four hundred
million of our money, was spent. Caligula had achieved the impossible;
he was a bankrupt god, an emperor without a copper. But the very
splendor of that triumph demanded a climax. If Caligula hesitated, no
one knew it. On the morrow the palace of the Caesars was turned into a
lupanar, a little larger, a little handsomer than the others, but still
a brothel, one of which the inmates were matrons of Rome and the keeper
Jupiter Latialis.

After that, seemingly, there was nothing save apotheosis. But Caligula,
in the nick of time, remembered the ocean. At the head of an army he
crossed Gaul, attacked it, and returned refreshed. Decidedly he had not
exhausted everything yet. He recalled Tiberius' policy, and abruptly
the world was filled again with accusers and accused. Gold poured in on
him, the earth paid him tribute. In a vast hall he danced naked on the
wealth of nations. Once more he was rich, richer than ever; there were
still illusions to be looted, other dreams to be pierced; yet, even as
he mused, conspirators were abroad. He loosed his pretorians. "Had Rome
but one head!" he muttered. "Let them FEEL themselves die," he cried to
his officers. "Let me be hated, but let me be feared."

One day, as he was returning from the theatre, the dagger did its usual
work. Rome had lost a genius; in his place there came an ass.

There is a verse in Greek to the effect that the blessed have children
in three months. Livia and Augustus were blessed in this pleasant
fashion. Three months after their marriage a child was born--a miracle
which surprised no one aware of their previous intimacy. The child
became a man, and the father of Claud, an imbecile whom the pretorians,
after Caligula's death, found in a closet, shaking with fright, and
whom for their own protection they made emperor in his stead.

Caligula had been frankly adored; there was in him an originality, and
with it a grandeur and a mad magnificence that enthralled. Then, too,
he was young, and at his hours what the French call charmeur. If at
times he frightened, always he dazzled. Of course he was adored; the
prodigal emperors always were; so were their successors, the wicked
popes. Man was still too near to nature to be aware of shame, and
infantile enough to care to be surprised. In that was Caligula's charm;
he petted his people and surprised them too. Claud wearied. Between
them they assimilate every contradiction, and in their incoherences
expla