Caligula was invited to the wedding of Caius Piso and Livia Orestella, and when he saw the bride he became immediately infatuated with her. At the wedding feast he had her placed upon the couch beside him and there openly made love to her. Piso was helpless. I watched his face. It was absolutely white, but he had to force himself to smile and make witty conversation.
Before the meal was over, Caligula carried the bride from the room and shortly thereafter married her; but in a few days he tired of her and divorced her. Two years later he banished her.
At another dinner, shortly after his marriage to Livia Orestella, Caesonia and her husband were among the guests. Caesonia, far from beautiful and the mother of two girls, was a notable wanton; and perhaps it was this very wantonness which appealed to the lecherous Caesar. Caligula showed her marked attention during the dinner, even taking her from the room for half an hour during the meal. Among decent people, the interim would have been one of strained embarrassment, but not so with the depraved intimates of the ruler of the world. Even Caesonia's husband showed no sign of resentment or embarrassment, but, on the contrary, seemed quite proud that his wife had found favor in the eyes of Caesar. I, a mere slave, went cold at the thought that Attica was the chattel of such as these.
After Caligula and Caesonia returned to the table, the conversation turned to the subject of beautiful women, and someone, I have forgotten now who, remarked that Lollia Paulina, wife of Memmius Regulus who was in command of the army in Macedonia, was very like her grandmother, who, in her day, had been a noted Roman beauty.
Caligula immediately took notice; his eyes brightened, and he insisted on hearing more concerning the charms of Lollia Paulina. "It appears to me," he said, "that such beauty should not be buried in Macedonia," and then he turned to one of his officers. "Command Memmius Regulus to send his wife to Rome." The following day he divorced Livia Orestella and devoted his attentions exclusively to Caesonia-or almost exclusively. Never, since puberty, had he been able to do without women, and after his association with Herod Agrippa he had given increasing attention to young boys. Neither the cares of state nor his matrimonial adventures had encroached upon Caligula's interest in the races, and now that he was emperor, I often drove for the Green syndicate. Nor was I any longer given the poorest team, with the result that I won many races and was fast becoming one of the most popular charioteers in Rome. Caligula owned many horses, but his favorite was Incitatus, a gorgeous animal of which I was very fond. Caligula, however, seemed to fairly worship him. He had a house built for him; he would not permit that it should be called a stable. In it was a marble stall with an ivory manger. The trappings of Incitatus were of purple, and the brow band of his bridle was studded thick with precious jewels. A retinue of slaves attended the horse, and its house was richly furnished. In the name of Incitatus, Caligula often invited company to dine with him in this house. I may say that the horse was far more worthy of adulation than the master. I loved the one and looked with contempt upon the other.
Caligula hated the Senate and loved to deride and embarrass it. Once, at a banquet at which there were many senators, he announced that he was going to appoint Incitatus a consul. There was an uncomfortable silence, as the senators did not know whether he were in earnest or joking. I could have told them that he was not joking, as he had told me seriously many times that that was his intention.
"Incitatus is far handsomer, far more intelligent, and vastly more loyal than any of the knights or senators," he said. "So why should he not be a consul?"
I do not know why he did not carry out his plan. Perhaps he forgot about it. He forgot many of the mad projects with which he toyed from time to time. But he did make Incitatus priest to his temple. By far the majority of his maniacal acts were unpremeditated-the result of sudden excesses of fury because of jealousy or, again, just the caprices of a mad and vicious brain.
I recall once, when we were in the theater, Ptolemy, son of Ring Juba, entered in his purple robe of royalty, and all the spectators rose to stare at him. Caligula was infuriated that such an ovation should be given to another than himself, and, although he had invited Ptolemy to Rome and was his cousin, he put him to death.
