"Caesar, to whom all things are possible, might win back the affections of his people," I suggested.
He looked at me for a long time in silence, until I wondered if what I had said might not bring down upon me the maniacal wrath of the mad tyrant; then he said something which I shall never forget, something which revealed his awareness of his malady: "Were I like other men, I might."
Again there was a long silence, broken only by Caligula's wordless mutterings, as he paced the long porticoes in the first dim coming of the dawn. "I know what the Roman pigs want," he suddenly exclaimed. "They want blood-anyone's blood but their own. They shall have it, and then perhaps they will love me again. I will give them such games as never before were seen: five hundred pairs of gladiators, some on foot, some on horseback, some in war chariots such as your barbarous Britons use. I'll give them fights between wild beasts-tigers against elephants, wild bulls against lions; and there shall be a beast hunt such as no man has ever before dreamed of-the prisons of Rome shall be emptied to fill the arena with men and women to battle against a thousand wild beasts. And if that is not enough-" He broke off and commenced to laugh-that laugh which sent the cold shivers down my spine. What plan was evolving in the distorted convolutions of that warped brain?
With the restless animation which usually marked the accomplishment of each new vagary, he rushed the preparations for the great games to the exclusion of all else, including affairs of state. Had he been preparing to resist an invasion he could not have driven his lieutenants with greater fury. High officers of the army, knights, senators, and even the two consuls were forced to give up all other activities and devote their time to the collection and transportation of wild beasts and gladiators and the housing and feeding of them. Every dangerous beast that could be brought to Rome within the two weeks before the opening of the games was commandeered.
The games were to last five days. The final event upon the fifth day was to be the great beast hunt. The first four days were devoted largely to gladiatorial combats and encounters between pairs of wild beasts pitted against one another or of individual men against a beast. By the fifth day, the populace was sated. The audience was restless and grumbling. There were hoots and catcalls and demands for the great beast hunt.
As usual, Tibur and I were in the imperial loge. Senators sat at the feet of Caesar, whispering words of praise and affection to the man whom they feared and hated above all other living creatures. Caesonia, being indisposed that day, was not present and so Attica was not with us, but she was in the audience. Some friends had persuaded her to accompany them, and she sat in an unreserved section among other slaves and plebs. She had not wished to attend, as she loathed the brutality of the games, but the importunities of her friends had prevailed.
To my surprise, Caligula evinced no anger because of the restlessness of the audience. His head cocked on one side in that characteristic posture, he sat with a smug grin twisting his lips. He appeared to be awaiting something with evident anticipatory relish.
At last the arena was cleared for the final event of the games-the great beast hunt. Several hundred criminals were herded out upon the sand, both men and women. All were armed: some with swords, some with spears, others with tridents. Many of them carried nets-as futile against wild beasts for either attack or defense as would have been a child's slingshot charged with paper pellets.
"Now they shall have what they have been bellowing for," said Caligula, "and a little later they shall have more than they bellowed for. They wanted blood. They shall have it."
I didn't like the nasty grin upon his face. I wondered what he had in mind. I wondered what new atrocity he was about to commit. There remained in my memory his maniacal laughter the morning that he had planned these games. Had I known what was to come, Caius Caesar Caligula would have died in his loge that day in the amphitheater of Statilius Taurus.
The poor criminals huddled, terrified, in the center of the arena. Most of them were the scum of the vicious and degraded lower classes of citizens and slaves but there were among them political prisoners from the aristocracy-even knights and senators. Thus did Caesar love to degrade and humiliate those whom he feared or hated.
And now the starved beasts began to be raised in elevators from the pits beneath the arena. There were hyenas, wolves, leopards, lions, tigers, bulls, buffaloes, rhinoceroses, and elephants. They spewed forth onto the sand in such a bedlam of growling, grunting, roaring, bellowing. and trumpeting as may never have been heard since the days of the fabulous Ark of which the Jews tell.
