of mind, nor yet again how it could praise him.  For, when anybody bestows great praise or extraordinary honors for a small success or none at all, that person becomes suspected of making a mock and jest of the affair.  Still, for all that, when Gaius entered the City he came very near devoting the whole senate to destruction because it had not voted him divine honors.  But he contented himself with assembling the populace, upon whom he showered from a raised position quantities of silver and gold.  Many perished in the effort to seize it; for, as some say, he had mixed small knife-blades in with the coin.

  As a result of his adulteries he repeatedly received the titles of
  imperator and Germanicus and Britannicus no less than if he had subdued
  Gaul and Britain entire.

Since this was his manner of life, he was destined inevitably to be plotted against.  He was on the lookout for an attack and arrested Anicius Cerealius and his son Sextus Papinius, whom he put to the torture.  And inasmuch as the former would not utter a word, he persuaded Papinius (by promising him safety and immunity) to denounce certain persons (whether truly or falsely); he then straightway put to death both Cerealius and the rest before his very eyes.  There was a Betilienus Bassus whom he had ordered killed, and he compelled Capito, the man’s father, to be present at his son’s execution, though Capito was not guilty of any crime and had received no court summons.  When the father enquired if he would allow him to shut his eyes, Gaius ordered him to be slain likewise.  He, finding himself in danger, pretended to have been one of the plotters and promised that he would disclose the names of all the rest; and he named the companions of Gaius and those who abetted his licentiousness and cruelty.  He would have brought destruction upon many persons, had he not by laying further information against the prefects, and Callistus and Caesonia, aroused distrust.  So he was put to death, but this very act paved the way for the ruin of Gaius.  For the emperor privately summoned the prefects and Callistus and said to them:  “I am but one and you are three; and I am defenceless, whereas you are armed:  hence, if you hate and desire to kill me, slay me at once.”  The general consequences were that he came to regard himself as an object of hatred, and believing that they were vexed at his behavior he harbored suspicion against them and wore a sword at his side when in the City; and to forestall any harmony of action on their part he attempted to embroil them one with another by pretending to make a confidant of each one separately and talking to him about the rest until they obtained a notion of his designs and left him a prey to the conspirators.

The same emperor ordered the senate to convene and affected to grant its members amnesty, saying that there were only a very few against whom he still retained his anger.  This expression doubled