The Historians' History of the World 06

The deep gloom which settled upon the face of higher society at Rome during the reign of Tiberius was heightened by its contrast with the frivolous dissipation of the populace, who, though deprived of the glitter of a brilliant court, and surrounded by signs of mourning and humiliation among their natural leaders, not the less abandoned themselves to the sensual enjoyments which alone they relished, and rejoiced in their utter indifference to political principles, to parties, and to men. When Sejanus fell, they clamoured with exultation over the body of the traitor; nevertheless, had the goddess Nursia, says the moralist, but favoured her Etruscan votary; had but the false intriguer circumvented the guileless old man, on the instant they would have been heard proclaiming Sejanus a Cæsar and an Augustus. In the one class was abandonment of public life, shame, despair, and suicide; the intolerable evils of the time drove men not to religious consolations, but to a restless inquiry into the future, or a vain attempt to lull the sense of the present in philosophic apathy: the other rushed headlong, hour by hour, to the baths, shows, and largesses, or shouted at the heels of the idol of the moment, or sighed and perhaps murmured at his loss, and speedily resigned itself to oblivion of the fitful emotion of the day.

We must be careful notwithstanding to observe that both the shame and the degradation were for the most part confined to the city and its vicinity, which were oppressed by the shadow of the imperial despot.f

Caligula (Caius Julius Cæsar Caligula), 37-41 A.D.

All Rome drew a deep breath at the great news. Macro’s adroitness and the devotion of the Romans to the house of Germanicus induced the senate to confer all the imperial prerogatives on the youthful Caligula. Thus began one of the strangest and most terrible episodes in the history of Rome. The dangerous defects and the baleful forces inherent in the system created by the first two emperors were fated to come to light with amazing rapidity in the course of this young Cæsar’s reign; a reign which it is difficult for the historian to consider critically, because one result of the wrath and contempt most justly evoked by his scandalous misrule has been that of many of his sanguinary and foolish deeds no record except a deliberate caricature has come down to us. The fervid enthusiasm with which the capital hailed the son of Germanicus seemed at first justified by the manner in which Caligula exercised the authority which had now devolved upon him.

Impelled by nervous haste and violent passion in all things, whether good or evil, and relying on neither minister nor favourite, he displayed a restless energy of the type natural to a man of but moderate ability who is wholly deficient in administrative training and incapable of exact thought. His delight at the enthusiastic acclamations of the Roman people inspired this singularly organised being with the best of resolutions; he fully intended to make the Romans happy.

Thus he bore himself at first with modesty and good sense, especially in his dealings with the senate. His liberality to the populace and the soldiers, his pious reverence towards the dead, no less than his consideration for the living members of his house, and the pardon of all persons accused of offences of majestas, together with various liberal ordinances, all conspired to produce a strong impression in his favour. But what most roused the enthusiasm of all classes was that, casting aside the niggardly economy of the emperor Tiberius, he shared freely with them all in the festive humour of “games” of every kind.

For eight months he ruled in this fashion, and at the end of that time his unbridled excesses brought on a dangerous malady, from which he recovered much to the hurt of the Roman Empire and his own reputation. Previous to this time he had lived as in a state of perpetual mental intoxication, brought to a climax probably by the fulsome expressions of popular concern during his illness. Whether the latter really had an ill effect upon his mental faculties or not, the madness of which he thenceforth gave manifest proofs is of a different type; a type to which critical students of the history of imperial Rome have given the name of megalomania or Cæsarian madness, and we meet with it in others besides Caligula.