The Dedalus Book of Roman Decadence: Emperors of Debauchery

by Geoffrey Farrington

  Having recalled from exile a man who had been long banished, he demanded of him what he was wont to do in his place of banishment; the man replied thus by way of flattery, 'I prayed without cease to the gods that Tiberius, as has now come to pass, might perish, and you become emperor.' Hereupon Caligula, believing that those whom he had banished prayed likewise for his death, sent into the islands to have them killed every one. Being desirous to have a certain senator mangled and torn to pieces, he persuaded other men, that they should of a sudden, as this said senator entered the Curia, call him enemy to the State, and violently seize him; and when with their writingirons they had stabbed him all over, they were to deliver him to the rest, to be dismembered and cut in pieces. Neither was he satisfied until he saw the man's limbs, joints and innards drawn along the streets, and piled together all in a -heap before him.

  His deeds, most horrible as they were, he augmented with as cruel words. He used to say that he commended and approved in his own nature nothing more than immovable rigour. When his grandmother Antonia seemed to admonish him, he said to her (as though it were not enough to disobey her), `Go to, old woman, remember I may do what I will against all persons whomsoever.' Being minded to kill his own brother, whom he imagined for fear of poison to have fortified himself with preservatives, `What!' quoth he, `is there any antidote against Caesar?' When he had banished his sisters, he threatened them in these terms, saying that he had not only islands at his command, but swords also. A certain citizen of praetor's rank sought often, from his place of retirement at Anticyra (to which isle he would go for his health's sake), to have his office renewed. But instead he gave order that the man should be killed outright, adding these words, that bloodletting was necessary for him, who had gained no good from hellebore. Every ten days his practice was to note and write down the names of a certain number from the jail for execution, saying that thereby he reckoned up and cleared his book of accounts. When he had at one time condemned a host both of Gauls and Greeks together, he made his boast that he had subdued Gallograecia.

  He would not permit any to die until they had received many strokes, making this precept which became wellknown and notorious: 'Strike so as they may feel they are dying.' He executed on one occasion a man whom he had not appointed to die, merely by error and mistaking his name: 'But it makes no matter,' said he, 'for even he has also deserved death.' This speech of the tyrant from a tragedy he often repeated: 'Let them hate me, for thus they fear me.' Many a time he bitterly accused all the senators at once, that they were the dependants and adherents of the traitor Sejanus, or informers against his mother and brothers, bringing forth the evidence which before he had pretended burnt; and so excused and justified the cruelty of Tiberius as necessary, seeing that he could not choose but to believe the intelligence of so many. Those of the rank of gentlemen he railed at continually, that they were devoted wholly to the stage and show-place. One time, being highly displeased with the multitude, since they favoured in fight his man's opponent, he said, `Would God that the people of Rome had but one neck.' It once happened that five swordsmen, fighting both singly and in company, had yielded without combat to as many other champions or fencers. Now when command was given by the people that the vanquished should be killed, one of them took up his spear again into his hand and slew all the five who were thought the victors. This slaughter he bewailed in an edict as most cruel, and also cursed them who endured to see the sight.

  He was wont moreover to complain openly of the time wherein he lived, as distinguished by no public calamities; whereas the reign of Augustus was memorable for the overthrow of Varus, that of Tiberius ennobled by the fall of the scaffolding in the theatre at Fidenae. As for himself, he was sure to be forgotten, such was the general wellbeing in his days. And always he wished for the destruction of his armies, for famine, pestilence and raging fires, or for quakes to rend open the ground.

