The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
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But since the death of his son Drusus, Tiberius had not moved the senate to confer the tribunician power on any one; and Sejanus, who had received proconsular power, no longer lived. Gaius was not in any sense aconsors imperii. Hence on the death of Tiberius, it was open to the senate to elect as the new Princeps whomsoever they wished. But though the inheriting of the Empire was not recognized by the constitution, it was generally felt that the heir of the Emperor had the best claim to succeed him in the government as well as in his private property. Hence the election of Gaius was taken for granted both by himself and by others.
The Emperor’s death was finally announced to the senate in a letter from Gaius, conveyed by the hand of Macro, who also brought the testament of Tiberius, in which Gaius and Gemellus were appointed co-heirs. Gaius asked the fathers to decree to the late Emperor a public funeral, deification, and the other honors which had been decreed to Augustus, also to confirm his acts; but at the same time he demanded that the testament should be annulled. Such a document might prove inconvenient, for though legally it only concerned the private estate of Tiberius, it might be used to give his grandson a claim to participation in the imperial power. The senate acceded to the wishes of the candidate for the Empire, whom it did not hesitate to elect. The tribunician power and all the functions of the Empire were conferred on Gaius Caesar (March 18); a public funeral, but not deification, was decreed to Tiberius; and his will was annulled. But in return some concessions were required from Gaius. He adopted his cousin Tiberius Gemellus and named him princeps iuventutis; and he gave up his demand that the acts of his predecessor should be confirmed by the senate. Tiberius was not added to the gods, and in this way his memory was condemned.
The accession of the young Emperor was hailed by the people with wild delight as the beginning of a new age. They had received the news of the death of Tiberius with a savage outburst of hatred. It is said that they wished to drag his corpse to the river, and cried Tiberium in Tiberirn, “Tiberius to the Tiber!”. After years of fear, sullenness, and gloom, they looked forward to an age of merriment and pleasure—a return of the Augustan era. The procession conveying the body of the dead Emperor was conducted by his successor from Misenum to Rome, and the people poured forth to meet it, forgetting their hatred of the dead tyrant in their joy at welcoming the new sovereign. They allowed the funeral solemnities to pass over quietly, and when Gaius had spoken a funeral oration, the corpse was cremated in the Campus Martius and the ashes placed in the mausoleum.
The new reign was inaugurated by a reaction against the policy of the preceding. The most odious delators were banished from Italy; all prisoners were released; all exiles recalled. The extension of the law of maiestas to words written or spoken was done away with. The writings of Cremutius Cordus and others, which had been suppressed, were permitted to circulate again; the Emperor declaring that the writing and reading of history conduced to the interests of every good prince. Gaius also annulled the right of appeal to himself from the tribunals in Rome, Italy, and the senatorial provinces. He endeavored to make a strict division between the functions of senate and Princeps; and he followed the example of Augustus, neglected by Tiberius, in publishing the accounts of the state. He restored to the comitia the election of the magistrates, and thus showed that he desired to maintain the outward form of a republic. But this change was soon discovered to be useless, for as the number of candidates seldom exceeded the number of vacant places, there was no room for suffrage, and the comitia, when it assembled, found that it had nothing to do. Hence after two years, the system of Tiberius was restored. Gaius Assisted the administration of justice by creating a fifth decuria of jurymen, for the existing number was found to be unequal to the work they had to do. It was composed of men of the same qualification as those who filled the fourth decuria, created by Augustus. Gaius also conferred the equus publicus on a large number of persons, because the equestrian order had been greatly reduced in number in the reign of Tiberius, who had neglected to replenish it by new nominations.