Now the hapless victims milled about like a mass of maggots, as many of them sought to insinuate themselves into the center of the crowd in the hope of thus deferring the dread moment when tusk or fang or talon should rend them. Men pulled women back from temporary safety that they might win this brief reprieve for themselves; but there were other, braver souls, who stood upon the outer rim boldly facing the nervous, excited beasts with their puny weapons.
A gaunt, starved tiger slunk slowly forward. It was followed by a lion. Men seated upon the arena wall hurled barbed darts among the other beasts to goad and infuriate them. A bull charged, impaling a man upon his horns, tossing him high in air. Women screamed. Men shouted curses at Caesar.
Now the entire great body of beasts was moving hither and thither. A lion leaped full into the close-packed crowd. The wolves circled, darting in to snap at legs and leap quickly away. A tiger ran afoul an elephant which lifted it on high and hurled to the very center of the packed mass of humanity; then men and women fought to escape the raking talons of the maddened cat, and the crowd opened.
A rhinoceros, perpetually enraged as are all his kind, dull-witted, half-blind, charged straight through the body of the clawing, shrieking victims like some huge, animated battering ram. Leopards, perhaps the cruelest and most vicious of all the great cats, were tearing and rending in pure lust to kill and maim-spotted Caligulas of the jungles. I happened to glance at the section where Attica sat, looking for her, when I noticed perhaps a century of Caesar's German guards coming down the aisles from above. I wondered why they were there, thinking that perhaps there had been a rumor of a contemplated revolt. I was apprehensive on Attica's account, but as I saw no sign of trouble brewing in that, or any other section of the stands, I sought to quiet my fears.
Hearing Caligula laugh that mad laugh of his, I turned to look at him. He slapped a consul on the shoulder. "They wanted blood," he cried, "and they shall have it. They shall have entertainment enough today to last them for a long time!" Then he half-rose and waved his handkerchief toward that section of the stands where the German soldiers were. It was the signal!
Immediately the soldiers began to drive the men and women from that section of the stands down toward the arena. At first, I could not grasp the significance of the act. Even knowing Caligula as well as I did, I could not conceive of the wanton cruelty that was about to be perpetrated upon innocent and helpless men and women upon his orders.
I saw Attica being herded forward with the rest, I stood up to see better. Tibur stood beside me. "What does it mean?" I asked. He shook his head. "I am afraid," I said.
"Attica is there."
"Where?" he asked.
"Among those the soldiers are driving from their seats."
The crowd was silent now. Everyone must have been watching that section of the stands that was being emptied by the Germans. Presently the truth dawned upon me as the soldiers began pushing the poor creatures over the wall into the arena. I almost knocked Caesar from his throne as I leaped toward the front of the loge, stepping full upon the fat stomach of a senator. An instant later and I had vaulted into the arena and was running across the sand toward the spot at which the new victims of Caligula's mad whim were being thrown to the beast s.
How I crossed without being dragged down by some blood-mad carnivore, I shall never know. I do recall that once a leopard barred my way, but I think my impetuous rush must have filled him with consternat
ion, for he leaped from my path and let me pass unscathed.
The other beasts, attracted by this diversion, seemed to be centering their attention upon the newcomers-all but those which were tearing at the bloody corpses of their kills.
Attica must have seen me coming before I located her, for presently I saw her running toward me. And I saw something else that froze the blood in my veins: a tiger, evidently attracted by the running girl, was trotting toward her at my right. It was a question as to which of us would reach her first. I exerted every effort to put speed into my feet, but I was conscious of that sensation of extreme futility which one sometimes encounters in dreams, where one's feet seem to be weighted with lead; yet I did reach Attica just before the tiger.
With drawn sword, I placed myself between her and the striped fury. My sword! A wet rag might have been almost as effective a weapon with which to combat those four hundred pounds of iron sinew and muscle.
