How to Be a Bad Emperor by Suetonius

Author:Suetonius
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2019-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

50. His stature was tall, his coloring pale, and his body large, except that his neck and legs were very thin. He had hollow temples and eyes, and a wide, grim brow. On his head he had little hair, on his crown none, but otherwise he was hirsute. It was, therefore, considered a fatal crime to look down on him from a superior height as he walked by or for any reason whatsoever to speak of a goat. His countenance, naturally scary and hideous, he purposely made more awful; working with a mirror, he contorted his features to cause complete terror and fright.

(2) Neither his physical nor mental health was good. As a boy, he suffered from epilepsy. When he reached manhood, he was able to put up with hardships fairly well; sometimes, though, he would suddenly feel faint and would barely be able to walk, stand, collect his thoughts, and support his weight. He himself was aware of his mental illness and he sometimes thought of withdrawing to cure his head. He is believed to have been given a love potion by Caesonia which actually drove him mad.

(3) He was especially disturbed by insomnia. He could rest for no more than three hours at night, nor was it a calm rest but a disturbing one, full of strange visions. He once imagined, for example, that the ocean was talking to him. And so, weary of lying awake, for much of the night he would now sit up in his bed, now wander through long corridors, again and again calling on dawn and waiting for it to come.

51. I feel fully justified in attributing to mental illness two very different faults in the same person: overwhelming confidence and, on the other hand, excessive fear. For although he claimed to despise the gods, at the smallest burst of thunder and clap of lightning he would shut his eyes and cover his head, and, if it was bigger than that, he would jump out of the covers and hide underneath his bed. During his trip to Sicily, although he poked a great deal of fun at the wonders there, he suddenly fled from Messana, at night, terrified by the smoke and the rumbling coming out of the top of Etna.

(2) Likewise, he made the biggest threats again the barbarians—yet when he was traveling in a chariot across the Rhine in a narrow pass with soldiers all around, and somebody said that there would be great trouble if the enemy appeared anywhere, Caligula immediately mounted a horse. He swiftly returned to the bridges, and, when he saw that they were packed with porters and baggage, in frustration at the delay he had himself passed by hand over the men’s heads.

(3) At a later time, when a rebellion in Germany was reported, he started preparing to escape and was gathering a fleet for the purpose. The only thing that calmed him down was the thought that at least the overseas provinces would remain, if

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