He never had the least regard either to the chastity of his own person, or that
					of others * * * Thomson omits material here
						* * * Besides his incest with his sisters, and his notorious passion
					for Pyrallis, the prostitute, there was hardly any lady of distinction with whom
					he did not make free. He used commonly to invite them with their husbands to
					supper, and as they passed by the couch on which he reclined at table, examine
					them very closely, like those who traffic in slaves; and if any one from modesty
					held down her face, he raised it up with his hand. Afterwards, as often as he
					was in the humour, he would quit the room, send for her he liked best, and in a
					short time return with marks of recent disorder about them. He would then
					commend or disparage her in the presence of the company, recounting the charms
					or defects of her person and behaviour in private. To some he sent a divorce in
					the name of their absent husbands, and ordered it to be registered in the public
					acts. In the devices of his profuse expenditure, he surpassed all the prodigals that
					ever lived; inventing a new kind of bath, with strange dishes and suppers,
					washing in precious unguents, both warm and cold, drinking pearls of immense
					value dissolved in vinegar, and serving up for his guests loaves and other
					victuals modelled in gold; often saying, " that a man ought either to be a good
					economist or an emperor." Besides, he scattered money to a prodigious amount
					among the people, from the top of the Julian Basilica, See
						before, JULIUS , c. x., and
						note. during several days successively. He built two ships with ten
					banks of oars, after the Liburnian fashion, the poops of which blazed with
					jewels, and the sails were of various parti-colours. They were fitted up with
					ample baths, galleries, and saloons, and supplied with a great variety of vines
					and other fruit-trees. In these he would sail in the day-time along the coast of
						 Campania , feasting amidst dancing
					and concerts of music. In building his palaces and villas, there was nothing he
					desired to effect so much, in defiance of all reason, as what was considered
					impossible. Accordingly, moles were formed in the deep, and adverse sea, Particularly at Baise, see before, c. xix. The practice of
						encroaching on the sea on this coast, commenced before,Jactis in altum
						molibus.--Hor. Ode, b. iii. i. 34. rocks of the hardest stone cut
					away, plains raised to the height of mountains with a vast mass of earth, and
					the tops of mountains levelled by digging; and all these were to be executed
					with incredible speed, for the least remissness was a capital offence. Not to
					mention particulars, he spent enormous sums, and the whole treasures which had
					been amassed by Tiberius Caesar, amounting to two thousand seven hundred
					millions of sesterces, within less than a year. Having therefore quite exhausted these funds, and being in want of money, he had
					recourse to plundering the people, by every mode of false accusation,
					confiscation, and taxation, that could be invented. He declared that no one had
					any right to the freedom of Rome ,
					although their ancestors had acquired it for themselves and their posterity,
					unless they were sons; for that none beyond that degree ought to be considered
					as posterity. When the grants of the Divine Julius and Augustus were produced to
					him, he only said, that he was very sorry that they were obsolete and out of
					date. He also charged all those with making false returns, who, after the taking
					of the census, had by any means whatever increased their property. He annulled
					the wills of all who had been centurions of the first rank, as testimonies of
					their base ingratitude, if from the beginning of Tiberius 's reign they had not left either that prince or
					himself their heir. He also set aside the wills of all others, if any person
					only pretended to say, that they designed at their death to leave Caesar their
					heir. The public becoming terrified at this proceeding, he was now appointed
					joint-heir with their friends, and in the case of parents with their children,
					by persons unknown to him. Those who lived any considerable time after making
					such a will, he said, were only making game of him; and accordingly he sent many
					of them poisoned cakes. He used to try such causes himself; fixing previously
					the sum he proposed to raise during the sitting, and, after he had secured it,
					quitting the tribunal. Impatient of the least delay, he condemned by a single
					sentence forty persons, against whom there were different charges; boasting to
					Caesonia when she awoke, "how much business he had dispatched while she was
					taking her mid-day sleep." He exposed to sale by auction, the remains of the
					apparatus used in the public spectacles; and exacted such biddings, and raised
					the prices so high, that some of the purchasers were ruined, and bled themselves
					to death. There is a well-known story told of Aponius Saturninae, who happening
					to fall asleep as he sat on a bench at the sale, Caius called out to the
					auctioneer, not to overlook the praetorian personage who nodded to him so often;
					and accordingly the salesman went on, pretending to take the nods for tokens of
					assent, until thirteen gladiators were knocked down to him at the sum of nine
					millions of sesterces, Most of the gladiators were
						slaves. he being in total ignorance of what was doing. Having also sold in Gaul all the
					clothes, furniture, slaves, and even freedmen belonging to his sisters, at
					prodigious prices, after their condemnation, he was so much delighted with his
					pains that he sent to Rome for all the
					furniture of the old palace; The part of the Palatium built
						or occupied by Augustus and Tiberius. pressing for its conveyance all
					the carriages let to hire in the city, with the horses and mules belonging to
					the bakers, so that they often wanted bread at Rome ; and many who had suits at law in progress lost their
					causes, because they could not make their appearance in due time according to
					their recognizances. In the sale of this furniture every artifice of fraud and
					imposition was employed. Sometimes he would rail at the bidders for being
					niggardly, and ask them " if they were not ashamed to be richer than he was ?"
					at another he would affect to be sorry that the property of princes should be
					passing into the hands of private persons. He had found out that a rich
					provincial had given two hundred thousand sesterces to his chamberlains for an
					underhand invitation to his table, and he was much pleased to find that honour
					valued at so high a rate. The day following, as the same person was sitting at
					the sale, he sent him some bauble, for which he told him he must pay two hundred
					thousand sesterces, and " that he should sup with Caesar upon his own
					invitation." He levied new taxes, and such as were never before known, at first by the
					publicans, but afterwards, because their profit was enormous, by centurions and
					tribunes of the pretorian guards; no description of property or persons was
					exempted from some kind of tax or other. For all eatables brought into the city
					a certain excise was exacted; for all law-suits or trials, in whatever court,
					the fortieth part of the sum in dispute; and such as were convicted of
					compromising litigations were made liable to a penalty. Out of the daily wages
					of the porters he received an eighth, and from the gains of common prostitutes,
					what they received for one favour granted. There was a clause in the law, that
					all bawds who kept women for prostitution or sale, should be liable to pay, and
					that marriage itself should not be exempted.