89],
to secure him against all danger. Then, at last, they began to relent,
and, stopping the chariot in which he was conveyed, earnestly deprecated
the odium to which such a proceeding would expose them.

X. He likewise attended his father in his expedition to Syria. After
his return, he lived first with his mother, and, when she was banished,
with his great-grandmother, Livia Augusta, in praise of whom, after her
decease, though then only a boy, he pronounced a funeral oration in the
Rostra. He was then transferred to the family of his grandmother,
Antonia, and afterwards, in the twentieth year of his age, being called
by Tiberius to Capri, he in one and the same day assumed the manly habit,
and shaved his beard, but without receiving any of the honours which had
been paid to his brothers on a similar (257) occasion. While he remained
in that island, many insidious artifices were practised, to extort from
him complaints against Tiberius, but by his circumspection he avoided
falling into the snare [390]. He affected to take no more notice of the
ill-treatment of his relations, than if nothing had befallen them. With
regard to his own sufferings, he seemed utterly insensible of them, and
behaved with such obsequiousness to his grandfather [391] and all about
him, that it was justly said of him, "There never was a better servant,
nor a worse master."

XI. But he could not even then conceal his natural disposition to
cruelty and lewdness. He delighted in witnessing the infliction of
punishments, and frequented taverns and bawdy-houses in the night-time,
disguised in a periwig and a long coat; and was passionately addicted to
the theatrical arts of singing and dancing. All these levities Tiberius
readily connived at, in hopes that they might perhaps correct the
roughness of his temper, which the sagacious old man so well understood,
that he often said, "That Caius was destined to be the ruin of himself
and all mankind; and that he was rearing a hydra [392] for the people of
Rome, and a Phaeton for all the world." [393]

XII. Not long afterwards, he married Junia Claudilla, the daughter of
Marcus Silanus, a man of the highest rank. Being then chosen augur in
the room of his brother Drusus, before he could be inaugurated he was
advanced to the pontificate, with no small commendation of his dutiful
behaviour, and great capacity. The situation of the court likewise was
at this time favourable to his fortunes, as