Episode 7 Evidence Chart

Caligula 7 Suetonius The family of Gaius Caesar "Caligula"
7. He had to wife Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Agrippa and Julia, who bore him nine
children. Two of these were taken off when they were still in infancy, and one just as he was
reaching the age of boyhood, a charming child, whose statue, in the guise of Cupid, Livia
dedicated in the temple of the Capitoline Venus, while Augustus had another placed in his bed
chamber and used to kiss it fondly whenever he entered the room. The other children survived
their father, three girls, Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla, born in successive years, and three
boys, Nero, Drusus, and Gaius Caesar. Nero and Drusus were adjudged public enemies by the
senate on the accusation of Tiberius.

Caligula 8 Suetonius The birth of Caligula

8. Gaius Caesar was born the day before the Kalends of September in the consulship of his
father and Gaius Fonteius Capito [August 31, 12 A.D.]. Conflicting testimony makes his
birthplace uncertain. Gnaeus Lentulus Gaetulicus writes that he was born at Tibur, Plinius
Secundus among the Treveri, in a village called Ambitarvium above the Confluence. Pliny adds
as proof that altars are shown there, inscribed For the Delivery of Agrippina. Verses which
were in circulation soon after he became emperor indicate that he was begotten in the
winter-quarters of the legions: "He who was born in the camp and reared mid the arms of his
country, Gave at the outset a sign that he was fated to rule." I myself find in the Acta Publica
[the official publication of important events] that he first saw the light at Antium. Gaetulicus is
shown to be wrong by Pliny, who says that he told a flattering lie, to add some luster to the
fame of a young and vain-glorious prince from the city sacred to Hercules; and that he lied with
the more assurance because Germanicus really did have a son born to him at Tibur, also called
Gaius Caesar, of whose lovable disposition and untimely death I have already spoken. Pliny
has erred in his chronology; for the historians of Augustus agree that Germanicus was not sent
to Germany until the close of his consulship, when Gaius was already born. Moreover, the
inscription on the altar adds no strength to Pliny's view, for Agrippina twice gave birth to
daughters in that region, and any childbirth, regardless of sex, is called puerperium, since the
men of old called girls puerae, just as they called boys puelli. Furthermore, we have a letter
written by Augustus to his granddaughter Agrippina, a few months before he died, about the
Gaius in question (for no other child of the name was still alive at that time), reading as
follows: "Yesterday I arranged with Talarius and Asillius to bring your boy Gaius on the
fifteenth day before the Kalends of June, if it be the will of the gods. I send with him besides
one of my slaves who is a physician, and I have written Germanicus to keep him if he wishes.
Farewell, my own Agrippina, and take care to come in good health to your Germanicus." I
think it is clear enough that Gaius could not have been born in a place to which he was first
taken from Rome when he was nearly two years old. This letter also weakens our confidence in
the verses, the more so because they are anonymous. We must then accept the only remaining
testimony, that of the public record, particularly since Gaius loved Antium as if it were his
native soil, always preferring it to all other places of retreat, and even thinking, it is said, of
transferring thither the seat and abode of the empire through weariness of Rome.

Tiberius 62 Suetonius The death of Castor (Drusus)

62. Exasperated by information he received respecting the death of his son Drusus, he
carried his cruelty still farther. He imagined that he had died of a disease occasioned by his
intemperance; but finding that he had been poisoned by the contrivance of his wife Livilla and
Sejanus, he spared no one from torture and death. He was so entirely occupied with the
examination of this affair, for whole days together, that, upon being informed that the person
in whose house he had lodged at Rome, was arrived, he ordered him immediately to be put to
the torture, as a party concerned in the inquiry. Upon finding his mistake, he commanded him
to be put to death, that he might not publish the injury done him. The place of execution is
still shown at Capri, where he ordered those who were condemned to die, after long and
exquisite tortures, to be thrown, before his eyes, from a precipice into the sea. There a party
of soldiers belonging to the fleet waited for them, and broke their bones with poles and oars,
lest they should have any life left in them. Among various kinds of torture invented by him,
one was, to induce people to drink a large quantity of wine, and then to tie up their members
with harp-strings, thus tormenting them prevented him, and Thrasyllus, designedly, as some
say, prevailed with him to defer some of his cruelties, in hopes of longer life, it is believed
that he would have destroyed many more; and not have spared even the rest of his
grandchildren: for he was jealous of Caius, and hated Tiberius as having been conceived in
adultery. This conjecture is indeed highly probable; for he used often to say, " Happy Priam,
who survived all his children !"

Caligula 10 Suetonius The youth of Caligula and death of Livia

10. He attended his father also on his expedition to Syria. On his return from there he first lived
with his mother and after her banishment, with his great-grandmother Livia; and when Livia
died [29 A.D.], though he was not yet of age, he spoke her eulogy from the rostra. Then he fell
to the care of his grandmother Antonia and in the nineteenth year of his age he was called to
Capreae [the Isle of Capri] by Tiberius, on the same day assuming the gown of manhood and
shaving his first beard, but without any such ceremony as had attended the coming of age of
his brothers. Although at Capreae every kind of wile was resorted to by those who tried to lure
him or force him to utter complaints, he never gave them any satisfaction, ignoring the ruin of
his kindred as if nothing at all had happened, passing over his own ill-treatment with an
incredible pretence of indifference, and so obsequious towards his grandfather and his
household, that it was well said of him that no one had ever been a better slave or a worse master.

The Annals IV.3 Tacitus The love affair between Sejanus and Livilla

[4.3] There were however obstacles to his ambition in the imperial house with its many princes,
a son in youthful manhood and grown-up grandsons. As it would be unsafe to sweep off such a
number at once by violence, while craft would necessitate successive intervals in crime, he
chose, on the whole, the stealthier way and to begin with Drusus (Castor), against whom he had the
stimulus of a recent resentment. Drusus, who could not brook a rival and was somewhat
irascible, had, in a casual dispute, raised his fist at Sejanus, and, when he defended himself,
had struck him in the face. On considering every plan Sejanus thought his easiest revenge was
to turn his attention to Livia, Drusus's wife. She was a sister of Germanicus, and though she
was not handsome as a girl, she became a woman of surpassing beauty. Pretending an ardent
passion for her, he seduced her, and having won his first infamous triumph, and assured that a
woman after having parted with her virtue will hesitate at nothing, he lured her on to thoughts of
marriage, of a share in sovereignty, and of her husband's destruction. And she, the niece of
Augustus, the daughter-in-law of Tiberius, the mother of children by Drusus, for a provincial
paramour, foully disgraced herself, her ancestors, and her descendants, giving up honour and a
sure position for prospects as base as they were uncertain. They took into their confidence
Eudemus, Livia's friend and physician, whose profession was a pretext for frequent secret
interviews. Sejanus, to avert his mistress's jealousy, divorced his wife Apicata, by whom he
had had three children. Still the magnitude of the crime caused fear and delay, and sometimes a
conflict of plans.