of the Roman Emperors who degraded the purple, by himself dancing and singing in public, under the guidance of a noted tragedian. He also descended into the arena as a charioteer, and even as a gladiator. The Senators might sigh over this odious degradation of the majesty of the Cæsars, yet thought it safer to themselves that Caius should sully it in these odious amusements, than guard it with the cruel jealousy of a Tiberius. The gladiatorial spectacles were his especial delight; and when the number of criminals was exhausted, he sometimes compelled Roman knights, and even nobles, to combat the wild beasts with the same prodigality of blood. One day, when the number of human combatants was not sufficient, he suddenly commanded some of the spectators within the rails to be dragged into the arena, and exposed defenceless to the lions!

In the second year of his reign, Caius began to display his Oriental notions of sovereignty, in conferring crowns and sceptres on various foreign applicants—a ceremony, however, marked by the usual imperial respect to the forms of the old Republic. A silken curtain, then most rare and precious, was drawn across a lofty stage in the Forum, and the Emperor was discovered seated between the Consuls. He recited the decree of the Senate conferring thrones on several foreign princes, and the districts of Abilene and Cælo-Syria upon his friend Herod Agrippa, together with a chain of gold of equal weight with the fetters which had bound him to his warder, as well as a permission to return to Palestine. The exile prince quickly set forth, and on his way was further gratified with the addition of Samaria and Judea to his dominions. Eager to gain popularity in Judea for his odious name, he caused the martyrdom of James, the only Apostle of whose death we have any certain record ; and, but for a miracle, would have cut off, on the very open

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A BIRTH-DAY CELEBRATION.

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ing of his noble career, the Apostle Peter also. His subsequent proud acceptance of divine honours, and the humiliating and loathsome disease which laid his honours in the dust of degradation, are known to us all.

Caius, his old companion, ceased not to cherish his oriental visions, even in the meanest of luxuries, gluttony; and, to outdo Cleopatra, he expended £80,000 on a single banquet, complacently remarking at the close, A man should be frugal, except he be a Cæsar.' His vehement ambition to possess supremacy in all things increased in his third year's principate. He had gained the palm in gluttony and charioteering; and his superiority as an athlete was quickly conceded, after he had one day, in vexation at the indifference shown to his feats, uttered his well-known exclamation, suiting to the words the significant gesture by which he used to communicate his cruel will to his headsman, 'Would that the people of Rome had but one neck!' He sought the preeminence in oratory, and loud plaudits re-echoed to his wild harangues to the Senate. Once a rival orator was fain to save his life by the sacrifice of his fame; for he saw the gloomy thunder-cloud descending on the brow of his imperial antagonist, and arrested it by the adroit admission of the failure of his own cause. And no one ventured to praise Seneca's style after Caius had sneeringly pronounced it ‘uncemented sand.' He used to celebrate his birth-day very differently from the mode adopted at our court-by a gladiatorial combat with four hundred bears, and as many other wild beasts.

Ambitious of pre-eminence in military fame, and desirous of recruiting his exhausted revenues by plunder, in the third year of his reign he marched at the head of a large army into Gaul, extorted vast sums from the wealthy inhabitants; proceeded to Britain, and making his soldiers collect shells.

on the beach, retreated with 'those spoils of ocean'; encamped on the Rhine, where he acted a sham-fight, and returned to Rome, leading some of his own German body-guard captive. But the national pride of the Roman most signally appeared in his claiming the worship of the people, and, in the Oriental fashion of worship, obliging his courtiers to prostrate themselves on the earth and kiss his foot! He delighted to array himself in the garb of Hercules, or Bacchus, and brandish the club or thyrsus; or even to array himself as the female deity Juno, or Venus, and present himself in the temple, and even in the Forum, for the worship of the people. From the servile Senate he obtained a decree recognising him not only as a god, but as possessing the same pre-eminence amongst the gods which he enjoyed as a Sovereign, without a rival among human potentates. The Jews alone made resistance to this horrible decree; and when they heard that a colossal figure of the Emperor was to be erected in the Temple at Jerusalem,—even in the Holy of Holies,- as soon as the abominable image could be completed by the hands of the Syrian artificers, they despatched their famous writer Philo, and other illustrious countrymen, to Rome, to lay before the Emperor their religious scruples, and avert, if possible, the wrath of the self-styled god by protestations of loyalty. Philo's account of his audience gives us a vivid and curious description of life at the Roman court at this period. The Emperor received the Jewish embassy and their Alexandrian opponents in the gardens of Mæcenas, which he had connected with the ample pleasure-grounds of the Lamias, and where he was engaged in planning extensions and alterations on a most magnificent scale. 'This,' says