  Even whilst he was at his recreations and pastimes, whilst he set his mind upon gaming and feasting, he practised the same cruelty both in word and deed. Often, as he sat at dinner or banqueted, were serious matters examined in his sight by means of torture; and a soldier with the skill and dexterity to behead folk on the very spot would cut off the heads of prisoners as a matter of course. At Puteoli, when he dedicated the bridge which, as we noted before, was his own invention, he invited many of those present to join him from the shore, then suddenly turned them all headlong over the bridge into the water. And seeing some of them taking hold of the rafts to save themselves, he shoved them off with poles and oars into the sea. At a public feast in Rome, a servant chanced to pluck off a thin plate of silver from the table; and for this he was immediately delivered to the hangman for execution in this wise, that his hands should be cut off and hung about his neck before his breast, and a written title carried before him declaring the cause of his punishment, and he to be so led around all the company as they sat at meat. One of the fencers from the fencing-school once sparred with him, and in the match took a fall, and lay at his feet; him Caligula stabbed with a short iron blade and, in the solemn manner of the victor, paraded up and down with his garland of palms. There was a beast brought to the altar ready to be killed for sacrifice; he came dressed in the habit of beast-slayer, and lifting his axe-head high knocked down the minister himself who was readied to cut the beast's throat, and so dashed his brains out. At a plenteous feast where there was great joy he began all at once to laugh uncontrollably; and when the consuls seated by his side asked gently and with fair language the reason for his laughter, he answered, `Why, for nothing but that with one nod of my head I can have your throats cut in an instant.'

  Among the divers and sundry jests he made, once, as he stood next to the image ofJupiter, he demanded of Apelles, an actor of tragedies, which of the two he thought to be the greater and more stately, Jupiter or himself. And when the player made some delay in his answer, he mangled and tore him with his whip, praising all the time the voice which cried to him for mercy as exceedingly sweet and harmonious, even when the man groaned under his lashes. Each time he kissed the neck of wife or concubine, he would say in the very act, `As fair and lovely a neck as this is, off it shall go if I but speak the word.' Moreover, he announced many a time, that he would himself fetch out of his wife Caesonia, even with lute-strings, the reason that he loved her so entirely.

  Nor did he rage with less envy and malice, pride and cruelty, against persons from past times and ages. The statues of brave and worthy men, brought by Augustus out of the Capitol courtyard into Mars' Field, he overturned and cast here and there in such fashion that they could not be set up again whole; and he forbade that any statue or image of a living man should be erected, without his granting. He also would have abolished Homer's verses: `For why may not I,' he said, `do that which Plato lawfully did, who banished him from the city which he established?' Likewise he went within a little of removing the writings and images of Virgil and Livy both, from all the libraries. The one of these he carped at as a man of no wit and very mean learning; the other for his verbosity and for the careless composition of his history. Moreover, regarding lawyers, as if he meant to take away all use of their skill and knowledge, he announced many times that he would surely bring it to pass, that they might never give any answer but according to plain reason, and should use no eloquence of language.

  He took from the noblest families the old arms and badges of their houses; from Torquatus the collar; from Cincinnatus the curled lock of hair; and from Gnaeus Pompeius, from ancient stock descended, the surname of Magnus belonging to his lineage. As for King Ptolemy (of whom I made report before), when he had both sent for him from his own kingdom and also honourably entertained him, he slew him all of a sudden; and this for no reason in the world but that, as he entered the amphitheatre to see the games there exhibited, he perceived Ptolemy had the eyes of all the people upon him with the resplendent brightness of his purple robe. All those who were handsome and had a fine long head of hair, he disfigured b
y shaving their skulls behind. There was a certain Aesius Proclus, whose father had been a principal captain of the foremost cohort, who for his exceeding tall stature and fine figure was called Colosseros; this man he had pulled down suddenly from where he sat, and had him brought into the arena in the lists, where he was matched in fight first with a lightly-armed fencer, and then with a swordsman fully armoured. Now when he had gained twice the upper hand, he commanded him at once to be seized and bound fast, and being put into foul and tattered clothes to be led around the streets to be displayed to women, and so finally to have his throat cut. To conclude, there was none of so lowly condition, nor of so mean rank, that his better qualities he did not despoil.

