Tiberius pursued in Gaul, but with less energy and less care for the provincial administration, the pacific and moderate policy of Augustus.  He had to extinguish in Belgica, and even in the Lyonnese province, two insurrections kindled by the sparks that remained of national and Druidic spirit.  He repressed them effectually, and without any violent display of vengeance.  He made a trip to Gaul, took measures, quite insufficient, however, for defending the Rhine frontier from the incessantly repeated incursions of the Germans, and hastened back to Italy to resume the course of suspicion, perfidy, and cruelty which he pursued against the republican pride and moral dignity remaining amongst a few remnants of the Roman senate.  He was succeeded by Germanicus’ unworthy son, Caligula.  After a few days of hypocrisy on the part of the emperor, and credulous hope on that of the people, they found a madman let loose to take the place of an unfathomable and gloomy tyrant.  Caligula was much taken up with Gaul, plundering it and giving free rein in it to his frenzies, by turns disgusting or ridiculous.  In a short and fruitless campaign on the banks of the Rhine, he had made too few prisoners for the pomp of a triumph; he therefore took some Gauls, the tallest he could find, of triumphal size, as he said, put them in German clothes, made them learn some Teutonic words, and sent them away to Rome to await in prison his return and his ovation.  Lyons, where he staid some time, was the scene of his extortions and strangest freaks.  He was playing at dice one day with some of his courtiers, and lost; he rose, sent for the tax-list of the province, marked down for death and confiscation some of those who were most highly rated, and said to the company, “You people, you play for a few drachmas; but as for me, I have just won by a single throw one hundred and fifty millions.”  At the rumor of a plot hatched against him in Italy, by some Roman nobles, he sent for and sold, publicly, their furniture, jewels, and slaves.  As the sale was a success, he extended it to the old furniture of his own palaces in Italy:  “I wish to fit out the Gauls,” said he; “it is a mark of friendship I owe to the brave performed the part Roman people.”  He himself, at these sales, performed the part of salesman and auctioneer, telling the history of each article to enhance the price.  “This belonged to my father, Germanicus; that comes to me from Agrippa; this vase is Egyptian, it was Antony’s, Augustus took it at the battle of Actium.”  The imperial sales were succeeded by literary games, at which the losers had to pay the expenses of the prizes, and celebrate, in verse or prose, the praises of the winners; and if their compositions were pronounced bad, they were bound to wipe them out with a sponge or even with their tongues, unless they preferred to be beaten with a rod or soused in the Rhone.  One day, when Caligula, in the character of Jupiter, was seated at his tribunal and delivering