Tiberius Caesar was on his way to Naples, and had arrived at his estate in Misenum which had been built by Lucullus1 on a high hill overlooking the Sicilian sea on one side and the Tuscan sea on the other. When Caesar was walking about in the cheerful greenery, one of his household stewards turned up, dressed in a fancy-fringed tunic of Egyptian cotton hanging down from his shoulders. The man began to sprinkle the sizzling hot ground with water from a wooden basin, making a great show of his diligence as Caesar’s attendant, but everyone just laughed at him. The man then ran ahead to the next walkway, using some shortcuts known only to himself, and he started settling the dust in that spot as well. When Caesar recognized the man and realized what he was doing, he said, ‘Hey you!’ The man scampered up to Caesar, excited at the joyful prospect of what seemed a sure reward. Then Caesar’s majestic person made the following joke: ‘You have not accomplished much and your efforts have come to naught; if you want me to give you the slap that makes you a freedman, it will cost you much more than that!’

1 Lucullus was a general in the first century BC who was notorious for his luxurious lifestyle and fishponds.

THE RICHES OF CALIGULA

Life of Caligula

Suetonius

Translated by Robert Graves, 1957

Robert Graves may be best known for I, Claudius, his tremendous novel of 1934, but he was also a keen-eyed translator of classical texts. The following extract comes from his translation of Suetonius’ (c. AD 69–c. 122) biography of Claudius’ nephew and predecessor, Caligula. Emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in AD 41, Caligula was renowned for his excesses, which frequently defy belief. Suetonius’ celebrated Lives of the Caesars, which date to the early second century AD, often seem to blur the line between reality and fiction. It is for each of us to decide how much of what Suetonius wrote is true.