His parsimony in expenditures of the public
money won him unpopularity with the city mob, but was a blessing to the
provincials to whose welfare Tiberius directed particular attention, while
he vigorously protected them against the oppression of imperial officials.
During his rule the peace of the empire was disturbed only by a brief
rising in Gaul (21 A. D.) and a rather prolonged struggle with Tacfarinas,
a rebellious Berber chieftain, in Numidia (17-24 A. D.).

II. CAIUS CALIGULA, 37-41 A. D.

*Accession.* Tiberius left as his heirs his adoptive grandson Caius, the
sole surviving son of Germanicus, better known by his childhood name of
Caligula, acquired in the camps on the Rhine, and his grandson by birth,
Tiberius Gemellus. Upon Caius, the elder of the two, then twenty-five
years of age, the Senate immediately conferred the powers of the
principate. The resentment of the senators towards his predecessor found
vent in refusing him the posthumous honor of deification. Caius adopted
his cousin, but within a year had him put to death.

*Early months of his rule.* The early months of his rule seemed the dawn
of a new era. The pardoning of political offenders, the banishment of
informers, the reduction of taxes, coupled with lavishness in public
entertainments and donations, all made Gaius popular with the Senate, the
army and the city plebs. However, he was a weakling in body and in mind,
and a serious illness, brought on by his excesses, seems to have left him
mentally deranged.

*Absolutism his ideal.* Reared in the house of Antonia, daughter of Antony
and Octavia, in company with eastern princes of the stamp of Herod
Agrippa, he naturally came to look upon the principate as an autocracy of
the Hellenistic type. In his attempt to carry this conception into effect,
the vein of madness in his character led him to ridiculous extremes. Not
content with claiming deification for himself and his sisters, he built a
lofty bridge connecting the Palatine Hill with the Capitoline, so that he
might communicate with Jupiter, his brother god. He prescribed the
sacrifices to be offered to himself, and was accused of seeking to imitate
the Ptolemaic custom of sister marriage. Thoroughly consistent with
absolutism was his scorn of republican magistracies and disregard of the
rights of the Senate; likewise his attempt to have himself saluted as
_dominus_ or "lord."

*The conflict with the Jews.* His deman