Then,  when  he  found  himself  undisputed  master  of
the  Rpman'world,  he  plunged  into  an  orgy  of  license
and  excitement  which  soon  culminated  in  insanity
and  turned  his  four  years'  reign  into  a  hideous
carnival  of  ]  List  and  murder.  So  long  as  the  treasures
accumulated  by  Tiberius  lasted,  the  world  witnessed
nothing  worse  than  such  insane  freaks  of  construction
as  the  great  bridge  thrown  from  the  Palatine  to  the
Capitol,  resting  on  the  temple  of  Augustus  and
the- Basilica  Jiilia  as  its  piers,  or  the  high-road,  laid
on  a  causeway  of  ships,  which  spanned  the  bay  of


54  THE  JULIO'CLAUDIAN  DYNASTY

Baiae.  The  amphitheatre  and  the  circus  were  con-
stantly filled  with  a  rabble  which  saw  senators  and
knights — nay,  even  the  Emperor  himself — taking  part
in  the  chariot  races,  gladiatorial  shows,  and  wild-
beast  hunts.  But  when  Gaius  found  himself  in  want
of  money  to  meet  the  demands  of  his  boundless
extravagance,  he  revived  the  machinery  of  the
treason  courts,  and  a  reign  of  terror  more  ghastly
than  that  which  had  darkened  the  latter  years  of
Tiberius  began.  Nor  were  its  victims  drawn  only
from  the  Senate,  or,  indeed, from  Italy.  In  the  third
year  of  his  reign  Gaius  wintered  in  Gaul  and
extorted  vast  sums  from  its  inhabitants.  The  con-
tents of  the  Imperial  residence  on  the  Palatine  were
conveyed  to  Lugdunum  (Lyons),  and  there  put  up  to
auction  by  the  Emperor  himself,  and  knocked  down
for  huge  prices  to  unwilling  purchasers.  The  pretext
of  Gaius'  journey  was  a  disturbance  on  the  German
frontier ;  but  more  serious  still  was  the  attitude  of
Lentulus  Gaetulicus,  the  commandant  of  Upper
Germany,  who  had  defied  Tiberius  to  remove  him
from  his  post,  and  was  now  conspiring  with  Lepidus,
the  widower  of  Gaius'  sister  Drusilla.  Gaius  had,  it
is  said,  lived  openly  with  his  sister  after  the  fashion
of  the  Ptolemies,  and  had  caused  her  to  be  deified
after  her  death  in  A.D.  38.  His  other  sisters,  Agrip-
pina  and  Julia,  were  implicated  in  the  conspiracy  of
Lentulus  and  Lepidus,  and  when  the  plot  was  dis-
covered and  the  leaders  executed,  they  were
banished.
