These taxes being imposed, but the act by which they were levied never submitted
					to public inspection, great grievances were experienced from the want of
					sufficient knowledge of the law. At length, on the urgent demands of the Roman
					people, he published the law, but it was written in a very small hand, and
					posted up in a corner, so that no one could make a copy of it. To leave no sort
					of gain untried, he opened brothels in the Palatium, with a number of cells,
					furnished suitably to the dignity of the place; in which married women and free
					born youths were ready for the reception of visitors. He sent likewise his
					nomenclators about the forums and courts, to invite people of all ages, the old
					as well as the young; to his brothel, to come and satisfy their lusts: and he
					was ready to lend his customers money upon interest; clerks attending to take
					down their names in public, as persons who contributed to the emperor's revenue.
					Another method of raising money, which he thought not below his notice, was
					gaming, which, by the help of lying and perjury, he turned to considerable
					account. Leaving once the management of his play to his partner in the game, he
					stepped into the court, and observing two rich Roman knights passing by, he
					ordered them immediately to be seized, and their estates confiscated. Then
					returning in great glee, he boasted that he had never made a better throw in his
					life. After the birth of his daughter, complaining of his poverty, and the burdens to
					which he was subjected, not only as an emperor, but a father, he made a general
					collection for her maintenance and fortune. He likewise gave public notice, that
					he would receive new-year's gifts on the calends of January following; and
					accordingly stood in the vestibule of his house, to clutch the presents which
					the people of all ranks threw down before him by handfuls and lapfuls. At last,
					being seized with an invincible desire of feeling money, taking off his
					slippers, he repeatedly walked oyer great heaps of gold coin spread upon the
					spacious floor, and then laying himself down, rolled his whole body in gold over
					and over again. Only once in his life did he take an active part in military affairs, and then
					not from any set purpose, but during his journey to Mevania , to see the grove and river of Clitumnus . Mevania , a town in Umbria . Its present name is Bevagna . The Clitumnus is a river in the same
						country, celebrated for the breed of white cattle, which feed in the
						neighbouring pastures. Being recommended to recruit a body of
					Batavians, who attended him, he resolved upon an expedition into Germany . Immediately he drew together several
					legions, and auxiliary forces from all quarters, and made every where new levies
					with the utmost rigour. Collecting supplies of all kinds, such as never had been
					assembled upon the like occasion, he set forward on his march, and pursued it
					sometimes with so much haste and precipitation, that the pretorian cohorts were
					obliged, contrary to custom, to pack their standards on horses or mules, and so
					follow him. At other times, he would march so slow and luxuriously, that he was
					carried in a litter by eight men; ordering the roads to be swept by the people
					of the neighbouring towns, and sprinkled with water to lay the dust. On arriving at the camp, in order to show himself an active general, and severe
					disciplinarian, he cashiered the lieutenants who came up late with the auxiliary
					forces from different quarters. In reviewing the army, he deprived of their
					companies most of the centurions of the first rank, who had now served their
					legal time in the wars, and some whose time would have expired in a few days;
					alleging against them their age and infirmity; and railing at the covetous
					disposition of the rest of them, he reduced the bounty due to those who had
					served out their time to the sum of six thousand sesterces. Though he only
					received the submission of Adminius, the son of Cunobeline, a British king, who
					being driven from his native country by his father, came over to him with a
					small body of troops, Caligula appears to have meditated an
						expedition to Britain at the time
						of his pompous ovation at Puteoli , mentioned in c. xiii.; but if Julius Caesar could
						gain no permanent footing in this island, it was very improbable that a
						prince of Caligula's character would ever seriously attempt it, and we shall
						presently see that the whole affair turned out a farce. yet, as if
					the whole island had been surrendered to him, he dispatched magnificent letters
					to Rome . ordering the hearers to
					proceed in their carriages directly up to the forum and the senate-house, and
					not to deliver the letters but to the consuls in the temple of Mars, and in the
					presence of a full assembly of the senators. Soon after this, there being no hostilities, he ordered a few Germans of his
					guard to be carried over and placed in concealment on the other side of the
						 Rhine , and word to be brought him
					after dinner, that an enemy was advancing with great impetuosity. This being
					accordingly done, he immediately threw himself, with his friends, and a party of
					the pretorian knights, into the adjoining wood, where lopping branches from the
					trees, and forming trophies of them, he returned by torch-light, upbraiding
					those who did not follow him, with timorousness and cowardice: but he presented
					the companions and sharers of his victory with crowns of a new form, and under a
					new name, having the sun, moon, and stars represented on them, which he called
					Exploratorie. Again, some hostages were by his order taken from the school, and
					privately sent off; upon notice of which he immediately rose from table, pursued
					them with the cavalry, as if they had run away, and coming up with them, brought
					them back in fetters; proceeding to an extravagant pitch of ostentation likewise
					in his military comedy. Upon his again sitting down to table, it being reported
					to him that the troops were all reassembled, he ordered them to sit down as they
					were, in their armour, animating them in the words of the well-known verse of
					Virgil: Durate, et vosmet rebus servate
							secundis. Aen. 1.207 
					 Bear up, and save yourselves for better
						days. In the meantime he reprimanded the senate and people of
						 Rome in a very severe proclamation
					"For revelling and frequenting the diversions of the circus and the theatre, and
					enjoying themselves at their villas, whilst their emperor was fighting and
					exposing himself to the greatest dangers."