frenzied delight in their slaughter and his never satisfied gazing at the scene of blood.  The same trait of cruelty led him once, when there was a shortage of condemned criminals to be given to the beasts, to order some of the mob that stood near the benches to be seized and thrown to them.  And to prevent the possibility of their making an outcry or attacking him orally he had their tongues cut out first of all.  One of the prominent knights, too, he compelled to fight in single combat on the charge of insult offered to his mother Agrippina, and when the man proved victorious handed him over to the accusers and had him slain.  The same person’s father, though guilty of no wrong, he confined in a cage (as he had confined numerous others), and there put an end to him.—­These contests he at first conducted in the Saepta, after excavating [5] the entire site and filling it with water, to enable him to bring in one ship.  Later he transferred his operations to another place, where he tore down a large number of massive buildings and set up benches.  The theatre of Taurus he held in contempt.  All this behavior, expenditures and murders alike, subjected him to criticism.

He was further blamed for compelling Macro together with Ennia to cause their own death, remembering neither the latter’s affection nor the former’s benefits, which had gained for him among other advantages the sole possession of the empire.  The fact that he had appointed Macro to govern Egypt had not the slightest influence.  He even involved him in a scandal (of which the greatest share belonged to Gaius himself), by bringing against him besides all the rest a complaint that he had played the pander.  Before long many others were condemned and executed, and some were executed prior to their conviction.  Nominally they suffered on account of some wrong done to his parents or his brothers or the rest who had perished with those relatives as an excuse, but really on account of their property.  For the treasury had been exhausted and he had no resources.  Such persons were convicted by witnesses against them and by the documents which he once declared he had burned.  Again, the disease which had attacked him the previous year and the death of his sister Drusilla brought about the ruin of others, since,—­to omit graver cases,—­whoever had entertained or had greeted any one or had bathed on the days in question incurred punishment.

[-11-] The nominal spouse of Drusilla was Marcus Lepidus, at once the favorite and lover of the emperor, but Gaius also treated her as a concubine.  When her death occurred at this time, her husband delivered the eulogy but it was her brother who accorded her a public funeral.  The Pretorians with their commander and the equestrian order by itself ran about the pyre [6] and the boys of noble birth performed the Troy exercise about her tomb; all the honors that had been given to Livia were voted to her, and it was further decreed that she should be declared immortal, that