Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

28 SENECAcomplexion bore witness to the disorder of his mind ;he had the wrinkled brow of an old woman, anddeep set under it wild and ferocious eyes. Hisneck was hairy, his legs slender, and his feetenormous.^This description, overcharged perhaps at anytime, can only have been applicable to Caligulaas he was when the illness which destroyed hismind had in its effects led him to those shamefulphysical excesses and yet more shameful crueltiesand extravagances which degraded the last twoyears of his principate. It cannot have been trueof the young Caius during the first months of hisreign, adored throughout the Empire, courteous,generous, eloquent, and charming as he thenappeared while, with ' Youth on the prow andPleasure at the helm,' the ship of State rodeproudly along after the gloomy closing years ofTiberius.Nothing [wrote Philo of that time] was to be seenthroughout our cities but altars and sacrifices, priestsclad in white and garlanded, the joyous ministers of thegeneral mirth, festivals and assemblies, musical contestsand horse-races, wakes by day and night, amusements,recreations, pleasures of every kind and addressed toevery sense.For the Roman aristocracy this halcyon periodcame to an end with the recovery of Caius fromhis illness,^ for the exigencies of his luxury andhis megalomania having exhausted his treasury, a^De Constant. Sapientis, i8. Cp. Suet., Cal. 50.2"With the people the emperor, hke Nero, seems to have retainedpopularity to the end (Josephus, Ant. Jud. xix. i. 20, ii. 5).