frontiers."

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapters 48-49 (volume 5)._

ALSO IN: _W. W. Capes, The Early Empire, chapters 3-4._

ROME: A. D. 42-67. St. Peter and the Roman Church: The question.

See PAPACY: ST. PETER AND THE CHURCH AT ROM[E.

ROME: A. D. 43-53. Conquests of Claudius in Britain.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 43-53.

ROME: A. D. 47-54. The wives of Claudius, Messalina and Agrippina. Their infamous and terrible ascendancy. Murder of the emperor. Advent of Nero.

The wife of Claudius was "Valeria Messalina, the daughter of his cousin Barbatus Messala, a woman whose name has become proverbial for infamy. His most distinguished freedmen were the eunuch Posidus; Felix, whom he made governor of Judæa, and who had the fortune to be the husband of three queens; and Callistus, who retained the power which he had acquired under Caius. But far superior in point of influence to these were the three secretaries (as we may term them), Polybius, Narcissus, and Pallas. … The two last were in strict league with Messalina; she only sought to gratify her lusts; they longed for honours, power, and wealth. … Their plan, when they would have anyone put to death, was to terrify Claudius … by tales of plots against his life. … Slaves and freedmen were admitted as witnesses against their masters; and, though Claudius had sworn, at his accession, that no freeman should be put to the torture, knights and senators, citizens and strangers, were tortured alike. … Messalina now set no bounds to her vicious courses. Not content with being infamous herself, she would have others so; and she actually used to compel ladies to prostitute themselves even in the palace, and before the eyes of their husbands, whom she rewarded with honours and commands, while she contrived to destroy those who would not acquiesce in their wives' dishonour." At length (A. D. 48) she carried her audacity so far as to go publicly through a ceremony of marriage with one of her lovers. This nerved even the weak Claudius to resolution, and she was put to death. The emperor then married his niece, Julia Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus. "The woman who had now obtained the government of Claudius and the Roman empire was of a very different character from the abandoned Messalina. The latter had nothing noble about her; she was the mere bond-slave of lust, and cruel and avaricious only for its gratification; but Agrippina was a woman of superior mind, though utterly devoid of principle. In her, lust was subservient to ambition; it was the desire of power, or the fear of death, and not wantonness, that made her submit to the incestuous embraces of her brutal brother Caius, and to be prostituted to the companions of his vices. It was ambition and parental love that made her now form an incestuous union with her uncle. … The great object of Agrippina was to exclude Britannicus [the son of Claudius by Messalina], and obtain the succession for her own son, Nero Domitius, now a boy of twelve years of age. She therefore caused Octavia [daughter of Claudius] to be betrothed to him, and she had the philosopher Seneca recalled from Corsica, whither he had been exiled by the arts of Messalina, and committed to him the education of her son, that he might be fitted for empire. In the following year (51) Claudius, yielding to her influence, adopted him." But, although Britannicus was thrust into the background and treated with neglect, his feeble father began after a time to show signs of affection for him, and Agrippina, weary of waiting and fearful of discomfiture, caused poison to be administered to the old emperor in his food (A. D. 54). "The death of Claudius was concealed till all the preparations for the succession of Nero should be made, and the fortunate hour marked by the astrologers be arrived. He then (October 13) issued from the palace, … and, being cheered by the cohort which was on guard, he mounted a litter and proceeded to the camp. He addressed the soldiers, promising them a donative, and was saluted emperor. The senate and provinces acquiesced without a murmur in the will of the guards. Claudius was in his 64th year when he was poisoned."

_T. Keightley, History of the Roman Empire, part 1, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapter 50 (volume 5)._

_Tacitus, Annals, books 11-12._

{2706}

ROME: A. D. 54-64. The atrocities of Nero. The murder of his mother. The burning of the city.