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25While the senators were passing these decrees, Gaius sent for Ptolemy, the son of Juba, and on learning that he was wealthy put him to death and . . .
And when he reached the ocean, as if he were going to conduct a campaign in Britain, and had drawn up all the soldiers on the beach, 2he embarked on a trireme, and then, after putting out a little from the land, sailed back again. Next he took his seat on a lofty platform and gave the soldiers the signal as if for battle, bidding the trumpeters urge them on; then of a sudden he ordered them to gather up the shells. 3Having secured these spoils (for he needed booty, of course, for his triumphal procession), he became greatly elated, as if he had enslaved the very ocean; and he gave his soldiers many presents. The shells he took back to Rome for the purpose of exhibiting the booty to the people there as well. 4The senate knew not how it could remain indifferent to these doings, since it learned that he was in an exalted frame of mind, nor yet again how it could praise him. For, if anybody bestows great praise or extraordinary honours for some trivial exploit or none at all, he is suspected of making a hissing and a mockery of the affair. 5Nevertheless, when Gaius entered the city, he came very near destroying the whole senate because it had not voted him divine honours. He assembled the populace, however, and showered quantities of silver and gold upon them from a lofty station, and many perished in their efforts to grab it; for, as some say, he had mixed small pieces of iron in with the coins.
6When he had ordered Betilinus Bassus to be slain, he compelled Capito, the man’s father, to be present at his son’s execution, though Capito was not guilty of any crime and had received no court summons. When the father inquired if he would permit him to close his eyes, Gaius ordered him to be slain, too. 7Then Capito, finding his life in danger, pretended to have been one of the conspirators and promised to disclose the names of all the rest; and he named the companions of Gaius and those who abetted his licentiousness and cruelty. Indeed, he would have brought many to destruction, had he not gone on to accuse the prefects and Callistus and Caesonia, and so aroused distrust. He was accordingly put to death, but this very deed paved the way for Gaius’ own destruction. 8For the emperor privately summoned the prefects and Callistus and said to them: “I am but one, and you are three; and I am defenceless, whereas you are armed. If, therefore, you hate me and desire to kill me, slay me.” As a result of this affair, he believed that he was hated and that they were vexed at his behaviour, and so he suspected them and wore a sword at his side when in the city; and to forestall any harmony of action on their part he attempted to embroil them with one another, by pretending to make a confidant of each one separately and talking to him about the others, until they understood his purpose and abandoned him to the conspirators.
9He also ordered the senate to meet and pretended to grant its members amnesty, saying that there were only a very few against whom he still retained his anger. This statement doubled the anxiety of every one of them, for each was thinking of himself.
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