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Updated: June 2, 2025
The child became a man, and the father of Claud, an imbecile whom the pretorians, after Caligula's death, found in a closet, shaking with fright, and whom for their own protection they made emperor in his stead. Caligula had been frankly adored; there was in him an originality, and with it a grandeur and a mad magnificence that enthralled.
With a grand yet familiar air he declaimed over the marvelous beauties of this peculiar clay with an eloquence which was little short of masterful. He passed on to the antique marbles, touching them lightly and explaining how this one was Nero's, that one Caligula's, that one Tiberius'. He lied so easily and gracefully that, wherever it rested, the tomb of Ananias must have rocked.
Unless a life of vice and madness had succeeded in making Caligula's face what the faces of some maniacs are the bloated ruin of what was once a living witness to the soul within I could fancy that death may have sanctified it with even more beauty than this bust of the self-tormented young man shows.
But at this suggestion that he should leave the security of this lonely palace for the open dangers of the streets, Caligula's terrors increased tenfold. His teeth chattered more loudly in his head, and his hands on the praefect's arm became convulsive in their grasp.
"Good-evening, Monsieur l'Abbe," he said; "you can go down by way of Caligula's palace." Delightful was Pierre's relief when he was at last able to rest for a moment on one of the marble seats in the garden. There were but few clumps of trees, cypresses, box-trees, palms, and some fine evergreen oaks; but the latter, sheltering the seat, cast a dark shade of exquisite freshness around.
Nevertheless it must be remarked, and it should be firmly emphasised, that what is called the tyranny of Caligula and Nero is mainly and in Caligula's case almost solely a tyranny affecting the Romans themselves, affecting the lives and property of the Roman senators and other prominent persons, and affecting the lives and honour of their wives and daughters.
The second Consolation is to his mother Helvia, whom he tenderly loved; and this is one of the most pleasing of his works. Already he is beginning to assume the tone of a philosopher. His work De Ira must be referred to the commencement of this period, shortly after Caligula's death. It bears all the marks of inexperience, though its eloquence and brilliancy are remarkable.
And yet the man himself was so attractive tall, stalwart, and well looking no feature of his face or limb of his athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who concealed worse than Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret chambers that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name.
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