The son of Germanicus distinguished himself by piety to his family no less than by respect to the senate. When he had appeared in the presence of the fathers and won their goodwill by a plausible and submissive speech, he hurried in person to the islands where his mother and brother had been banished and conveyed their ashes back to Rome, to be deposited in the mausoleum of the Caesars. He caused the senate to decree to his grandmother Antonia the titles and honors which had been formerly decreed to Livia. He changed the name of the month September to Germanicus, so that the name of his father might rank in the Calendar beside Julius and Augustus. He called upon his uncle Tiberius Claudius, whose existence no one ever seemed to remember, and who hitherto, although he was forty-six years of age, held only equestrian rank, to be his colleague in the consulship, on which he entered on July 1st (37 A.D.). His sisters Julia Livilla, Agrippina, and Drusilla received the honors of Vestal virgins. Gaius himself modestly refused the title Pater Patrias, which the senate offered him.
How popular the new reign was with the multitude is shown by the immense number of victims—one hundred and sixty thousand—which were offered in thanksgiving to the gods. The citizens and the soldiers were delighted with the unbounded munificence of the successor of the frugal Tiberius. All the legacies and donations ordered in the will of Tiberius were paid, although that deed was otherwise annulled, and the testament of Livia, which Tiberius had neglected, was now executed. Besides this, Gaius distributed to the plebs the donation, which should have been given when he assumed the toga virilis. The immense sums which lay in the treasury, heaped together by the saving policy of Tiberius, enabled him to defray these expenses and to enter upon a course of reckless profusion, which the rabble greeted with applause. At the same time he reduced his revenue by abolishing the small tax of 1/5 per cent, on sales in Italy.
When Gaius assumed the consulship, he made a speech to the senate, criticizing severely the acts of Tiberius and making fair promises for his own future government. The fathers were so pleased, and yet so afraid that he would alter his views, that they decreed that his speech should be read aloud every year. His exemplary devotion to his duties during the two following months seemed to augur well for the future. But on the last day of August, which was his birthday, he threw aside business, and gave a magnificent entertainment, such as had not been witnessed for many years. On this occasion he consecrated the temple of Augustus, which was at length completed. From this time Gaius showed the world a new side of his character, which few perhaps had suspected. He plunged into a mad course of shameless dissipation and extravagance.
When his subjects saluted their new Emperor, they were quite ignorant what manner of man he was. In his personal appearance there was nothing to attract. His figure was ill proportioned, his eyes set deep in his head, his features pale; and his scowling expression still displeases us in his bust. His constitution was weak, and his intellectual capacity was small; and whatever intellect he possessed had never been trained, except in rhetorical exercise. Want of training in his youth may partly account for the vagaries of his manhood; but there is no doubt that his brain was affected. He was subject to epileptic fits, and he suffered from sleeplessness. His early childhood was spent in the camp on the Rhine; his next experience was the distressing circumstances of his father’s death. Afterwards he was detained under the watchful eye of Tiberius in the lonely island, where he learned to dissemble, flatter and deceive. It is said that Tiberius penetrated the real character of the crafty boy, and made the remark that Gaius lived for the perdition of himself and all men. All the tastes of this degenerate grandson of Drusus were vulgar and vile. He cared only for the company of gladiators and dancers; he took delight in the sight of torture and death. He seems to have been always thoroughly unsound in mind, and when the unlimited power of the sovereign of the Roman Empire was placed in his hands, his head was completely turned. He had fallen under the influence of Herod Agrippa, who instilled into his mind oriental ideas as to the divine nature of monarchy, and filled his head with dreams of the grandeur of eastern kings. This Agrippa, son of Aristobulus, was grandson of Herod the Great, and had come to Rome along with his mother Berenice and his sister Herodias, after the death of his father. Rome was at this time an asylum for the members of eastern royal families, who in their own country would probably have perished by the hand of their reigning kinsmen. Antonia, whose father had been a friend of Herod, became the protectress of his grandson, and the voting Agrippa was brought up in the company of Claudius, who was of his own age. When his uncle Herod Antipas (the Herod of the Gospels), B.C. 4- A.D. 39, who married Herodias, obtained the kingdom of Samaria, Agrippa was invested