But before that golden time comes heads must roll along the floor of this House and blood spurt up to the beams. A wild five minutes that will be." If the thousand years of peace had come first, and then the wild five minutes, we should have preferred it.
The plot was formed by Cassius Chaerea. He was an old-fashioned soldier, accustomed to blind obedience to the orders of his superiors. Things have to be extraordinarily bad before a man of this stamp can think of plotting against the life of his Commander-in-Chief, to whom he has sworn allegiance in the most solemn terms imaginable.
Caligula had treated Cassius extremely badly. He had definitely promised him the command of the Guards and then without a word of explanation or apology had given it to a captain of short service and no military distinction as a reward for a remarkable drinking feat at the Palace: he had volunteered to drain a three-gallon jar of wine without removing it from his lips, and had really done so--I was watching--and kept the wine down into the bargain. Caligula had also made this man a senator. And Caligula employed Cassius on all his most unpleasant errands and tasks--collection of taxes that were not really due, the seizure of property for offences never committed, the execution of innocent men. Recently he had made him torture a beautiful girl, well born too, called Quintilia. The story was as follows. Several young men had wanted to marry her, but the one whom her guardian had proposed, a member of the Scouts, she did not like at all. She begged him to let her choose one of the others; he consented, and the day for the marriage was fixed. The rejected Scout went to Caligula and brought an accusation against his rival, saying that he had blasphemed, speaking of his August Sovereign as "that bald-headed madame". He cited Quintilia as a witness.
Quintilia and her betrothed were brought before Caligula. Both denied the charge.
Both were sentenced to the rack. Cassius' face revealed his disgust, for only slaves could legally be put to torture. So Caligula ordered him to supervise Quintilia's racking and turn the screws with his own hands. Quintilia did not utter a word or a cry throughout her ordeal and afterwards said to Cassius, who was so affected that he was weeping, "Poor Colonel, I bear you no grudge. Sometimes it must be hard to obey orders."
Cassius said bitterly: "I wish I had died that day with Varus in the Teutoburger Forest."
She was taken again into Caligula's presence and Cassius reported that she had made no confession and not allowed a cry to escape her. Caesonia said to Caligula, "That was because she was in love with the man. Love conquers all. You might cut her to pieces but she would never betray him."
Caligula said: "And would you too be so gloriously brave on my account, Caesonia?"
"You know that I would," she said.
So Quintilia's betrothed was not tortured but given a free pardon, and Quintilia was awarded a dowry of eight thousand gold pieces from the estate of the Scout, who was executed for perjury. But Caligula heard that Cassius had wept during Quintilia's torture and jeered at him for an old cry-baby. "Cry-baby" was not the worst he found.
He pretended that Cassius was an effeminate old pathic, and was always making dirty jokes about him to the other Guards officers, who were obliged to laugh heartily at them. Cassius used to come to Caligula for the watchword every day at noon. It had always been "Rome" or "Augustus" or "Jove" or "Victory" or something of the sort; but now to annoy Cassius, Caligula would give him absurd words like "Stay-laces" or "Lots of Love" or "Curling irons" [4"] or "Kiss me.
Sergeant," and Cassius had to take them back to his brother-officers and stand their chaff. He decided to kill Caligula.
Caligula was madder than ever. He came into my room one day and said without any introductory remark: "I shall have three Imperial cities, and Rome won't be one of them.
I shall have my city on the Alps, and I shall rebuild Rome at Antium because that's where I was bom and deserves the honour, and because it's on the sea, and then I shall have Alexandria in case the Germans capture the other two.
Alexandria is a very cultivated place."
"Yes, God," I said humbly.
He then suddenly remembered that he had been called a bald-headed madame--his hair was certainly very thin on top now--and shouted out, "How dare you go about with a great ugly bush of hair in my presence? It's blasphemy."
He turned to his German guard, "Cut his head off!"
Once more I thought I was done for. But I had the presence of mind to say sharply to the Guard who was running at me with his sword, "What are you doing, idiot? The God didn't say 'head', he said 'hair'! Run off and fetch the shears at once!" Caligula was taken aback and perhaps really thought that he had said
"hair". He allowed the German to fetch the shears. My crown was shorn clean. I asked permission to dedicate the clippings to his Deity and he graciously gave consent. So now he had everyone in the Palace shorn, except the Germans. When it came to Cassius' turn Caligula said, "Oh, what a pity! Those darling little ringlets that the Sergeant loves so much!"
That evening Cassius met Lesbia's husband. He had been Ganymede's best friend and from something that Caligula had said that morning was not likely to live much longer. He said, "Good evening Cassius Chasrea, my friend.
What's
the
watchword
to-day?"
Cassius had never been called "my friend" before by Lesbia's husband and looked intently at him.
Lesbia's husband--his name was Marcus Vinicius--said again, "Cassius, we have much in common and when I call you 'friend', I mean it. What's the watchword?"
Cassius answered, "The watchword to-night is 'Little Ringlets'. But, my friend Marcus Vinicius, if I may indeed call you friend, give me the watchword
'Liberty' and my sword is at your service."
Vinicius embraced him. "We are not the only two who are ready to strike for Liberty. The Tiger is also with me."
'The Tiger"--his real name was Cornelius Sabinus--was another Guards colonel, who relieved Cassius whenever he went off duty.
The great Palatine Festival started the next day. This festival in honour of Augustus had been instituted by Livia at the beginning of Tiberius' monarchy and was held annually in the Southern Court of the Old Palace.
AJ] .41] It began with sacrifices to Augustus and a symbolic procession, and continued for three days with theatrical pieces, dancing, singing, juggling and the like. Wooden stands were erected with seating for sixty thousand people.
When the festival ended the stands were taken down and stored away until the following year. This year Caligula had prolonged the three days to eight, interspersing the performances with chariot-races in the Circus and sham naval-fights in the Basin. He wanted to be continuously amused until the day he sailed for Alexandria, which was to be the twenty-fifth of January. For he was going to Egypt to see the sights, to raise money by immovable rigour and the same sort of trickery he had used in France, to make plans for the rebuilding of Alexandria and, lastly, so he boasted, to put a new head on the Sphinx.
The Festival started. Caligula sacrificed to Augustus, but in a somewhat perfunctory and disdainful way--like a master who in some emergency or other has to perform some menial service for one of his slaves. When this was over he proclaimed that if any citizen present asked a boon that it was in his power to grant he would graciously grant it. He had been angry with the people lately for their lack of enthusiasm at the last wild-beast show and had punished them by shutting the city granaries for ten days; but perhaps he had forgiven them now because he had just scattered largesse from the Palace roof. So a glad shout went up, "More bread, less taxes, Caesar! More bread, less taxes!"