Legatio Ad Gaium

For it is said that the wretched man was compelled to kill himself with his own hand; and his wife, too, experienced the same misery, even though she indeed had at one time been believed to be on the most intimate terms of familiarity with Caius; but they say that none of the allurements of love are

But after Macro and all his house had been sacrificed, Caius then began to design a third more grievous piece of treachery still. His father-in-law had been Marcus Silanus, a man full of wisdom, and very illustrious by birth. He, after his daughter had died by an early death, still was very attentive and affectionate to Caius, showing all imaginable regard for him, not so much like a father-in-law as like an actual father, and he hoped that he should find that Caius also entertained equal good will towards him, transforming himself according to the principles of equality from a son-in-law into a son; but he was, without knowing it, cherishing mistaken opinions, and deluding himself,

for he was continually uttering affectionate speeches, keeping back nothing which could tend to the amelioration and improvement of Caius’s disposition and way of life and mode of government, speaking with all freedom, and looking upon his own surpassing nobility of birth and nearness of connexion by marriage as circumstances which gave him grounds for great familiarity and openness, for his daughter had been dead only a very short time, so that the laws and bonds which bind such kinsmen were scarcely destroyed, and one may almost say were still quivering with life, some relics of the breath of vitality being still left, as it were, and remaining warm in the body.

But Caius, looking upon every admonition as an insult, because he fancied that he himself was the wisest and most virtuous of all men, and moreover the most valorous and the most just, hated all who ventured to offer him instruction more than even his avowed enemies.

Therefore, looking on Silanus as a bore, who only wished to check the impetuosity and indulgence of his appetites, and discarding all recollection of and regard for his deceased wife, he treacherously put her father to death, who was also his own father-in-law.

And by this time the matter began to be widely talked about in consequence of the continual deaths of so many eminent men, so that now these things began to be spoken of in every mouth as intolerable infamy and wickedness; not indeed openly, from fear, but gently and under the breath, in whispers;

and then again, by a sudden change (for the

"The unchangeable law of nature has ordained that there should be no partnership in sovereign power, and it has established by its own unalterable principles what this man must inevitably have suffered at the hands of his more powerful co-heir. The one who was the more powerful has chastised the other. This is not murder. Perhaps, indeed, the putting that youth to death was done providentially for the advantage of the whole human race, since if one portion had been assigned as subjects to the one, and another portion to the other, there would have arisen troubles and confusion, and civil and foreign war. And what is better than peace? and peace is caused by good government on sound principles. And no government can be good but that which is free from all contentions and from all disputes, and then everything else is made right by it."

And in reference to the case of Macro, they said, "The man was puffed up with pride in an immoderate degree; he had no idea of that great lesson which came from Delphi, 'know thyself.' And they say that knowledge is the cause of happiness, and that ignorance is the parent of unhappiness. What could have possessed him to make such an alteration and change in their relative positions as to thrust himself, who was a subject, into the rank of a governor, and to depress Caius, who was the emperor, into the place of a subject? For it is the part of a ruler to command, and that was what Macro did; but it is the duty of a subject to obey, and that was what he considered that Caius was to submit to."

For these inconsiderate men, without giving themselves the trouble of inquiring into the truth, called the recommendations of Macro commands, and called him who gave advice a governor, out of ignorance and insensibility, or else out of flattery, suppressing the truth and giving a false colouring to the nature of both names and things.

And in reference to Silanus they said, "Silanus was a most

for intermarriages are the bonds which unite families between which there is no kindred, changing alienation into near connexion; but when that bond is dissolved, then the union is dissolved likewise, especially when it is dissolved by a circumstance which cannot be altered or remedied, namely, by the death of the woman who was given in marriage into another family."

Such conversations as these were held in every company, the speakers being wholly influenced by their wish that the emperor should not appear to be cruel; for as they had hoped that such humanity and gentleness was seated in the soul of Caius as had not existed in either of the previous emperors, they thought it would be a most strange thing if he now made so great and so sudden a change to an entirely contrary disposition.

Having now, then, entirely accomplished the three undertakings above-mentioned, with reference to three most important divisions, two of them belonging to the country, one to the class of counsellors and the other to the knights, and the third affecting his own relations, and considering that now that he had thus put down the mightiest and most powerful of his foes, he must have struck all the rest with the utmost terror, alarming the counsellors by the death of Silanus

(for he was inferior to no one in the senate), and the knights by the execution of Macro (for he, like the leader of a chorus, had long been considered the very first man of the knights for reputation and glory), and all his blood relations by the slaughter of his cousin and joint inheritor of the kingdom, he no longer chose to remain fettered by the ordinary limits of human nature, but aspired to raise himself above them, and desired to be looked upon as a god.

And at the beginning of this insane desire they say that he

Accordingly, having impressed this idea on his mind, like a vain and foolish man as he was, he bore about in himself a fallacious fable and invention as if it had been a most undeniable truth; and after he had once carried his boldness and audacity to such a pitch as to compel the multitude to admit of his most impious deification, he attempted to do other things consistent with and conformable to it, and in this way he advanced up to the highest point by slow degrees as if he were ascending up steps.

For he began at first to liken himself to those beings who are called demigods, such as Bacchus, and Hercules, and the twins of Lacedaemon; turning into utter ridicule Trophonius, and Amphiaraus, and Amphilochus, and others of the same kind, with all their oracles and secret ceremonies, in comparison of his own power.

In the next place, like an actor in a theatre, he was continually wearing different dresses at different times, taking at one time a lion’s skin and a club, both gilded over; being then dressed in the character of Hercules; at another time he would wear a felt hat upon his head, when he was disguised in imitation of the Spartan twins, Castor and Pollux; sometimes he also adorned himself with ivy, and a thyrsus, and skins of fawns, so as to appear in the guise of Bacchus.

And he looked upon himself as being in this respect superior to all of these beings, because each of them while he had his own peculiar honours had no claim to those which belonged to the others, but he in his envious ambition appropriated all the honours of the whole body of demigods at once, or I should rather say, appropriated the demigods themselves; transforming himself not into the triple-bodied Geryon, so as to attract all beholders by the multitude of his bodies; but, what was the most extraordinary thing of all, changing and transforming the essence of one body into every variety of form and