The hot blood which excites, and the adventurous courage which
accompanies, the excesses of sanguinary warfare, presuppose a condition of
the moral nature not to be compared for malignity and baleful tendency to
the cool and cowardly spirit of amateurship, in which the Roman (perhaps
an effeminate Asiatic) sat looking down upon the bravest of men,
(Thracians, or other Europeans,) mangling each other for his recreation.
When, lastly, from such a population, and thus disciplined from his
nursery days, we suppose the case of one individual selected, privileged,
and raised to a conscious irresponsibility, except at the bar of one
extra-judicial tribunal, not easily irritated, and notoriously to be
propitiated by other means than those of upright or impartial conduct, we
lay together the elements of a situation too trying for poor human nature,
and fitted only to the faculties of an angel or a demon; of an angel, if
we suppose him to resist its full temptations; of a demon, if we suppose
him to use its total opportunities. Thus interpreted and solved, Caligula
and Nero become ordinary men.
But, finally, what if, after all, the worst of the Caesars, and those in
particular, were entitled to the benefit of a still shorter and more
conclusive apology? What if, in a true medical sense, they were insane? It
is certain that a vein of madness ran in the family; and anecdotes are
recorded of the three worst, which go far to establish it as a fact, and
others which would imply it as symptoms--preceding or accompanying.
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