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The news produced the same consternation as that which was produced among the conspirators at Adonijah's banquet, when they heard of the measures taken by the dying David. There was a panic-stricken dispersion, and every one pretended to be grieved, or ignorant of what was going on. Caius, in stupified silence, expected death instead of empire. Macro alone did not lose his presence of mind.
Yet he dropped certain words whence might be gathered that he foresaw the events and revolutions which were to come to pass after him: for, he upbraided Macro, by no dark riddle, "that he forsook the setting sun and courted the rising:" and of Caligula, who upon some occasional discourse ridiculed Sylla, he foretold, "that he would have all Sylla's vices, and not one of his virtues."
Breaking definitions of work, how to make a living, and sociability, she told herself that she was a macro- human living with mere earthlings she could not fully identify with. Her mind was a bit scrambled in what she was thinking. Maybe she was saying that she was pure contemplation someting like that. She wasn't a hundred percent sure of any of her ideas.
But the artifice beguiled not Tiberius; for he instantly ordered the entertainment to be served up; whether incensed, and thence the more smothering his wrath, is uncertain: but, at table he continued beyond his wont, as if he meant that honour only for a farewell to his friend. But for all this Charicles satisfied Macro, "that the flame of life was expiring, and could not outlast two days."
Hence dread seized all, and the whole concourse about Caligula dispersed, every man resuming false sorrow, or feigning ignorance: he himself was struck speechless, and thus fallen from the highest hopes, waited for present death. Macro continued undismayed, and ordering the apartment to be cleared, caused the feeble old man to be smothered with a weight of coverings.
Which of these he meant to accept, or which to reject, the approaching issue of his days, has buried in uncertainty. For not long after, Cneius Acerronius and Caius Pontius commenced Consuls; the last under Tiberius. The power of Macro was already excessive; who, as he had at no time neglected the favour of Caligula, courted it now more and more earnestly every day.
Now Tiberius took these to be truly Agrippa's words, and bearing a grudge withal at Agrippa, because, when he had commanded him to pay his respects to Tiberius, his grandson, and the son of Drusus, Agrippa had not paid him that respect, but had disobeyed his commands, and transferred all his regard to Caius; he said to Macro, "Bind this man."
Hence it was suspected, that, while he was ill, and perhaps without his privacy, the accusations were in great measure forged by Macro, in consequence of his notorious enmity to Arruntius. Domitius therefore by preparing for his defence, and Marsus by seeming determined to famish, both protracted their lives.
In all three we find the same ghastly pallor, the same sleeplessness which compelled them to rise, and pace their rooms at night, the same incessant suspicion; the same inordinate thirst for cruelty and torture. He took a very early opportunity to disembarrass himself of his benefactors, Macro and Ennia, and of his rival, the young Tiberius.
His grandmother Antonia desiring a private conference with him, he refused to grant it, unless Macro, the prefect of the pretorian guards, were present. Indignities of this kind, and ill usage, were the cause of her death; but some think he also gave her poison. Nor did he pay the smallest respect to her memory after her death, but witnessed the burning from his private apartment.
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