The beast reared up on its hind feet to seize me. It towered above me, its great, yellow fangs bared in a hideous, wrinkled grimace of bestial rage, its yellow eyes glaring into mine. I struck at that frightful face with my puny sword, and simultaneously a spear tore into the striped side just behind the left shoulder. Tibur was at my side! He had followed close behind me, picking from the bloody sand of the arena a spear fallen from some dead hand.
The screams of the stricken beast almost deafened me. It lunged to rake this new antagonist with its powerful talons. Only such a giant as Tibur could have held it off, and while he did so, I struck again and again at its now bloody head.
It seemed much longer, but it could have been no more than a few seconds before the tiger sank to the sand, dead; for Tibur's spear had pierced its heart.
Seizing Attica's arm, I hurried her to the side of the arena, Tibur upon her other side. German guardsmen, looked down at us. Tibur and I lifted Attica toward them. "Help her up!" I ordered.
They hesitated. "It is a command from Caesar," I shouted.
All these German guardsmen knew both Tibur and me at least by sight. They knew that we were both close to Caligula and that Tibur was a tribune of the guard. They reached down and drew Attica to safety; then they helped Tibur and me to scale the wall.
The audience was in a state of confusion, bordering almost upon riot. I could hear cries of "Shame!" "Murder!" "Down with Caesar!" All were standing. Hundreds were jamming the exits in an effort to escape the amphitheater before the crazy young tiger had others hurled to the beasts.
The great Tibur shouldered his way through the angry, frightened, milling crowd, and Attica and I followed in his wake. It took us a long time to make our way to the exit, but at last we were in the open. As we emerged from the amphitheater and made our way up the hill toward the palace, we saw Caligula, escorted by two centuries of German guardsmen, hurrying ahead of us. We learned later that he had become terrified by the threatening attitude of the people and fled.
By the time we reached the seclusion and temporary safety of my apartments, Attica was in tears. "You will both die for this," she sobbed. "I am not worth it."
I tried to reassure her that, after all, we had done nothing to arouse the wrath of Caligula and that we were in no danger, but I knew better and so did she and so did Tibur. Once again the shadows of the crosses along the Via Flaminia fell across me. But days passed and nothing happened. Caligula was sour and morose, for he was frightened; yet he did not punish us. He did not even mention the thing that we had done. Later, Cassius Chaerea, a tribune of the guard, told me something which explained why Caesar's wrath had not fallen upon Tibur and me. Caligula had been much excited and intrigued by our exploit. He said that it had added the final touch to the excitement of the beast hunt, affording a splendid finale to the games. "Had I planned it myself, it could not have been better," he said, and then he added, "I would have ordered them down myself to rescue the girl had I known that she was among those thrown to the beasts. She is too beautiful to be wasted thus."
So Caesar was still thinking of the beauty of my wife!
Chapter XXI
A.U.C.794 [A.D. 41]
TOWARD THE middle of January, word of a plot against his life was whispered to Caligula. The senator, Pompedius, who, it later developed, was not in any way connected with the plot, had heard of it, and, like the fool that he was, had repeated the rumor to the actress, Quintilia, a famous beauty. Pompedius was arrested upon another charge, and Quintilia was sent to Cassius Chaerea, tribune of the guard, to be placed upon the rack in an effort to force a confession from her.
At that time it was not known to me that the plot was real and that Chaerea was the instigator of it. This man, a soldier of repute, had grown gray in the service of the Caesars. He had known and loved Little Boots when the latter was a child in the camps of the Roman legions in Germany, but gradually his loyalty had been undermined by the cruelties and excesses of the mad Caesar. His growing hatred of the tyrant was further increased by personal insults and ridicule heaped upon him by Caligula.
Chaerea had a shrill and slightly feminine voice, which Caligula would mimic for the purpose of ridiculing the tribune before his fellow officers and even in the presence of common soldiers. Perhaps it was these personal insults which determined Cassius Chaerea to rid the world of the mad monster.
I was present with Caesar when Quintilia was tortured upon the rack. Before the girl was brought in by the soldiers, Chaerea must have been filled with fear that her confession would implicate him; but, and this I learned later from Chaerea himself, when Quintilia passed him in the torture chamber, she pressed a foot upon his and gave him a quick, reassuring glance.
