midnight
The Cæsar had returned from Germany and Gaul having played his part of mountebank upon the arena of the world . Eaten up with senseless and cynical vanity , Caius Julius Cæsar Caligula desired to be the Cæsar of his army as he was princeps and imperator , high pontiff and supreme dictator of the Empire . But as there was no war to conduct , no rebellion to subdue , he had invented a war and harassed some barbarians who had no thought save that of peace . He stage-managed conspiracies and midnight attacks , drilling his own soldiers into acting the parts of malcontents , of escaped prisoners , of bloodthirsty barbarians , the while he himself -- as chief actor in the play -- vanquished the mock foes and took from them mock spoils of war . Then he upbraided Rome for her inertia whilst he , the Emperor , confronted dangers and endured hardships for her sake . His letters , full of glowing accounts of his supposed prowess , of the ferocity of the enemy , of the fruits of victory snatched at the cost of innumerable sacrifices were solemnly read to the assembled senators in the temple of Mars , and to a vast concourse of people gathered in the Forum . They listened to these letters with awe and reverence proud of the valour of their Cæsar , rejoicing in the continued glory of the mightiest Empire of the world -- their own Empire which they , the masters of the earth and of the sea , had made under the guidance of rulers such as he who even now was returning laurel-laden and victory-crowned from Germany .