In the year 790 from the founding of the City, Gaius Caligula, the third from Augustus, began to reign and remained in power for not quite four years — of all men before him the most outrageous, and one who might truly seem to have been brought in as a fitting punisher of the blaspheming Romans and the persecuting Jews.
1 Anno ab urbe condita DCCXC tertius ab Augusto Gaius Caligula regnare coepit mansitque in imperio annis non plenis quattuor, homo omnium ante se flagitiosissimus et qui uere dignus Romanis blasphemantibus et Iudaeis persecutoribus punitor adhibitus uideretur.
To set out the magnitude of his cruelty briefly: he is said to have exclaimed, “Would that the Roman people had a single neck!” He often complained, too, about the condition of his times, that they were marked by no public calamities.
2 hic, ut breuiter magnitudinem crudelitatis eius expromam, exclamasse fertur: utinam populus Romanus unam ceruicem haberet. saepe etiam de condicione temporum suorum conquestus est, quod nullis calamitatibus publicis insignirentur.
O blessed seedlings of the Christian times, how mightily you have prevailed in human affairs, that even a man’s cruelty could rather long for disasters than find them! See, hungry savagery complains of the general tranquillity; within, impious Fury, “seated on savage arms and bound behind his back with a hundred brazen knots, roars, hideous with bloody mouth.”
3 O beata germina temporis Christiani, quantum praeualuistis in rebus humanis, ut etiam crudelitas hominis magis potuerit clades desiderare quam inuenire! ecce de tranquillitate generali feritas ieiuna conqueritur; furor impius intus Saeua sedens super arma et centum uinctus aenis Post tergum nodis fremit horridus ore cruento.
Rebellious slaves and runaway gladiators once terrified Rome, overturned Italy and destroyed Sicily, so that they were already to be feared by almost the whole human race throughout the world; but in the days of salvation, that is, in the Christian times, not even a hostile Caesar can shatter the peace.
4 serui rebelles et fugitiui gladiatores perterruere Romam, euertere Italiam, Siciliam deleuerunt, iam paene uniuerso humano generi toto orbe metuendi; in diebus autem salutis, hoc est temporibus Christianis, conuellere quietem non potest uel Caesar infestus.
He, indeed, setting out with great and incredible preparations to look for an enemy for his idle forces, ran through Germany and Gaul and halted on the shore of the Ocean within sight of Britain. And when there he had received the surrender of Minocynobelinus, son of the king of the Britons, who, driven out by his father, was wandering about with a few followers, for lack of material for war he returned to Rome.1
5 hic siquidem magno et incredibili apparatu profectus quaerere hostem uiribus otiosis, Germaniam Galliamque percurrens, in ora Oceani circa prospectum Britanniae restitit. cumque ibi Minocynobelinum Britannorum regis filium, qui a patre pulsus cum paucis oberrabat, in deditionem recepisset, deficiente belli materia Romam rediit.
1Suetonius (Caligula 44) names Adminius, son of Cunobelinus, king of the Britons; Orosius’s Minocynobelinus fuses the two names.
In those same days the Jews, who even then were being harried everywhere by deserved disasters on account of the passion of Christ, having stirred up a sedition at Alexandria, were crushed with slaughter and driven from the city, and had sent a certain Philo, a man certainly among the most learned, as an envoy to Caesar to set forth their complaints.
6 isdem autem diebus Iudaei, qui iam tunc ob passionem Christi meritis ubique cladibus exagitabantur, apud Alexandriam seditione excitata, profligati caede atque urbe propulsi, expromendarum querellarum causa Philonem quendam, uirum sane in primis eruditum, legatum ad Caesarem miserant.
But Caligula, most hostile to all men and above all to the Jews, scorned the embassy of Philo and commanded that all the sacred seats of the Jews, and above all that ancient sanctuary at Jerusalem, be profaned with the sacrifices of the gentiles and filled with statues and images, and ordered that he himself be worshipped there as a god.
7 sed Caligula cum omnibus hominibus tum praecipue Iudaeis infestissimus, spreta legatione Philonis omnes Iudaeorum sacras sedes atque in primis antiquum illud in Hierosolymis sacrarium profanari sacrificiis gentilium ac repleri statuis simulacrisque imperauit seque ibi ut deum coli praecepit.
Pilate the governor, moreover, who had pronounced the sentence of condemnation upon Christ, after he had met with and caused a great many seditions in Jerusalem, was pressed by such torments inflicted by Gaius that he ran himself through with his own hand and sought by the swiftness of death a short way out of his evils.
8 Pilatus autem praeses, qui sententiam damnationis in Christum dixerat, postquam plurimas seditiones in Hierosolymis excepit ac fecit, tantis inrogante Gaio angoribus coartatus est, ut sua se transuerberans manu malorum conpendium mortis celeritate quaesierit.
Gaius Caligula added to his lusts this crime as well, that he first defiled his sisters with incest and then condemned them to exile; and afterwards he ordered all the exiles together to be killed. He himself, however, was killed by his own guards.
9 Gaius Caligula libidinibus suis etiam illud sceleris adiecit, ut sorores suas primum stupro pollueret, deinde exilio damnaret. qui post omnes simul exules iussit occidi. ipse autem a suis protectoribus occisus est.
Two little books were found among his secret papers, one inscribed “Dagger” and the other “Sword” by way of title: both contained the names and marks of the most distinguished men of both orders, senatorial and equestrian, marked out for death. There was also found a huge chest of various poisons; when soon afterwards these were sunk at the command of Claudius Caesar, the seas are reported to have been infected by them, not without great destruction of fish, which the tide cast up dead along the neighbouring shores far and wide.
10 duo libelli in secretis eius reperti sunt, quorum alteri pugio, alteri gladius pro signo nominis adscriptum erat: ambo lectissimorum uirorum utriusque ordinis, senatorii et equestris, nomina et notas continebant morti destinatorum. inuenta est et arca ingens uariorum uenenorum, quibus mox Claudio Caesare iubente demersis infecta maria traduntur non sine magno piscium exitio, quos enecatos per proxima litora passim aestus eiecit.
A great sign indeed of a merciful God — both on account of the favour of grace towards a people that would soon in part believe, and on account of the tempering of wrath towards a people then faithlessly obstinate — that from the multitude of fish killed it might be learned how great a multitude of men had escaped the death prepared for them, and it might become known to all what so great a mass of poison, increased by art, could have done in a wretched city, when, poured out carelessly, it corrupted even the seas.
11 Magnum reuera indicium miserentis Dei propter suffragium gratiae in populum continuo ex parte crediturum et propter irae temperamentum in populum tunc infideliter obstinatum, ut quanta multitudo hominum praeparatam mortem euaserit, ex multitudine interfectorum piscium disceretur omnibusque notesceret, quid tanta ueneni moles arte aucta agere in misera ciuitate potuisset, quae neglegenter effusa etiam maria corrupit.