Food could be
had, and perhaps at no very exorbitant price, but on terms somewhat higher
than the ordinary market price. A slight excuse served with Caligula for
acts the most monstrous. Instantly repairing to the public jails, and
causing all the prisoners to pass in review before him (_custodiarum
seriem recognoscens_), he pointed to two bald-headed men, and ordered
that the whole file of intermediate persons should be marched off to the
dens of the wild beasts: "Tell them off," said he, "from the bald man to
the bald man." Yet these were prisoners committed, not for punishment, but
trial. Nor, had it been otherwise, were the charges against them equal,
but running through every gradation of guilt. But the _elogia_ or
records of their commitment, he would not so much as look at. With such
inordinate capacities for cruelty, we cannot wonder that he should in his
common conversation have deplored the tameness and insipidity of his own
times and reign, as likely to be marked by no wide-spreading calamity."
Augustus," said he, "was happy; for in his reign occurred the slaughter of
Varus and his legions.
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