Although but in his twenties, Caesar was fast losing his hair, and he was extremely sensitive on the subject---so much so that on several occasions when he came close to a man with a heavy head of hair, he would have him dragged off to a barber and have his head shaved. Would that his mad caprices had all been as harmless! But they were not. One day, in the amphitheater, he espied a very tall man who was known about Rome as Colossus. By comparison, Caligula was a runt and that was enough to arouse the Emperor's jealousy and anger. He gave orders that the man be sent into the arena to fight with a gladiator. Colossus killed the gladiator. This further infuriated Caligula, who ordered that another be sent against him. Colossus killed this one, too, whereupon Caesar commanded that the poor fellow be clothed in rags, dragged up and down the streets "for the edification of the women," and then butchered. He was envious of even so mean a person as this poor Colossus.
Again, the people wildly applauded a gladiator who distinguished himself while fighting in a light chariot. Caligula was incensed that another should receive such applause, and, in his anger, leaped from his seat. In doing so, he accidentally tripped upon the fringe of his toga and fell headlong down the steps. Scrambling to his feet, convulsed with rage, he shouted to the crowd, "A people who are masters of the world pay greater honors to a gladiator than to princes admitted among the gods, or to my own majesty here present in their midst!" Then he hurried away.
Both the people and Caligula tired of the innumerable games which the Emperor lavished upon the populace during the first year of his reign, and after squandering millions of sestertii in this manner, he embarked upon the most stupendous and extravagant folly that the world had ever witnessed.
Across the Baian Gulf, from Bauli to Puteoli, is a distance of some two miles, and this he ordered spanned by a bridge of boats. It could serve no commercial or military purpose and accomplish nothing more than to satisfy the vanity of a diseased mind. He collected every vessel upon which he could lay his hands, until the seaborne commerce of Rome no longer existed. There were no ships to bear grain, and all of Italy was threatened with famine, but Caligula never swerved from his purpose.
The ships were anchored side by side, and across them he laid a wide platform of timbers. These he covered with earth upon which he built a military road of hewn stones laid in concrete, and when the road was completed, he rode across it in full armor, followed by troops with their standards, proclaiming that he had conquered an enemy-Neptune!
At intervals there were numerous stations and post-houses, and to supply these with fresh water he had an aqueduct built from the mainland. It is little wonder that, with this folly, the lavishness of the games with which he bored the populace, and his other mad extravagances, within two years he exhausted th e more than two billion sestertii (more than $100,000,000) that Tiberius had accumulated in the public treasury during a reign of twenty-three years.
Having charged into Puteoli in a coat of mail encrusted with jewels, which had been worn by Alexander the Great, and followed by his "victorious" army, he returned across the bridge the following day in a triumphal car, followed by "captives" in chains. These tokens of his synthetic triumph were royal hostages from Parthia, who were being held prisoner in Rome.
At the center of the bridge, he mounted a tribunal and addressed his soldiers, praising them for the greatness of their victory and declaring that the exploits of Xerxes and Darius paled into insignificance when compared with this, his mightier enterprise. The whole silly business sickened me, as it must have every intelligent man who witnessed it; but the soldiers applauded, for he distributed money among them after the conclusion of his harangue and invited them and all others to a great banquet that he was to give upon the bridge and the ships that night.
If the building of the bridge and the puerile
antics enacted upon it connoted the insanity of their author, then the aftermath of the banquet proclaimed its homicidal tendency. By midnight, everyone, including the Emperor, was quite drunk, and it was then that he commanded the soldiers to throw all of the guests into the sea. When the poor creatures, floundering in the water, sought to clamber aboard the ships, Caligula had them beaten off with oars, so that many drowned.
Of all the inhabitants of the Empire, none was in a better position than I to rid the world of this monster, and it was often that I was tempted to do so. All that restrained me was the fact that the man trusted me. It would take much to overcome that single inhibition, but in the end Caligula succeeded.
After our return to Rome, Macro fell into disfavor-a position which his wife, Ennia, had occupied for some time, the foolish woman having persistently reminded Caligula of his promise to make her his empress. Macro, too, acted without tact in calling Caesar's attention too often to the latter's obligations to him. These things annoyed the insane boy: he did not want to feel obligated to anyone, for was he not only an emperor but a god!