Among all the horrors that I witnessed during the reign of Caius Caesar, the torturing of Quintilia upon the rack seemed to me the most horrible. I wish that I could forget it.
Under the eyes of Caesar and upon his insistent commands, Chaerea was forced to subject the girl to the most excruciating agony, but no word of confession could be forced from her lips, and at last the cruel dislocation of her joints aroused a faint spark of compassion even in the stony heart of the tyrant. He commanded Chaerea to cease, and after leaving money for Quintilia, quit the torture chamber. No evidence having been elicited against Pompedius, he also was later discharged. I imagine that Cassius Chaerea must have nearly fainted from relief.
Caligula seemed to forget the rumored plot during the preparation for the Palatine games, a festival sponsored originally by Livia in honor of the founder of the monarchy. The games began on January 17th and ended upon the 24th. To house them, an enormous wooden theater was erected at the foot of the Palatine.
January 24 A.U.C. 794 dawned like any other Roman winter day. It was the last day of the games, upon which several plays were to be performed. In one there occurred the capture and crucifixion of a robber chief, in which a criminal was to be forced to play that part and to suffer actual crucifixion upon the stage. I was glad, therefore, when Caligula dispatched me upon an errand that would keep me from the games that day. I had no desire to see a man crucified.
While he had been in good spirits that morning, yet he appeared even more restless and nervous than usual. He complained of Caesonia, of whom he was tiring, and spoke of ridding himself of her and taking another wife. "This time I shall really surprise the world," he exclaimed. "I shall give the miserable Roman mob an empress such as it deserves," and then he laughed that hideous, mad laugh which always portended some new extravagance or cruelty.
The errand upon which he sent me to his villa in the country seemed most trivial to me. The lowliest of his slaves might have as well performed it, and as I rode along the highway in the bright winter sunlight, I speculated upon the reason that had induced him to send a trusted protector from his side at a time when he would be publicly exposed to the swords and daggers of his enemies. I shall always curse myself for the stupidity which kept me from suspecting his real reason and blindly assuming that he was motivated by some trivial vagary of his diseased brain-perha
ps a mean desire to prevent my witnessing the last and principal events of the games. Caligula was as capable of such petty meannesses as of the most fiendish cruelties. I think that one might have counted upon the fingers of one hand all of the acts of kindness and generosity which he had performed during his lifetime and for which he had not demanded repayment many times over, as, for example, the several occasions upon which he had given a momentary favorite a huge donation and then ordered his execution and confiscated his entire estate.
That which happened in the city between the time that I left and my return in the evening I may only recount from hearsay. Many of the reports were contradictory, but I shall set down here that version which appears most plausible and which had the greatest number of vouchees.
At the theater that day, Caligula was, of course, seated in the imperial box, which was to the left of the stage. The captain of the Praetorian Guard, Vatinius, sat directly behind the Emperor; and the consul, Pomponius, at his feet; nearby was Cluvius, a man of consular rank.
Pomponius turned to Cluvius and said, "How now, friend? Any news today?"
"None that I have heard," replied Cluvius.
"Do you not know that today's play depicts the slaughter of a tyrant?"
"Hush!" whispered Cluvius. "Beware, my friend, lest others hear thy tale."
"And the day-what day is this?" asked Vinicianus in a low voice.
"It is that on which Philip of Macedon was slain by Pausanius, my friend," replied another senator.
And a third added, "At the play!"
It was obvious that the plot was by now an open secret, and only the fact that Caius Caesar Caligula had no friend left could account for his remaining unwarned. Among all the favorites, sycophants, and trusted officers about him there was not one but would have been glad to see him dead. Was there one with the courage to kill him? The consul, Pomponius, lying at the Emperor's feet, stooped occasionally and kissed the gilded slippers of the tyrant. A noble Roman, Pomponius! Yes, quite as noble as they come.