Philo, was the spot whereon to enact the catastrophe of the great drama of Jewish nationality. Here we found the tyrant surrounded by stewards, architects, and workmen;

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STRANGE SCENE AT COURT.

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every hall and chamber thrown open for his inspection, ranging from room to room. Being summoned into his presence, we advanced reverently and discreetly, saluting him by the title of Augustus and Emperor. "What," said he, are you the god-haters, the men who deny my divinity, confessed by all the world besides ?" and he raised his hand towards heaven with a frightful execration. The Alexandrian deputy Isodorus, with odious adulation, pressed forward-"Lord and master, still more and more justly will you hate them, when you learn that of all mankind these Jews alone have refused to sacrifice for your safety." "Lord

Caius! Lord Caius !" exclaimed the Jews, 66 we are slandered; we have sacrificed for you; we have offered hecatombs; we have not feasted on the flesh of our victims, but burnt them whole-not once, but thrice already. First, when you assumed the Empire; again, when you were restored from your dire disease; once more for the success of your expedition against the Germans." "Be it so,” replied he; "ye sacrificed for me, but not to me." The Jews were struck with abysmal terror, but were relieved for a moment by the Emperor suddenly rushing off to some distant apartment to give orders. They were hurried along in his train, their Alexandrian opponents 'jeering and mocking at them as in a play.' But at the next pause in his career, Caius turned round sharply, and demanded-' Pray, sirs, why do you not eat pork?' 'Every people,' replied the Jews, not disconcerted by the uncourteous merriment of all the Emperor's attendants, has its own special customs, and our opponents have their peculiarities as well as we. Some nations refrain from eating the flesh of young lambs.' Emperor's remark; their flesh is bad.' He then more mildly began to inquire into their national usages; but when they began to justify their polity, afraid, as Philo surmised,

'Quite right, too,' was the

that he should not be able to refute them, he rushed back to his architectural fancies. Among the wonders before them the Jews could not help particular admiration of the window of one chamber, filled with a transparent stone, admitting the light, but warding off the wind, and tempering the burning rays of the sun. Caius became so engaged in superintending the arrangement of some pictures that he hastily dismissed Philo and his companions with the somewhat softened remark-Men who think me no god are more unfortunate after all than criminal.' The Jews, seeing remonstrance vain, were preparing to defend their Temple against the whole colossal power of the Empire, when suddenly the dagger of the Prætorian Tribune Cassius Chærea, whose shrill, woman's voice had drawn forth his merriment, struck down the bloodstained tyrant, and paralyzed his sacrilegious hand, in the fourth year of his reign and twenty-ninth of his age.

The Senate instantly assembled to deliberate on the form of government that should henceforth be administered, and some feeble voices hailed the sacred name of Liberty; but while they deliberated, the Prætorian bands had resolved. In the confusion which ensued at the first news of the assassination of the Emperor, a crowd of the Prætorian guards had rushed into the palace, and were busy plundering its glittering chambers, and quaffing off goblets of generous wines. They found Claudius, the long-despised and neglected uncle of the Emperor, hidden behind a curtain. In their wildest moods still respecting the blood of the Cæsars, or perhaps in drunken jollity, they drew him from his lurking-place, hailed him as Emperor, and carried him off on their shoulders in triumph to the camp, where he took courage to promise the cohorts one hundred pounds a man, as a donative in event of his election to the vacant throne. The formidable force which escorted Claudius to the Senate-house overawed oppo