The end came one night at dinner, where Macro, as was his custom, sought to restrain Caligula from acting the part of a silly fool. When he laughed too loudly at the jokes of the mimes or danced to the music of the flutists, cutting foolish capers, Macro would caution him to show greater dignity, reminding him that he was emperor of Rome; when he fell asleep at table, Macro awakened him.
At last Caligula flew into a terrible rage. "I am a boy no more," he shouted to his guests. "Look at this man. He conducts himself as though still my tutor. I, who was born a prince, nursed by emperors, cradled in a cabinet of state, must, forsooth, bow before an audacious upstart, a novice affecting the airs of a hierophant", then he turned his mad eyes upon Macro. "Go," he said, "to him who taught you to insult me; Tiberius will be glad to welcome you-and your wife. I graciously permit you to go in your own way."
Macro was white as a sheet as he arose and left the dining hall. I never saw him alive again: he and Ennia opened their veins that night, and the next day Caligula had all their children put to death. He wished none to remain as reminders of his indebtedness to Macro and the foul manner in which he had repaid that debt.
I mourned neither Macro nor Ennia. The former had become an arrogant and dangerous power because of his hold upon the praetorian legions, which he commanded. Why he made no appeal to them, I shall never understand. Ennia was a faithless wanton, although, I think, quite harmless--only annoying. Now they were gone. Others had proceeded them. Still others would follow them. M. Junius Silanus, the father-in-law of Caligula was the next.
Silanus was proconsul of Africa and commanded the legion that was stationed in the province. He had been a trusted officer of Tiberius and was loyal to the Caesars, but he made the mistake of sending advice to a madman. Caligula recalled him from his command because of this; then, putting to sea, he ordered Silanus to follow him. Silanus was an old man, the sea was rough, and he was subject to violent sickness; so he put back to port to wait for the storm to abate. Caligula thereupon charged him with wilful disobedience and with plotting against him, and demanded that the senator, Julius Graecinus, impeach him. Rather than besmirch his own reputation by such a shameful and unwarranted act, Graecinus refused, and Caligula had him put to death in revenge. Then he sent a message to Silanus, directing him to "take his compliments to the spirits of the dead."
This could have but one meaning, and Silanus ended his own life by cutting his throat with a razor. Caligula had now removed all those close to him who might either reproach or advise him, with the exception of his two remaining sisters. It was soon to be their turn.
Chapter XVIII
A.U.C.792 [A.D. 39]
THE INFATUATION of Caligula for Caesonia gave me many opportunities to see Attica, as I was often sent to the home of Caesonia with notes or presents. Caesonia, knowing the close relationship that had existed between Caligula and me during practically the entire life of the Caesar, assumed that I had far greater influence with him than was the case. Consequently, she treated me with great kindness and indulgence, going out of her way to see that Attica and I had leisure to be together whenever I came to her house, and upon several occasions, when Caligula complained that I had absented myself from his imperial presence for too long a time, she took the blame upon herself, saying that she had detained me.
Caesonia was not alone in the belief that I was something of a power behind the throne. Perhaps I might have been, had I made the attempt, but I did not. I knew Caligula better than any other, and so I knew how advice irked, annoyed, and often infuriated him. I had seen what had happened to some of his most loyal advisers, and I made it a point never to offer it. Good advice, he would not have followed, and he needed no one to advise him in matters of ruthlessness and vice of these he was a master.
Caesonia's house was near the Capena Gate, not far from that of her father, and so the Via Appia was still the favorite haunt of Attica and myself when time permitted us the luxury of a long walk together. Sometimes Numerius went with us; it was a strange courtship. We often laughed together over it. Numerius and I laid wagers on which one would be successful. I put my money on Numerius and Numerius, put his on me. Attica laughed at us and called us two silly little boys. We appointed her judge and stakeholder.
"What shall I do with the money when I marry another?" she asked. We told her that she could keep it, as neither of us would ever thereafter have need of money. "We shall open our veins," I told her. That was a great joke, and we all laughed.
Numerius was a Spaniard from Lusitania-very dark and very handsome. He was extremely good-natured and slow to anger-an attribute that I had never considered a characteristic of Spaniards.
