The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
of the city of Tiberias. But this did not satisfy his ambition. He returned to Rome in the last years of Tiberius, to watch for an opportunity to better his position. He attached himself to the young Gaius, whose prospects seemed to be bright, and obtained a great influence over him. Agrippa was a shrewd and energetic man, who had seen a great deal of the world; very dissipated and unprincipled; and always in want of money. His descriptions of oriental magnificence, his pictures of the omnipotence which even the smallest monarchs in the east possessed over the life and property of their subjects, his lessons perhaps in the voluptuousness of Asia, produced a deep and dangerous effect on the diseased mind and sensual nature of the future Emperor. Rome had been threatened with the introduction of oriental theories by Antonius; she was destined to experience them at the caprice of his great-grandson.
After the celebration of his birthday, the Emperor did not resume his political duties, but gave himself up to dissipation and enjoyment, and from this time to the end of his reign his only occupation was the pursuit of pleasure and excitement. Under the first wild outburst of sensuality his weak constitution gave way and he became dangerously ill The general distress which was then felt both in Rome and in the provinces shows how popular he was. Philo, a Jew of Alexandria, describes the prosperity of the Empire at the beginning of his reign and the sympathy which was felt at his illness. The passage deserves to be quoted:
“Who was not amazed and delighted at beholding Gaius assume the government of the Empire, tranquil and well-ordered as it was, fitted and compact in all its parts, north and south, east and west, Greek and barbarian, soldier and civilian, all combined together in the enjoyment of a common pence and prosperity? It abounded everywhere in accumulated treasures of gold and silver, coin and plate; it boasted a vast force both of horse and foot, by land and by sea, and its resources flowed, as it were, from a perennial fountain. Nothing was to be seen throughout our cities but altars and sacrifices, priests clad in white and garlanded, the joyous ministers of the general mirth; festivals and assemblies, musical contests and horse-races, nocturnal revels, amusements, recreations, pleasures of every kind and addressed to every sense. The rich no longer lorded it over the poor, the strong upon the weak, masters upon servants, or creditors on their debtors; the distinctions of classes were leveled by the occasion; so that the Saturnian age of the poets might no longer be regarded as a fiction, so nearly was it revived in the life of that happy era”. The provinces were happy for seven months; then the news arrived that the Emperor, having abandoned himself to sensuality, had fallen grievously sick, and was in great danger. “When the sad news was spread among the nations, every enjoyment was at once cast aside, every city and house was clouded with sorrow and dejection, in proportion to its recent hilarity. All parts of the world sickened with Gaius, and were more, sick than he, for his was the sickness of the body only, theirs of the soul. All men reflected on the evils of anarchy, its wars, famines, and devastations, from which they foresaw no protection but in the Emperor’s recovery. But as soon as the disease began to abate, the rumor swiftly reached every corner of the empire, and universal were the excitement and anxiety to hear it from day to day confirmed. The safety of the prince was regarded by every land and island as identical with its own. Nor was a single country ever so interested before in the health of any one man as the whole world then was in the health of Gaius”.
This instructive passage of an Alexandrine writer of that day, shows how important an Emperor’s life was then felt to be for the welfare of the state. Gaius recovered, but he did not mend his ways. The solicitude of the citizens and the provincials impressed him with a deeper sense than ever of his own importance. His first act was to remove from his path his cousin Gemellus, who had a rival claim to the throne. About November, 37 A.D., the feeble grandson of Tiberius was compelled to kill himself. Macro the praetorian prefect had laid Gaius under such great obligations in helping him to secure the throne, that he ventured on the indiscretion of sometimes reminding the Emperor of his duties. At the same time Ennia pressed her lover to keep his promise of marrying her. But Gaius was weary of the wife, and impatient of the husband, and he resolved to destroy them both. Macro received a command to put himself to death. About the same time Gaius recalled M. Silanus, the father of his first wife, who was then proconsul of Africa, and caused him to be executed. These acts may be regarded as the turning-point of the reign.
