At last, as if resolved to make war in earnest, he drew up his army on the shore
					of the ocean, with his balistk and other engines of war, and while no one could
					imagine what he intended to do, on a sudden commanded them to gather up the sea
					shells, and fill their helmets and the folds of their dress with them, calling
					them " the spoils of the ocean due to the Capitol and the Palatium." As a
					monument of his success, he raised a lofty tower, upon which, as at Pharos, It seems generally agreed that the point of the coast which
						was signalized by the ridiculous bravado of Caligula, somewhat redeemed by
						the erection of a lighthouse, was Itium, afterwards called Gessoriacum , and Bononia ( Boulogne ), a town belonging to the Gaulish tribe of the
						Morini; where Julius Casar embarked on his expedition, and which became the
						usual place of departure for the transit to Britain . he ordered lights to be burned in the
					night-time for the direction of ships at sea; and then promising the soldiers a
					donative of a hundred denarii The denarius was worth at
						this time about seven pence or eight pence of English money. a man,
					as if he had surpassed the most eminent examples of generosity, "Go your ways,"
					said he, "and be merry; go, ye are rich." In making preparations for his triumph, besides the prisoners and deserters from
					the barbarian armies, he picked out the men of greatest stature in all
						 Gaul , such as he said were fittest
					to grace a triumph, with some of the chiefs, and reserved them to appear in the
					procession, obliging them not only to dye their hair yellow and let it grow
					long, but to learn the German language and assume the names commonly used in
					that country. He ordered likewise the gallies in which he had entered the ocean
					to be conveyed to Rome a great part of
					the way by land, and wrote to his comptrollers in the city " to make proper
					preparations for a triumph against his arrival, at as small expense as possible;
					but on a scale such as had never been seen before, since they had full power
					over the property of every one." Before he left the province he formed a design of the most horrid cruelty-to
					massacre the legions which had mutinied upon the death of Augustus, for seizing
					and detaining his father, Germanicus, their commander, and himself, then an
					infant, in the camp. Though he was with great difficulty dissuaded from this
					rash attempt, yet neither the most urgent entreaties nor representations could
					prevent him from persisting in the design of decimating these legions.
					Accordingly, he ordered them to assemble unarmed, without so much as their
					swords, and then surrounded them with armed horse. But finding that many of
					them, suspecting that violence was intended, were making off to arm in their own
					defence, he quitted the assembly as fast as he could, and immediately marched
					for Rome , bending now all his fury
					against the senate, whom he publicly threatened, to divert the general attention
					from the clamour excited by his disgraceful conduct. Amongst other pretexts of
					offence, he complained that he was defrauded of a triumph which was justly his
					due, though he had just before forbidden, upon pain of death, any honour to be
					decreed him. In his march he was waited upon by deputies from the senatorian order, entreating
					him to hasten his return. He replied to them, "I will come, I will come, and
					this with me," striking at the same time the hilt of his sword. He issued
					likewise this proclamation: "I am coming, but for those only who wish for me,
					the equestrian order and the people; for I shall no longer treat the senate as
					their fellow-citizen or prince." He forbad any of the senators to come to meet
					him; and either abandoning or deferring his triumph, he entered the city in
					ovation on his'birth-day. Within four months from this period he was slain,
					after he had perpetrated enormous crimes, and while he was meditating the
					execution, if possible, of still greater. He had entertained a design of
					removing to Antium , and afterwards
					to Alexandria , having first cut
					off the flower of the equestrian and senatorian orders. This is placed beyond
					all question by two books which were found in his cabinet under different
					titles, one being called the sword, and the other the dagger. They both
					contained private marks, and the names of those who were devoted to death. There
					was also found a large chest, filled with a variety of poisons, which being
					afterwards thrown into the sea by order of Claudius, are said to have so
					infected the waters that the fish were poisoned and cast dead by the tide upon
					the neighbouring shores. He was tall, of a pale complexion, ill-shaped, his neck and legs very slender,
					his eyes and temples hollow, his brows broad and knit, his hair thin, and the
					crown of the head bald. The other parts of his body were much covered with hair.
					On this account it was reckoned a capital crime for any person to look down from
					above as he was passing by, or so much as to name a goat. His countenance, which
					was naturally hideous and frightful, he purposely rendered more so, forming it
					before a mirror into the most horrible contortions. He was crazy both in body
					and mind, being subject, when a boy, to the falling sickness, When he arrived at
					the age of man hood he endured fatigue tolerably well; but still, occasionally,
					he was liable to a faintness, during which he remained incapable of any effort.
					He was not insensible of the disorder of his mind, and sometimes had thoughts of
					retiring to clear his brain. Probably to Anticyra. See
						before, c. xxix., note. It is believed that his wife Caesonia
					administered to him a love potion which threw him into a frenzy. What most of
					all disordered him was want of sleep, for he seldom had more than three or four
					hours rest in a night; and even then his sleep was not sound, but disturbed by
					strange dreams, fancying, among other things, that a form representing the ocean
					spoke to him. Being, therefore, often weary with lying awake so long, sometimes
					he sat up in his bed, at others, walked in the longest porticos about the house,
					and from time to time invoked and looked out for the approach of day.