The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius — Caligula, Person and madness

He was tall, of a pale complexion, ill-shaped, his neck and legs very slender, his eyes and temples hollow, his brows broad and knit, his hair thin, and the crown of the head bald. The other parts of his body were much covered with hair. On this account it was reckoned a capital crime for any person to look down from above as he was passing by, or so much as to name a goat. His countenance, which was naturally hideous and frightful, he purposely rendered more so, forming it before a mirror into the most horrible contortions. ^50.2He was crazy both in body and mind, being subject, when a boy, to the falling sickness, When he arrived at the age of man hood he endured fatigue tolerably well; but still, occasionally, he was liable to a faintness, during which he remained incapable of any effort. He was not insensible of the disorder of his mind, and sometimes had thoughts of retiring to clear his brain. It is believed that his wife Caesonia administered to him a love potion which threw him into a frenzy. ^50.3What most of all disordered him was want of sleep, for he seldom had more than three or four hours rest in a night; and even then his sleep was not sound, but disturbed by strange dreams, fancying, among other things, that a form representing the ocean spoke to him. Being, therefore, often weary with lying awake so long, sometimes he sat up in his bed, at others, walked in the longest porticos about the house, and from time to time invoked and looked out for the approach of day.

^51.1To this crazy constitution of his mind may, I think, very justly be ascribed two faults which he had of a nature directly repugnant one to the other, namely, an excessive confidence and the most abject timidity. For he, who affected so much to despise the gods, was ready to shut his eyes and wrap up his head in his cloak at the slightest storm of thunder and lightning; and if it was violent he got up and hid himself under his bed. In his visit to Sicily, after ridiculing many strange objects which that country affords, he ran away suddenly in the night from Messini, terrified by the smoke and rumbling at the summit of Mount AEtna. ^51.2And though in words he was very valiant against the barbarians, yet upon passing a narrow defile in Germany in his light car, surrounded by a strong body of his troops, some one happening to say, "There would be no small consternation amongst us if an enemy were to appear," he immediately mounted his horse and rode towards the bridge in great haste; but finding them blocked up with camp-followers and baggage-wagons, he was in such a hurry that he caused himself to be carried in men's hands over the heads of the crowd. ^51.3Soon afterwards, upon hearing that the Germans were again in rebellion, he prepared to quit Rome and equipped a fleet, comforting himself with this consideration, that if the enemy should prove victorious and possess themselves of the heights of the Alps as the Cimbri had done, or of the city, as the Senones formerly did, he should still have in reserve the transmarine provinces. Hence it was, I suppose, that it occurred to his assassins to invent the story intended to pacify the troops who mutinied at his death, that he had laid violent hands upon himself in a fit of terror occasioned by the news brought him of the defeat of his army.

⁵²In the fashion of his clothes, shoes, and all the rest of his dress, he did not wear what was either national, or properly civic, or peculiar to the male sex, or appropriate to mere mortals. He often appeared abroad in a short coat of stout cloth, richly embroidered and blazing with jewels, in a tunic with sleeves, and with bracelets upon his arms; sometimes all in silks and habited like a woman; at other times in the crepide or buskins; sometimes in the sort of shoes used by the lightarmed soldiers, or in the sock used by women, and commonly with a golden beard fixed to his chin, holding in his hand a thunderbolt, a trident, or a caduceus, marks of distinction belonging to the gods only. Sometimes, too, he appeared in the habit of Venus. He wore very commonly the triumphal ornaments, even before his expedition, and sometimes the breast-plate of Alexander the Great, taken out of his coffin.

^53.1With regard to the liberal sciences, he was little conversant in philology, but applied himself with assiduity to the study of eloquence, being indeed in point of enunciation tolerably elegant and ready; and in his perorations, when he was moved to anger, there was an abundant flow of words and periods. In speaking, his action was vehement, and his voice so strong, that he was heard at a great distance. ^53.2When winding up an harangue, he threatened to draw " the sword of his lucubration," holding a loose and smooth style in such contempt, that he said Seneca, who was then much admired, "wrote only detached essays," and that "his language was nothing but sand without lime." He often wrote answers to the speeches of successful orators; and employed himself in composing accusations or vindications of eminent persons, who were impeached before the senate; and gave his vote for or against the party accused, according to his success in speaking, inviting the equestrian order, by proclamation, to hear him.

^54.1He also zealously applied himself to the practice of several other arts of different kinds, such as fencing, charioteering, singing, and dancing. In the first of these, he practiced with the weapons used in war; and drove the chariot in circuses built in several places. He was so extremely fond of singing and dancing, that he could not refrain in the theatre from singing with the tragedians, and imitating the gestures of the actors, either by way of applause or correction. ^54.2A night exhibition which he had ordered the day he was slain, was thought to be intended for no other reason, than to take the opportunity afforded by the licentiousness of the season, to make his first appearance upon the stage. Sometimes, also, he danced in the night. Summoning once to the palatium, in the second watch of the night, three men of consular rank, who feared the words of the message, he placed them on the proscenium of the stage, and then suddenly came bursting out, with a loud noise of flutes and castanets, dressed in a mantle and tunic reaching down to his heels. Having danced out a song, he retired. Yet he who had acquired such dexterity in other exercises, never learnt to swim.

^55.1Those for whom he once conceived a regard, he favoured even to madness. He used to kiss Mnester, the pantomimic actor, publicly in the theatre; and if any person made the least noise while he was dancing, he would order him to be dragged from his seat, and scourged him with his own hand. A Roman knight once making some bustle, he sent him, by a centurion, an order to depart forthwith for Ostia, and carry a letter from him to king Ptolemy in Mauritania. The letter was comprised in these words: "Do neither good nor harm to the bearer." ^55.2He made some gladiators captains of his German guards. He deprived the gladiators called Mirmillones of some of their arms. One Columbus coming off with victory in a combat, but being slightly wounded, he ordered some poison to be infused in the wound, which he thence called Columbinum. For thus it was certainly named with his own hand in a list of other poisons. He was so extravagantly fond of the party of charioteers whose colours were green, that he supped and lodged for some time constantly in the stable where their horses were kept. At a certain revel, he made a present of two millions of sesterces to one Cythicus, a driver of a chariot. ^55.3The day before the Circensian games, he used to send his soldiers to enjoin silence in the neighbourhood, that the repose of his horse Incitatus, might not be disturbed. For this favourite animal, besides a marble stable, an ivory manger, purple housings, and a jewelled frontlet, he appointed a house, with a retinue of slaves, and fine furniture, for the reception of such as were invited in the horse's name to sup with him. It is even said that he intended to make him consul.