fty tower to be erected by the
seaside.[18]

13. Cassius Cher'ea, a tribune of the Praetorian bands, was the person
who at last freed the world from this tyrant. Besides the motives
which he had in common with other men, he had received repeated
insults from Calig'ula, who took all occasions of turning him into
ridicule, and impeaching him with cowardice, merely because he
happened to have an effeminate voice. Whenever Cher'ea came to demand
the watch-word from the emperor, according to custom, he always gave
him either Venus, Adonis, or some such, implying softness and
effeminacy.

14. Cher'ea secretly imparted his design to several senators and
knights, whom he knew to have received personal injuries from
Calig'ula. While these were deliberating upon the most certain and
speedy method of destroying the tyrant, an unexpected incident gave
new strength to the conspiracy. 15. Pempe'dius, a senator of
distinction, being accused before the emperor of having spoken of him
with disrespect, the informer cited one Quintil'ia, an actress, to
confirm the accusation. 16. Quintil'ia, however, was possessed of a
degree of fortitude not frequently found even in the other sex. She
denied the fact with obstinacy; and, being put to the torture, bore
the severest tortures of the rack with unshaken constancy. 17. Indeed,
so remarkable was her resolution, that though acquainted with all the
particulars of the conspiracy, and although Cher'ea was the person
appointed to preside at her torture, she revealed nothing; on the
contrary, when she was led to the rack, she trod upon the toe of one
of the conspirators, intimating at once her knowledge of their
conspiracy, and her resolution not to divulge it. 18. Thus she
suffered, until all her limbs were dislocated; and, in that deplorable
state, was presented to the emperor, who ordered her a gratuity for
what she had endured.

19. Cher'ea could no longer contain his indignation, at being thus
made the instrument of a tyrant's cruelty. After several deliberations
of the conspirators, it was at last resolved to attack him during the
Palatine games, which lasted four days,[19] and to strike the
blow when his guards should not have the opportunity to defend him.
20. The first three days of the games passed. Cher'ea began to
apprehend that deferring the completion of the conspiracy might be the
means of divulging it; he even dreaded that the honour of killing the
tyrant might fall to the lot of