He investigated the cases very carefully, in order that those who had committed crimes should not be released on account of the victims of blackmail, nor yet the latter be ruined on account of the former.  Nearly every day either in company with the entire senate or alone he would sit on a platform trying cases, generally in the Forum, but occasionally elsewhere.  In fact, he renewed the custom of having men sit as his colleagues, which had been abandoned ever since Tiberius withdrew to the island.  Very often he joined the consuls and the praetors and especially those having charge of the finances in their investigations, and some few matters he turned over entirely to the various courts.  He destroyed the poisons (which were found in great variety among the effects of Gaius); and the books of Protogenes (who was put to death) together with the documents which Gaius pretended to have burned but which were actually found in the imperial archives he showed to the senators and gave them to the latter, to the very men who had written them, no less than to those against whom they had been written, to read:  afterward he burned them up.  Yet, when the senate manifested a desire to dishonor Gaius, he personally prevented such a measure from being voted, but on his own responsibility caused all of his predecessor’s images to disappear by night.  Hence the name of Gaius does not occur in the list of emperors whom we mention in oaths and prayers any more than that of Tiberius.  Neither of them, however, suffered any official disgrace.

[-5-] Accordingly, the unjust institutions set up by Gaius and by others on his account Claudius overturned.  To Drusus his father and Antonia his mother he offered horse-races on their birthdays, putting off to different days the festivals which would occur on the same dates, in order that there should not be two celebrations at once.  His grandmother Livia was not only honored by equestrian contests, but was deified, and he set up a statue to her in the temple of Augustus, charging the vestal virgins with the duty of offering sacrifice in proper form.  He also ordered that women should use her name in taking oaths.

Though he paid such reverence to his ancestors, he himself would accept nothing beyond the names pertaining to his office.  On the first day of August, to be sure,—­his birthday,—­there were equestrian contests, but not on his account:  it was because the temple of Mars had been dedicated on that day, which had consequently been distinguished thereafter by annual contests.

Beside moderation in this respect he further forbade any one’s worshiping him or offering him any sacrifice; he checked the many excessive acclamations accorded him; and he accepted only one image,—­of silver,—­and two statues, of bronze and stone, that had been voted to him at the start.  All such expenditures, he declared, were useless and furthermore inflicted great loss and great annoyance upon the city.