gainst the partition wall.

The Caesar then blessed his people, and at the word of Caius Nepos--the
praetorian praefect--cries of "Hail Caesar! Hail, O God! Hail the Father
of the Armies! the greatest and best of Caesars!" broke out on every
side.

CHAPTER XVI

"Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit
of the beast that goeth downward to the earth."--ECCLESIASTES
III. 21.

Caius Julius Caesar Caligula was in excellent spirits, smiling and
nodding to those around him and to his people all the time. His face
certainly looked sallow and his eyes were bloodshot, but this may have
been due to ill-health, for without doubt his temper was of the best.
Only once had he frowned, when, looking behind him, he saw that the
praefect of Rome had remained standing when everyone knelt to acclaim
the Caesar.

But even then the frown was quickly dissipated and he spoke quite
pleasantly to the praefect later on. The Augustas grouped around him
were continually laughing as he turned to them from time to time with a
witty sally, or probably with what was more in keeping with his
character--a coarse jest. And he watched the spectacle attentively from
end to end. Firstly the play in verse on the subject of the judgment of
Paris, a perversion of the legend favoured by the Greeks--a travesty
wherein Paris--renamed Parisia--was a woman, and three gods were in
rivalry for the golden apple, the emblem of her favours. Then the naval
spectacle over the flooded arena, with ships and galleys executing
complex manoeuvres on waters rendered turbulent by cleverly contrived
artificial means; then the wrestling and scenes of hunting with wolves
and boars specially brought from the Thracian forests for the occasion.

He watched the Numidian lions tearing one another to pieces, he exulted
with the audience over the fight between a pack of hyenas and some
crocodiles from the Nile. He encouraged the gladiators in their fights,
and joined in the excitement that grew and grew with every item of a
programme which had been skilfully arranged so that it began with simple
and peaceful shows, and gradually became more bloodthirsty and more
fierce.

It seemed as if a cunning mind, alert to the temper of the people, had
contrived the entertainment so that with every stage of the proceedings
something of the lustful love of cruelty, inherent in every Roman
citizen, would be gradually aroused. The hunting scenes were a prelude
to