It is said that when Caligula was a young boy he was dressed in miniature military accouterments, including the boots, and presented to the soldiers of the prætorian guard. This greatly pleased them, and drew from them the nickname of Caligula, which means “little boot.” A bronze statue, found at Pompeii, represents him at about that time in his life, with his hair in long curls, ornaments of silver upon his cuirass, and his feet shod as indicated. As a youth he seemed to have had a weak constitution. He was very excitable and a poor sleeper. When he came to the throne he was for a short time diligent and thoughtful. He sailed to the island where his mother Agrippina I had perished and brought back her ashes to Rome for burial in the mausoleum of Augustus. A cippus, or monumental stone, set up among others in the city and erected probably by him, because mention is made on it of his accession to the throne, was hollowed out in the Middle Ages so as to be a standard measure for three hundred pounds of grain and as such was set up to be used by the public in the portico of the City Hall. It is now in the court of the Palace of the Conservatori on the Capitoline. Caligula introduced some measures of wise statesmanship. Then he gained for himself great popularity by his fondness for public sports and his lavish expenditures on great gladiatorial shows, in which Tiberius had taken very little interest. There seems to have been a great deal of enterprise and dash about him. But Caligula soon abandoned the spirit of discretion and modesty. He showed no true interest for his subjects. Very few of them, however, knew of his unworthy tastes and conduct at Capri. He had been greatly influenced for evil by the companionship at court of Herod Agrippa, a grandson of Herod the Great, who had taken the name of Agrippa in compliment to Vipsanius Agrippa, the prime minister of Augustus. We shall later learn more of this Herod Agrippa I, for under the title of Herod the King it is he who appears in the twelfth chapter of the Acts. Agrippa had filled Caligula’s mind with oriental ideas of what a monarch should be, namely, one who should make the people feel his absolute power and should dazzle them at times with great parades and startling spectacles. Accordingly, Caligula is reported to have said, “Let them hate me, if only they fear me.” It became very soon evident that Caligula’s vanity, arrogance, and cruelty would stop at no limits. He obliged Tiberius Gemellus, his rival for the throne, to commit suicide. He forced a similar fate upon other friends of Tiberius. His morals were execrable. His defiance of public opinion was shameless. He lived with his own sister Drusilla in a disgraceful manner and, when she died, decreed that she should be worshiped as a goddess. He successively took three wives from other men.