  It also happened, on a day of public games, that there was greater applause and more clapping of hands than was usual, when Porius the fencer released his slave in admiration for the brave combat he had made. At this, Caligula flung himself out of the theatre in such haste that, treading upon the hem of his gown, he came tumbling down the stairs head over heels, chafing and fuming, and exclaiming that the people of Rome, lords of all nations, gave greater honour, and that on a most vain and frivolous occasion, to a sword-fencer, than they gave to himself there present.

  No regard had he of chastity or cleanness, either in himself or in others. Marcus Lepidus, Wester the pantomime, and also certain hostages he kept and loved, as the saying went, by way of reciprocal commerce in mutual impurity, in the doing and suffering of unnatural acts. Valerius Catullus, a young gentleman descended from a family of consul's rank, complained and cried out openly that he was unnaturally abused by him, and that his very sides were wearied and tired out with his filthy company. Over and above the incests committed with his own sisters and his notorious love of Pyrallis, that common prostitute and strumpet, there was scarcely a woman of any honour or reputation whom he left unsullied. For the most part he would invite these with their husbands to supper, and as they passed at his feet would peruse them closely and intently at his leisure, as if they were wares bought and sold at market; and he would with his hand chuck them under the chin and make them look up, if any of them held down their faces in modesty and shyness. And then, whenever he desired, he would leave the dining-room, and when he had summoned to him in his private chamber the woman whom he liked best, he would shortly after return, while the signs of his wanton work were yet fresh, and openly either praise or dispraise her before all the company; so reckoning up every good or bad part both of her body and action in that brutish business. To some of these women he sent bills of divorce in the name of their absent husbands, and commanded these to be set upon the file and to stand in public record.

  In riotous and wasteful expense he surpassed the schemes and inventions of all the prodigal spendthrifts there ever were, devising new ways and habits of bathing, alongside most strange and monstrous kinds of foodstuffs, for example to bathe himself with ointments both hot and cold, and to set upon the table at feasts before his guests loaves and other dishes all of gold, saying at the same time, that a man must either be frugal or else Caesar. Moreover, for days at a time he cast among the common people from the window of the stately basilica Julia, coins of no mean value. He built, in addition, tall sailing-ships of cedarwood, their poops and sterns set with precious stones, their sails of many colours, and within them baths, great galleries, promenades, and dining-chambers of vast capacity, containing vines and apple-trees and many other fruits; and here he would sit feasting all day among choirs of musicians and melodious singers, and so sail along the coasts of Campania. In the building of stately palaces and manor-houses in the country he cast aside all rules and orders, as though he desired nothing so much as to do what had been thought impossible to be done. And to this end he laid foundations where the sea was most tempestuous and deepest, and hewed rocks of the hardest flint and most jagged; he raised plains level with mountains and, digging down hill-tops, lowered them to the plains; and all this with the greatest urgency, so that he punished those who worked slowly with very death. In sum, and without the reckoning of each item in particular, the vast wealth and mass of treasure which Tiberius Caesar left behind him, valued at 2700 millions of sesterces, he consumed to nothing before the passing of but a -single year.

  His wealth therefore exhausted and grown to nothing, he turned his mind to the seizure of goods by various and cunning deceptions, by sales and taxes. He levied and gathered new tributes and imposts such as were never heard of before, at first by the hands of the tax-collectors, but afterwards (by reason of the excessive sums thus gained) by the centurions and tribunes of the praetorian cohorts. For he omitted no kind of thing, no manner of person, but imposed some kind of tribute upon them all.

  After such taxes were proclaimed, but not yet published abroad in writing, so that through ignorance of the law many transgressions were committed, he finally, upon the demand of the people, published the act; but it was written in such small letter and such an obscure place that no, man might copy it out to make it more widely known. And so that there should be no kind of plunder which he did not attempt, he set up a brothel in the very palace itself, with many rooms and chambers furnished according to the dignity and worth of that place; and in it were installed as prostitutes married women and freeborn youths both. Then he sent to all the public places, to markets and meetingplaces, to invite and call by name young men and old alike to fulfil and satisfy their lust. All comers at their entrance paid money to be lent again at interest. Certain persons were also appointed to take note in open sight of the names of those who entered, as that they were good friends increasing the revenues of Caesar.

