1. The impiety, however, of Calig'ula was but subordinate to his cruelties. He slew many of the senate, and afterwards cited them to appear. He cast great numbers of old and infirm men to the wild beasts, to free the state from such unserviceable citizens. He usually fed his wild beasts with the bodies of those wretches whom he condemned; and every tenth day sent off numbers of them to be thus devoured, which he jocosely called clearing his accounts. One of those who was thus exposed, crying out that he was innocent,[17] Calig'ula ordered him to be taken up, his tongue to be cut out, and then thrown into the amphitheatre as before. 2. He took delight in killing men with slow tortures, that, as he expressed it, they might feel themselves dying, being always present at such executions himself, directing the duration of the punishment, and mitigating the tortures merely to prolong them. 3. In fact, he valued himself for no quality more than his unrelenting temper, and inflexible severity, when he presided at an execution. 4. Upon one occasion, being incensed with the citizens, he wished that the Roman people had but one neck, that he might dispatch them at one blow. 5. Such insupportable and capricious cruelties produced many secret conspiracies against him; but they were for a while deferred upon account of his intended expedition against the Germans and Britons. [Sidenote: U.C. 793. A.D. 41] 6. For this purpose he caused numerous levies to be made, and talked with so much resolution, that it was universally believed he would conquer all before him. 7. His march perfectly indicated the inequality of his temper; sometimes it was so rapid that the cohorts were obliged to leave their standards behind them; at other times it was so slow, that it more resembled a pompous procession than a military expedition. 8. In this disposition he would cause himself to be carried on a litter, on eight men's shoulders, and ordered all the neighbouring cities to have their streets well swept and watered, that he might not be annoyed with dust. 9 However, all these mighty preparations ended in nothing. Instead of conquering Britain, he merely gave refuge to one of its banished princes; and this he described, in his letter to the senate, as taking possession of the whole island. 10. Instead of conquering Germany, he only led his army to the seashore in Gaul: there, disposing his engines and warlike machines with great solemnity, and drawing up his men in order of battle, he went on board his galley, with which coasting along, he commanded his trumpets to sound, and the signal to be given as if for an engagement. 11. His men, who had previous orders, immediately fell to gathering the shells that lay upon the shore into their helmets, as their spoils of the conquered ocean, worthy of the palace and the capitol. 12. After this doughty expedition, calling his army together, like a general after victory, he harangued them in a pompous manner,