The prows were outward and the sterns interlocked. The sterns stuck up too high for his purpose, so he had them trimmed flat, sawing off the helmsman's seat and the figurehead for every one; which made the crews very unhappy, because the figurehead was the guardian deity of the ship.
Then he boarded the double line across and threw earth on the boards and had the earth watered and rammed flat; and the result was a broad firm road, some six thousand paces long from end to end. When more ships arrived, just back from voyages to the East, he lashed them together into five islands which he linked to the road, one at every thousand paces. He had a row of ships built all the way across and ordered the ward-masters of Rome to have them stocked and staffed within ten days. He installed a drinking-water system and planted gardens. The islands he made into villages.
Fortunately the weather was fine throughout these preparations and the sea glassy smooth. When everything was ready he put on the breastplate of Alexander
[Augustus was unworthy to use Alexander's ring, but Caligula wore his very breastplate] and over it a purple silk cloak stiff with jewel-encrusted gold embroidery; then he took Julius Caesar's sword and the reputed battle-axe of Romulus and the reputed shield of Eneas which were stored m the Capitol [both forgeries in my opinion, but such early forgeries as to be practically genuine] and crowned himself with a garland of oak-leaves. After a propitiatory sacrifice to Neptune--a seal, because that is an amphibious beast--and another, a peacock, to Envy, in case, as he said, any God should be jealous of him, he mounted on Incitatus and began trotting across the bridge from the Bauli end. The whole of the Guards cavalry was at his back, and behind that a great force of cavalry brought from France, followed by twenty thousand infantry. When he reached the last island, close to Puteoli, he made his trumpeters blow the charge and dashed into the city as fiercely as if he were pursuing a beaten enemy.
He remained in Puteoli that night and most of the next day, as if resting from battle. In the evening he returned in a triumphal chariot with gold-plated wheels and sides. Incitatus and the mare Penelope to whom Caligula had ritually married him were in the shafts. Caligula was wearing the same splendid clothes as before, except that he had a garland of bay-leaves instead of oak-leaves. A long wagontrain followed heaped high with what were supposed to be battle-spoils--furniture and statues and ornaments cobbed from the houses of rich Puteoli merchants. For prisoners he used the hostages which the petty kings of the East were required to send to Rome as earnest of good behaviour and whatever foreign slaves he could lay his hands upon, dressed in their national costumes and loaded with chains. His friends followed in decorated chariots, wearing embroidered gowns and chanting his praises. Then came the army, and last a procession of about two hundred thousand people in holiday dress. Countless bonfires were alight on the whole [383] circle of hills around the bay and every soldier and citizen in the procession carried a torch. It was the most impressive theatrical spectacle, I should think, that the world has ever seen, and I am sure it was the most pointless. But how everybody enjoyed it! A pine-wood went on fire at Cape Misenum to the south-west and blazed magnificently. As soon as Caligula reached Bauli again he dismounted and called for his gold-pronged trident and his other purple cloak worked over with silver fish and dolphins. With these he entered the biggest of his five cedar-built pleasurebarges which were waiting on the shore-side of the bridge, and was rowed out in it to the middle island of the five, which was by far the biggest, followed by most of his troops in war-vessels.
Here he disembarked, mounted a silk-hung platform and harangued the crowds as they passed along the bridge.
There were watchmen to keep them on the move, so nobody heard more than a few sentences, except his friends around the platform--among whom I found myself--and the soldiers in the nearest war-vessels, who had not been permitted to land. Among other things, he called Neptune a coward for allowing himself to be put in fetters without a struggle, and promised, one day soon, to teach the old God an even sharper lesson. [He seemed to forget the propitiatory sacrifice he had made.] As for the Emperor Xerxes who had once bridged the Hellespont in the course of his unlucky expedition against Greece, Caligula laughed at him like anything. He said that Xerxes' famous bridge had been only half the length of the present one and not nearly so solid. Then he announced that he was about to give every soldier two gold pieces to drink his health with, and every member of the crowd five silver pieces.
The cheering lasted for half an hour; which seemed to satisfy him. He stopped it and had the money paid out on the spot. The whole procession had to file past again and bag after bag of coin was brought up and emptied. After a couple of hours the money-supply failed and Caligula told the disappointed late-comers to revenge themselves on the greedy first-comers. This, of course, started a free fight.
There followed one of the most remarkable nights of drinking and singing and horse-play and violence and merry-making that was ever known. The effect of drink on Caligula was always to make him a little mischievous. At the head of the Scouts and the German bodyguard he charged about the island and along the line of shops, pushing people into the sea. The water was so calm that it was only the dead-drunk, the decrepit, the aged and little children who failed to save themselves. Not more than two or three hundred were drowned.
About midnight he made a naval attack on one of the smaller islands, breaking the bridge on either side of it and then ramming ship after ship of the island until the inhabitants whom he had cut off were crowded together in a very small space in the middle. The final assault was reserved for Caligula's flagship.
He stood waving his trident in the forecastle top, swept down on the terrified survivors and sent them all under. Among the victims of this seabattle was the most remarkable exhibit of Caligula's triumphal procession--Eleazar, the Parthian hostage; who was the tallest man in the world. He was over eleven foot high. He was not, however, strong in proportion to his height; he had a voice like the bleat of a camel and a weak back, and was considered to be of feeble intellect. He was a Jew by birth. Caligula had the body stuffed and dressed in armour and put Eleazar outside the door of his bedchamber to frighten away would-be assassins.
XXXI
THE EXPENSE OF THIS TWO DAYS' ENTERTAINMENT DRAINED the Treasury and the Privy Purse completely dry. To make things worse Caligula, instead of returning the vessels to their masters and crew, ordered the breach in the bridge to be repaired and then, riding back to Rome, busied himself with other affairs. Neptune, to prove himself no coward, sent a heavy storm at the bridge from the west and sank [385] about a thousand ships. Most of the rest dragged their anchors and were driven ashore. About two thousand rode the storm out or were hauled in on the beach for safety, but the loss of the rest caused a great shortage of ships for the carriage of corn from Egypt and Africa, and so a serious food-shortage in the City. Caligula swore to be revenged on Neptune. His new ways of raising money were most ingenious and amused all but the victims and their friends or dependants. For instance, any young men whom he put so deeply in his debt by fines or confiscations that they became his slaves he sent to the sword-fighting schools. When they were trained he put them into the amphitheatre to fight for their lives. His only expense in this was their board and lodgings: being his slaves they were given no payment.