rthquake. The reign of Augustus had been marked by the defeat of
Varus. Under Tiberius a falling amphitheatre had killed a multitude.
Caligula felt that through sheer felicity his own reign might be
forgot. A famine, a pest, an absolute defeat, a terrific
conflagration--any prodigious calamity that should sweep millions away
and stamp his own memory immutably on the chronicles of time, how
desirable it were! But there was nothing. The crops had never been more
abundant; apart from the arenas and the prisons, the health of the
empire was excellent; on the frontiers not so much as the rumor of an
insurrection could be heard, and Nero was yet to come.

Perplexed, Caligula reflected, and presently from Baiae to Puzzoli,
over the waters of the bay, he galloped on horseback, the cuirass of
Alexander glittering on his breast. The intervening miles had been
spanned by a bridge of ships and on them a road had been built, one of
those roads for which the Romans were famous, a road like the Appian
Way, in earth and stone, bordered by inns, by pink arcades, green
retreats, forest reaches, the murmur of trickling streams. So many
ships were anchored there that through the unrepleted granaries the
fear of famine stalked. Caligula, meanwhile, his guests behind him,
made cavalry charges across the sea, or in a circus-chariot held the
ribbons, while four white horses, maddened by swaying lights, bore him
to the other shore. At night the entire coast was illuminated; the
bridge was one great festival, brilliant but brief. Caligula had
wearied of it all. At a signal the multitude of guests he had assembled
there were tossed into the sea.

By way of a souvenir, Tiberius, whom he murdered, had left him the
immensity of his treasure. "I must be economical or Caesar," Caligula
reflected, and tipped a coachman a million, rained on the people a hail
of coin, bathed in essences, set before his guests loaves of silver,
gold omelettes, sausages of gems; sailed to the hum of harps on a ship
that had porticoes, gardens, baths, bowers, spangled sails and a
jewelled prow; removed a mountain, and put a palace where it had been;
filled in a valley and erected a temple on the top; supplied a horse
with a marble home, with ivory stalls, with furniture and slaves;
contemplated making him consul; made him a host instead, one that in
his own equine name invited the fashion of Rome to sup with Incitatus.

In one year Tiberius' legacy, a sum that amounted to