These things, with his good looks, his ready wit, and his fame as a charioteer, constituted him a most dangerous rival in an affair of the heart. Personally, I could not see how Attica could resist him-he had so much more to offer than I. Strangely enough, Numerius felt the same way about me: he told me so once when we were discussing our strange rivalry.
"It is too bad, Attica," I once told her, "that you were not twins."
"That would have been sad indeed," she replied, "for twins, being exactly alike in everything, would have loved the same man."
"Numerius couldn't have married you both," I said.
She just wrinkled her nose at me. I never could get from her even a faint suggestion of her preference.
"You are a little flirt," I said.
"Of course I am. No matter how much you men inveigh against them and deplore them, it is the flirts you run after, even Caesar."
"Especially Caesar," I corrected her. "But now you have made my little joke indecent. To mention you in the same breath with Caesar and Caesonia is sacrilegious." She put a finger to her lips. "Be careful," she warned, "there is still room for more crosses on the Via Flaminia."
We were walking along the Via Appia beyond the Capena Gate. I glanced quickly around to see if I might have been overheard. We were alone except for a fat milch cow tethered among the grasses that grew beside the road.
"There is no one else here," I said.
Attica pointed at the cow. "Do not forget the fall of Troy," she whispered dramatically.
"That was a horse, not a cow," I reminded her.
"Well, Greeks could hide in a cow as well as in a horse," she said.
"I wouldn't mind, if they were Greeks," I replied; "but a cow full of Italians would be something else."
"That would kill the cow," said Attica.
"Then we are safe," I said, "for that cow is very much alive. Now I can say whatever I wish; I can even shout it."
"I wouldn't," she warned me. "But what is it you want to shout?"
"I love you," I said. "I should like to stand on the roof of the Basilica of Julius and shout it to the world."
"You would look very silly."
"Have you no romance?" I demanded.
"I hope not, if it w
ould make me as idiotic as you and Numerius sometimes are."
"Don't you want us to love you?"
There came then an expression in her eyes that I had never seen there before sultry, desirous. It passed quickly, and now she was serious. "I think I should die if neither of you loved me," she said. This was a new Attica who left me speechless. I realized then that we had all been taking love too lightly, usually joking about it. Deep in my heart I had always felt that it was a serious, sacred thing, and in that fleeting instant I had looked into Attica's heart and seen my own conviction mirrored there. Attica and I never joked about love after that.
I did not know until long afterward that that walk beyond the Capena Gate marked a turning point in my life. Like other walks with Attica, it had been very delightful and was over all too soon. I saw nothing unique in it, but then men are proverbially blind. When I returned to the palace that day, I found Caligula in one of his tantrums. First, he berated me for being away for such a long time. "I can depend on no one," he shouted. "Even my slave, who has been the recipient of my favors all his life, deserts me at a time when those closest to me are plotting against me. I shall have you and all the others destroyed. Have you forgotten that there is a Via Flaminia, Britannicus?"
"You have never permitted me to forget it," I said, "but only a fool would crucify the only man who has been loyal to him all of his life. Why are you surprised that someone is plotting against you? Has there ever been a Roman emperor, or, for that matter, any highly placed Roman, against whom no one was plotting? Who is it now whom your spies have turned up?"
Then he began inveighing against one of his favorites, Lepidus. This Lepidus had been the husband of his sister, Drusilla. The fact that Caligula had taken her away from him and lived with her as her husband without dissolving the marriage had not seemed to lessen the loyalty and friendship of Lepidus for the man who had wronged him. I had always looked with contempt upon Lepidus, considering him among the lowest of the fawning sycophants surrounding the Caesar; I was to learn that he was but nursing his hatred and biding his time against the moment of his revenge and the attainment of his amazing ambition, which was nothing less than to become emperor of Rome. He was a noble of the ancient and illustrious Aemilian family, descended from an Aemilian who had been triumvir with Augustus and Antony, though upon that alone he could base no claim to the throne.