The over excitement caused in the nervous system by such potions frequently proved fatal. Such, according to Eusebius, was the fate of the poet Lucretius, who, having been driven to madness by an amatory potion, and having, during the intervals of his insanity, composed several books, which were afterwards corrected by Cicero, died by his own hand, in the 44th year of his age.[97] It should, however, be remembered that this account has been questioned by the poet's translator and annotator, the late Mr. Mason Good, in these words: "By whom the potion was administered is conjectured only from a passage in St. Jerome,[98] who says that a certain Lucilia killed her husband or her lover by giving him a philtre, which was intended to secure his love, but the effect of which was to make him insane. This Lucilia is supposed to have been the wife or the mistress of Lucretius, but by whom the supposition was first made, I am not able to discover."[99] Suetonius relates the same thing of Caius Caligula, who although, when he arrived at manhood, endured fatigue tolerably well, was still occasionally liable to faintness, owing to which he remained incapable of any effort. He was not insensible to this disorder of his mind, and sometimes had thoughts of retiring.[100] "Creditum," he continues, "potionatus a Cæsonia uxore, amatorio quodam medicamento, sed quod furorem verterit."[101] "It is thought that his wife Cæsonia administered to him a love-potion, which threw him into a phrensy." It is in allusion to this that Juvenal writes "Tamen hoc tolerabile, si non Et furere incipias, ut avunculus ille Neronis Cui totam tremuli frontem Cæsonia pulli Infudit."[102] "Some nimbler juice would make him foam and rave, Like that Cæsonia to her Caius gave, Who, plucking from the forehead of the foal The mother's love, infused it in the bowl: The boiling blood ran hissing through his veins, Till the mad vapour mounted to his brains." These concoctions were publicly sold at Rome, their ingredients consisting of herbs of various kinds, in the culling and testing of which the shepherds were often employed. The remora, or sucking-fish, certain bones of the frog, the astroit, or star-fish, and the hippomanes were also used. Horace informs us that dried human marrow and liver were also had recourse to: "Exsucta uti medulla et aridum jecur Amoris esset poculum."[103] That his parch'd marrow might compose, Together with his liver dried, an amorous dose. Del Rio[104] and Wallick[105] assert that to the above were likewise added nail-parings, sundry metals, reptiles, and the intestines of particular birds and fishes, and even _semen virile_ and _sanguis menstruus_.[106] During the concoction of these filthy, disgusting, and abominable compounds, the Infernal Deities were earnestly invoked.