Hence it would appear that he was aware of his own
ferocity, and treated it as a jest. The levity, indeed, which he mingled
with his worst and most inhuman acts, and the slightness of the occasions
upon which he delighted to hang his most memorable atrocities, aggravated
their impression at the time, and must have contributed greatly to sharpen
the sword of vengeance. His palace happened to be contiguous to the
circus. Some seats, it seems, were open indiscriminately to the public;
consequently, the only way in which they could be appropriated, was by
taking possession of them as early as the midnight preceding any great
exhibitions. Once, when it happened that his sleep was disturbed by such
an occasion, he sent in soldiers to eject them; and with orders so
rigorous, as it appeared by the event, that in this singular tumult,
twenty Roman knights, and as many mothers of families, were cudgelled to
death upon the spot, to say nothing of what the reporter calls "innumeram
turbam ceteram."
But this is a trifle to another anecdote reported by the same authority:--
On some occasion it happened that a dearth prevailed, either generally of
cattle, or of such cattle as were used for feeding the wild beasts
reserved for the bloody exhibitions of the amphitheatre.
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