[Footnote: No fiction of romance presents so
awful a picture of the ideal tyrant as that of Caligula by Suetonius. His
palace--radiant with purple and gold, but murder every where lurking
beneath flowers; his smiles and echoing laughter--masking (yet hardly
meant to mask) his foul treachery of heart; his hideous and tumultuous
dreams--his baffled sleep--and his sleepless nights--compose the picture
of an AEschylus. What a master's sketch lies in these few lines:
"Incitabatur insomnio maxime; neque enim plus tribus horis nocturnis
quiescebat; ac ne his placida quiete, at pavida miris rerum imaginibus: ut
qui inter ceteras pelagi quondam speciem colloquentem secum videre visus
sit. Ideoque magna parte noctis, vigilse cubandique tsedio, nunc toro
residens, nunc per longissimas porticus vagus, invocare identidem atque
exspectare lucem consueverat:"--i. e., But, above all, he was tormented
with nervous irritation, by sleeplessness; for he enjoyed not more than
three hours of nocturnal repose; nor these even in pure untroubled rest,
but agitated by phantasmata of portentous augury; as, for example, upon
one occasion he fancied that he saw the sea, under some definite
impersonation, conversing with himself.
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