  But when on one occasion he had a daughter born to him, complaining then of his poverty and the weight of expense that lay upon him both as emperor and also as a father, he accepted the voluntary contributions and gifts of men toward the provision of the girl's food, and also toward her dowry. He declared also by edict that he would receive New-year's offerings; and so he stood, on the first day of January, in the porch of his house, ready to accept whatever pieces of money came, and the multitude of all ranks poured out with full hands and generous hearts bounty upon him. Finally, he burned so with the desire to handle money, that often he would walk up and down upon heaps of coins, and wallow with his whole body among huge piles of gold pieces, strewn here and everywhere in a great open place.

  Of stature he was very tall, pale, and wan-coloured, of body gross and shapeless; his neck and shanks exceedingly slender; his eyes sunk in his head and his temples hollow, his forehead broad, with deep furrows; the hair of his head grew thin, and his crown was all bald; but in all other parts hairy he was and shaggy. It was therefore a heinous and capital offence, to look from a place above upon him as he passed by; or but to speak of a goat on any occasion whatsoever. His face and expression, being naturally stern and grim, he made by purpose more crabbed and hideous, composing it before a looking-glass in all manner of ways so as to seem more terrible and to strike greater fear.

  He was neither healthful in body nor sound in mind. Being as a child much troubled with the falling sickness, he was in his youth most careful in bodily exertion, yet still ever and anon, there came upon him a sudden fainting, so that he was scarcely able to walk, to stand, to rise, to recover himself, or even to lift up his head. This infirmity of the mind he well himself perceived, and often would go away to Anticyra, there to purge his brain thoroughly. It is thought, indeed, that he was poisoned with a potion given him by his wife Caesonia, which was yet a love medicine, but one that cracked his wits and enraged him. He was troubled most of all with lack of sleep; for he slept not above three hours in a night, and in those he took no quiet repose, but was filled with the terror of strange illusions and fantastical imaginations; dreaming upon one time that he saw the very form and resemblance of the sea talking with him. And for this reason for most of the night, hour upon hour barely endured as he lay wakeful, one while sitting up in his bed, another roaming and wandering the great expanses of his ga
lleries, he would look out and call for daylight to arrive.

  I should not do amiss if to this mind's sickness of his I attributed the vices which in one man were of so contrary a nature, to wit, excessive confidence, and an equal overplus of fearfulness. For he that set so light by the gods and despised them as he did, yet would at the least thunder and lightning shut tight his eyes, wrap and cover his whole head; but if the tumult were great, he would leap from his bed, to creep and hide himself under the bedstead. Then during his travels through Sicily, after he had scorned and made mock of the miraculous and strange sights in many parts of the land, he fled suddenly by night from Messana, with fright at the smoke and rumbling noise of the top of Aetna.

  As for his apparel, his shoes and other habit, he wore them neither after the fashion of the country nor of the city, nor as befitting a man; nor even, I may tell you, in the manner of any mortal creature. He would come abroad into the city clad in cloaks of needlework embroidered with divers colours, and set with precious stones; or in a coat with long sleeves, and decked with bracelets. You might see him in his silks, veiled all over in a loose mantle with a train; sometimes going about in Greek slippers, or else in buskins, at other times in a simple pair of brogues or high shoes, such as common soldiers employed in observation used. Now and then was he also seen shod with women's pumps. But for the most part he showed himself abroad with a golden beard, carrying in his hand either a thunderbolt or a three-pronged mace, or else the rod called a caduceus (these being the signs all and the ornaments of the gods), and indeed in the attire and array of Venus. As for his triumphal robes and insignia, he would wear them continually, even before any warlike expedition, and sometimes even the cuirass of Alexander the Great, fetched out of his sepulchre and monument.