SECT. II. — EXTRAVAGANCE AND TYRANNY OF GAIUS — HIS MURDER
Feeling himself superior to both law and custom, Gaius did not hesitate to parade his degraded tastes before the public, and to prostitute the imperial dignity in a way which would have seemed simply inconceivable to Augustus or Tiberius. He took a keen delight in the sports of the circus and in gladiatorial shows, and is said to have himself sung and danced in public, and even descended into the arena. Knights and senators were compelled to take part in the chariot-races. Charioteering became a sort of political institution in this reign, and continued to be so until the latest days of the Empire. There were four rival parties, distinguished by colors, the green, blue, red, and white. Gaius favored the green faction, and built a special place of exercise for it. But the gladiatorial shows were the special delight of the Emperor. He removed the limitations which Augustus had set on the number of gladiators; and the amphitheatre of Taurus and the Saepta in the Campus Martius were constantly filled with the rabble and the court witnessing not only pairs of gladiators, but the battles of armed bands. Nobles and knights were forced to fight, as well as slaves; for all his fellow-citizens were his slaves in the eyes of this Princeps. Combats with wild beasts were also a frequent amusement. One wonders that the higher classes tolerated this juvenile tyranny and such shameless degradation of the imperial dignity; but they seem to have felt it as a change for the better after the parsimony and austerity of the preceding reign, and they saw that the new fashion of things was popular with the rabble.
Gaius is said to have lived in incestuous connection with his three sisters, and though this charge is uncertain in regard to Agrippina and Julia, there can be no doubt about Drusilla, of whom he was very fond. He had separated her from her husband, and lived openly with her, after the manner of the Ptolemies and other oriental potentates. When she died (July, 38 A.D.), he was inconsolable. The senate decreed her the honors of Livia; her statues were placed in the curia and in the temple of Venus; and she was deified under the title of Panthea. All the cities of the Empire were commanded to worship her. During his principate, Gaius was married three times, and in all cases, to married women whom he snatched from their husbands. The first, Orestilla, wife of Cn. Piso, was soon repudiated for the sake of Lollia Paulina, the wife of Memmius Regulus, the same who had assisted in the arrest of Sejanus. She was a very rich lady, and her wealth was probably her chief attraction for the Emperor. She was then divorced on the ground of barrenness, and was succeeded by Milonia Caesonia, to whom, though she was a woman of plain features, the Emperor seems to have been really attached.
As time went on and Gaius found no resistance offered to his sovereign will, as he saw the world at his feet and men of all classes content to be his slaves, he was seized with the idea of his own godhead, and exacted divine worship. The oriental notions which he learned from Agrippa, and the deification of Julius and Augustus, suggested to him this extravagance. He believed that nothing was impossible for him to execute, and his great passion was to make it manifest that he was controlled by no law, and not subject to ordinary human affections. He exulted in looking on suffering without blenching. He regretted that his reign was not marked by some striking disaster such as the defeat of the Varian legions. He used to dress himself like Bacchus or Hercules or Venus, and play the part of these deities in the temples before an admiring crowd. He pretended to converse with Jupiter in the temple on the Capitol, and for this purpose, in order to have speedier access to his divine kinsman, he caused a flying bridge to be thrown across the Velabrum, reaching from the Palatine close to the newly dedicated temple of Augustus to the Capitoline. Among the gods, as among men, he claimed to be preeminent; he declared that he was the Latian Jupiter; and he challenged, with a Homeric verse, Jupiter Capitulinus to combat.
He endeavored to manifest his divine nature by architectural constructions of colossal and fantastic designs. He connected the imperial palace with the temple of Castor in the Forum, perhaps by a series of corridors supported on a bridge, and thus made the temple the vestibule of the palace. This construction has disappeared without leaving a trace. His most useful work, was the aqueduct conveying to Rome the waters of the Aqua Claudia