acles of gladiators, sometimes, when
the sun was violently hot, he would order the curtains, which covered the
amphitheatre, to be drawn aside [427], and forbad any person to be let
out; withdrawing at the same time the usual apparatus for the
entertainment, and presenting wild beasts almost pined to death, the most
sorry gladiators, decrepit with age, and fit only to work the machinery,
and decent house-keepers, who were remarkable for some bodily infirmity.
Sometimes shutting up the public granaries, he would oblige the people to
starve for a while.

XXVII. He evinced the savage barbarity of his temper chiefly by the
following indications. When flesh was only to be had at a high price for
feeding his wild beasts reserved for the spectacles, he ordered that
criminals should be given them (271) to be devoured; and upon inspecting
them in a row, while he stood in the middle of the portico, without
troubling himself to examine their cases he ordered them to be dragged
away, from "bald-pate to bald-pate." [428] Of one person who had made a
vow for his recovery to combat with a gladiator, he exacted its
performance; nor would he allow him to desist until he came off
conqueror, and after many entreaties. Another, who had vowed to give his
life for the same cause, having shrunk from the sacrifice, he delivered,
adorned as a victim, with garlands and fillets, to boys, who were to
drive him through the streets, calling on him to fulfil his vow, until he
was thrown headlong from the ramparts. After disfiguring many persons of
honourable rank, by branding them in the face with hot irons, he
condemned them to the mines, to work in repairing the high-ways, or to
fight with wild beasts; or tying them by the neck and heels, in the
manner of beasts carried to slaughter, would shut them up in cages, or
saw them asunder. Nor were these severities merely inflicted for crimes
of great enormity, but for making remarks on his public games, or for not
having sworn by the Genius of the emperor. He compelled parents to be
present at the execution of their sons; and to one who excused himself on
account of indisposition, he sent his own litter. Another he invited to
his table immediately after he had witnessed the spectacle, and coolly
challenged him to jest and be merry. He ordered the overseer of the
spectacles and wild beasts to be scourged in fetters, during several days
successively, in his own presence, and did not put him to deat