might seem to resemble them]. Now he would be seen in
feminine guise, holding a wine-cup and thyrsus, again with masculine
trappings he would carry a club and lion-skin: [or perhaps a helmet
and shield]. He would make up first with smooth chin and later on as a
bearded man. Sometimes he wielded a trident and on other occasions he
brandished the thunderbolt. He would array himself like a maiden equipped
for [hunting or] war, and after a brief interval would come forth as a
woman. Thus he could make changes with careful attention to details by
the variety of his dress and by what he attached to or threw over it, and
he was anxious to appear to be anything rather than a human being [and
an emperor]. Once a certain Gaul, espying him on a, high platform
transacting business in the guise of Jupiter, laughed aloud. Gaius
called to him and asked: "What do I seem to you to be?" And the other
answered--I shall tell his exact words--: "A big pack of foolishness." Yet
the man met no dire fate, for he was a shoemaker. Persons of such rank as
Gaius can bear the frankness of the common herd more easily than that of
those who hold high position.--Now this was the attire he would
assume whenever he pretended to be some god; and there were suitable
supplications, prayers, and sacrifices offered to it. [-27-] Otherwise,
he usually appeared in public in silk and triumphal dress. Very few were
those whom he would kiss. To most of the senators even he extended his
hand or foot for homage. Consequently the men who were kissed by him
thanked him for it even in the senate, though all might see him kissing
dancers every day. [And these divine honors paid him came not only from
the many, accustomed at all times to flatter, but from those who really
pretended to be something.]

Take the case of Lucius Vitellius, not of low birth nor without sense, a
man who, on the contrary, had become famous by his governorship of Syria.
In addition to his other brilliant exploits as an official he spoiled
a plot of Artabanus in that region. He encountered the latter, who had
suffered no punishment for Armenia, already close to the Euphrates and
terrified him by his sudden appearance. He then induced him to come to
a conference and finally compelled him to sacrifice to the images of
Augustus and Gaius. Furthermore he made a peace with him that was
advantageous for the Romans and secured his children as hostages. This
Vitellius, then, was summoned by Gaius to be pu