It was fortunate that Caligula’s reign was not long. It lasted less than four years. The suppressed and muttering storm of popular indignation was long reaching its climax. But at last the outburst came, and the merciless lightning fell. He had presided on a certain occasion at the games at the foot of the Palatine. At the hour of intermission and rest he allowed most of his guard to go up into the palace by the open way, while he entered through the cryptoporticus,--a long tunnel-like passageway under the building, the same one through the shadows of which the modern visitor to the Palatine Hill now generally passes. Hither Cassius Chærea, a tribune of the Guard, whom Caligula had insulted by mockingly imitating his squeaky voice, followed him, with others, and arresting his steps, suddenly struck him upon the head with a sword. Blow followed blow till life was extinct. The bearers of his litter had run to his assistance with their poles, while his small body-guard of Germans had struck wildly at the assassins. But these assassins made their escape from the narrow passage, and left the body where it fell. It was borne in secret by friendly hands to a place of cremation, where it was only partially consumed. Later his sisters, Livia and Agrippina II, reduced it completely to ashes, which they consigned to a decent sepulcher. The people must have breathed more freely when his death was announced, for they felt that nothing worse could follow and something better might. Caligula is not mentioned in the New Testament, but he was carrying out his wild career while the Gospel was spreading from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria and as far perhaps as to Antioch. The preaching of Peter and Philip and John, in Samaria, and the conversion of Saul of Tarsus at about that time would have had no interest for him if he had been told about it. There is a bronze bust of him in the Hall of the Emperors in the Capitoline Museum at Rome, from which we would suppose him to be somewhat good-looking. He had regular features and an intellectual head, but wore a sort of frown upon his brow. He did not part his hair. None of the first emperors seem to have done that; so it was probably the fashion for other men not to do it. The bust represents him as wearing a corselet over the woven garment that falls in folds from his shoulders. There is some alertness and vigor in the face. Perhaps in his youth he was a possible statesman. If so, he was badly spoilt by his early training in a hot-bed of corruption and sensuality. His name is a black spot upon the history of a period dark enough at best, and is never mentioned but to be despised. CHAPTER IV CLAUDIUS, THE STOLID [Illustration: CLAUDIUS]