It would be disgusting to enumerate the various acts of oppression, by taxation, pillage, torture, and murder, recorded of this wretch, who was also equally infamous for his effeminacy and horrible debaucheries. His tuous passion for his own sisters is \Yell known. Ilis sister Drusilla, with whom he had been detected in scan dalous familiarities when a boy, he now actually married ; and he bewailed her death with the most extra \ agant frenzy of grief. His next madness was, like Alexander the Great, to give himself out for a god. He actually built a temple to his own divinity, and instituted a priest hood, altars, and sacrifices, in honour of himself: and sometimes exhibited himself among a crowd of statues of his brother gods. being consulted by the people, and giving responses. As a deity of equal rank, he used to invoke the full moon to his embraces at night. Ile like wise held private conferences with Jupiter Capitolinus. at one time muttering something in a low voice, at at o ther, gravely listening ; and was not unfrequeutly heard to remonstrate with the other gotl in pretty sharp lan guage. All this folly was scarcely more extravagant than his fondness for his horse Incitatus. In honour of this animal, he built a magnificent palace, appointed do mestics, and supported a splendid table, to which peo ple were invited in the name of the horse. He moreover accommodated the steed himself with a marble stable, and an ivory rack, gave him gilt barley, and wine out of a golden cup, swore by his health awl fortune, and, ac cording to some,•intended to make him consul.
In his public transactions, Caligula was equally ex travagant and cruel. He engaged in immense under takings, such as filling up vallies, and levelling moun tains, merely because they were deemed impossible. Among these, his famous bridge at Baix was none of the least. This bridge, supported on two rows of boats, consisted of large beams of timber, over which was placed a bank of earth, faced and paved with solid ma sonry, so as to resemble the Appian way ; and extended over the sea from Baix to Puteoli, being a distance of near four miles. Along this floating structure, Caligula paraded on horseback and in chariots for two successive days ; and to add variety to the scene, having invited a great number of people to view the bridge, he tossed them all into the sea, and there knocked them on the head with oars and poles to keep them under water. Wishing now to appear in the character of a conqueror, he ordered an expedition to be prepared with the utmost haste, resolving to conduct it in person into the heart of Germany. His march through Gaul was sometimes so rapid, that the standard-bearers could not keep pace with the troops ; on other occasions it was so extremely slow, that he waited to have the roads swept and sprinkled with water by the inhabitants of the country. When in the act of crossing the Rhine, some person unluckily expressed his uneasiness lest the Germans might now be at hand ; upon which Caligula was so frightened, that he suddenly turned back, and would not wait till the bridge was cleared, but was handed over the heads of the sol diers to the other side of the river. Soon after, in order to retrieve his character, having commanded sonic Ger man deserters to be stationed privately in a wood, and a report to be suddenly spread in the camp that the enemy was near, lie put himself courageously at the head of his guards, and assuming the air of a great hero, sallied out in quest of the foe, scoured the forest, and then or dered a great number of trees to be converted into bare trunks, on which to erect the trophies of his ic to ry.
On his return from this glorious campaign, he nearly ruined Gaul with enormous exactions, in order to defray the expellees of another expedition against the ocean, which he had determined to conquer. For this purpose, having drawn up his legions on the beach, arranged his battering rains and other military engines, and ordered the trumpets to sound preparatory to the charge, he sud denly commanded the soldiers to stoop down and fill their helmets with shells, which he called the spoils of the ocean. In commemoration of this victory, lie built a lofty tower on the spot, on which a light was kept burn ing for the direction of mariners. The next care of the onqueror, after announcing, by letters, all these ex ploits to the senate, was to make arrangements for his triumph, which he resolved should be very magnificent. Great numbers of Gauls, the tallest that could be found, were engaged for moving in the character of German aptives in the procession. These were compelled to (4) e their hair of a red colour, to assume various uncouth dresses, and to pronounce occasionally sonic hard words, resembling German and other savage languages.
These childish follies were succeeded by a design of a more serious nature. Recollecting- that some legions had once mutinied against his father, Caligula resolved, like a strict disciplinarian, now to decimate them. With this view, he summoned them to appear before hint without their arms, while his cavalry was observed ready to surround them ; but the legions suspecting some trea chery, put themselves in a posture of defence; upon which the tyrant fled to Rome, to wreak his vengeance on the worthless senate.
The public patience began now to be nearly exhaust ed ; plots and conspiracies began to be talked of, and a formidable combination, headed by Lentulus Getulicus and Marcus Lepidus, were actually discovered. Many were the deaths which this conspiracy occasioned. Caligula now kept regular lists of those intended for de struction, and seems to have meditated the horrible de sign of cutting off the whole senate, with a great pro portion of the principal knights. His odious career, however, was now drawing to a close. Cassius Chxrea, a brave officer, but unfortunate in having a very effemi nate voice, being ridiculed on this account by Caligula. and exposed by his indecent jests to the derision of others, resolved to rid the world of the monster ; and many other Romans, exasperated in like manner by in sult and oppression, joined him in the project. After a variety of disappointments and narrow escapes, the con spirators at last found an opportunity of executing their design, amid the confusion of a festival. While the em peror was passing from the theatre to the palace, during the celebration of the games in honour of Augustus, Chxrea gave him a wound in the neck, and the other conspirators rushing upon him at once, dispatched him by repeated blows, none offering to assist him. His carcase v as allowed to remain on the spot where it fell till night, when either his wife or Agrippa employed some person to remove it, and committed it half burnt to the earth. Not content with his own death, the con spirators resolved to exterminate his whole family, and accordingly one of their party, that very night, put to death his wife Cmsonia, and his infant daughter, who is said to have already manifested the ferocious disposition of her father.