Commentary Upon Acts, Part 3 – Title page 8
PART III. The Roman Story againe.
Sect. Caius the new God, little better then a Devill.
AFter the sight of the goodly Godship of the Empeperour shewed in little a little before, let us take him now as hee is indeed, little better then a Devill. A man, the shame and confusion of men, if hee may bee called a man, and so far beyond the vices of any that had gone before, that hee seemed to live to no other purpose then to shew, what the utmost extent of vitiousnesse could doe in the utmost height of power and libertie. You would wonder, but that his defiance of the Gods doth lessen that wonder, how scornefully and despitefully hee used the memory and persons of his ancestors, sisters, kindred and best friends: Hee charged Augustus with incest, Livia with base birth, Tiberius but with what hee deserved, his owne mother with bastardize, and whosoever was most neere and most honour to him, with some ignominy and reproach or other. But such words were curtesies in comparison of his actions. All his sisters hee first deflowred, and then prostituted them to others being so deflowred. But his darling sister Drusilla, sped somewhat better, if that better were not as bad. To her hee continued his affection, of love or lust whether you will, while shee continued in life, and when shee was dead, hee made her the meanes of his profit as hee had done before of his pleasure; shee was the wife of M. Lapidus, but still the whore of her brother Caius, and after her death hee made her a Goddesse, whom all her life long hee had made his harlot. Altars, statues, vowes, festivals were ordained for her, and Livius Geminius played the knight o'th post, and swore devoutly that hee saw her ascend to heaven, and conversing with the Gods. Such a Deitie had the Romans never knowne before, but onelyonly her brother, and shee troubled them as much in her heaven, as hee did on the earth. For now was it impossible for any man so to behave himselfe, but hee was intrapped on the one hand or the other, about this new found Goddesse. To mourne for her death, it was criminall, because shee was a Deity; and to rejoyce for her Deity was capitall, because shee was dead, so that betwixt this Dilemma, of pietie, teares and devotion, that man was very wary indeed that suffered not inhumanity and violence. For to laugh, feast, bath, sing or dance was mortall, because the Emperours sister and darling was dead, and yet to mourne, or sorrow for her death was as deadly, because shee was immortall. This last stale did hee make of this his deceased sister, when shee would now serve him for no other use, that both sorrow for her mortalitie, and joy for her being immortall did alike bring in money to his treasures, (which were now almost drained of his many millions) either by bribes for the saving of the life of some, or by confiscation upon the Death of others.
But how must hee doe now for another Paramour after his deare Drusilla? Why, that needeth not to breed any great difficultie, when his unbridled lust is not very curious of his choice, and his as unbridled power might choose as it list. Hee first married Lollia Paullina the wife of C. Memmius, sending for her from another country where her husband was Generall of the Army, and all the reason of this his choice was, because hee was told that her grandmother was an exceeding great beauty; but hee soone put her away againe, and forbad that any should touch her for ever after him. Next came Caeso…ia into his affections, and there continued; a mother of three children, and of more age then beauty, but of a lasciviousnesse and beastiality so well befitting his, that now hee had met with his match, and it was pitie they should have missed meeting: Hee would sometimes, shew her to the Souldiers, in armor, and sometimes to his friends starke naked, transforming her by these vicissitudes into two extreames equally unbefitting her sex, to a man and to a beast. By her hee had a daughter whom hee named Iulia Drusilla, and whom hee brought to the shrines of all the Goddesses in Rome, and at last committed to the lap of Minerva for her tutorage and education. But this his behaviour is nothing in comparison of that which followed. Hee slew divers of the Senate, and yet afterward cited them to appeare as if they had been alive, and in the end pretended that they had died by their owne hands, others came off with a scourging, and so they escaped with life, but hee caused the Souldiers to tread on them as they lay, and as they whipped them that they might have them at the more command: And thus hee used some of all rankes and … Being disturbed at midnight one night by the noyse of same that were getting places in the Circus against the next day, hee fell upon them with Clubs and slew twenty kn…ghts, as many matrons, and an infinite company of the … people. Hee threw a great multitude of old men and decrepit housholders to the wild beasts, that hee might … such unserviceable men, as hee thought them, out of the way, and hee caused the granaries to bee often shut up, that they that had escaped the wild beasts, might perish with famine▪ Hee used to fatten the beasts that hee desired to have fed with the inhumane diet of humane bodies yet alive, that thereby hee might save other charges: Many men hee first m…ngled and maimed, and then condemned to the mines, or to the wild beasts, or to little-ease-prison…, and some he caused to bee sawed in sunder. Hee forced parents to bee present at the execution of their children: and for one that could not come to such a miserable spectacle hee sent a letter; and another hee invited to a feast, after hee had caused him to bee a spectator of the execution of his owne sonne. One of the masters of his games that had offended him, he kept in chaines, and caused him to bee beaten every day before his face, till the offensivenesse and stench of his wounded braine obtained his death: A Roman Knight being cast by him to the wild beasts, and crying out of the injustice done to him, hee caused to bee taken out againe, and his tongue to bee cut out, and then hee cast him to them againe. Hee caused all the banished men that were in the Ilands about Italy to bee slaine at once, because having asked one that was banished in the time of Tiberius, what hee did all the time of his exile, and hee answered, that hee prayed continually for the death of Tiberius and the succession of Caius, hee thought that all the present exiles prayed for his death likewise. Every tenth day hee caused an execution to bee had of those that were condemned, boasting and vaunting that hee scoured the prisons: And ever as any one came to suffer, hee commanded the executioners to end him with such deliberate tortures, as that hee should bee sure to feele himselfe to die: involving many deaths in one, and causing men that were to die, to live even in death, that they might die with the more paine.
THE CHRISTIAN HISTORY, THE JEWISH, and the ROMAN, FOR The Yeare of Christ 40. And of Caius Caligula 3. Being the Yeare of the World 3967. And of the City of Rome, 792. Consuls
Caius Caesar II.
L. Apronius, Celianus or Cestianus.
London, Printed by R. C. for Andrew Crooke, 1645.