Rome to live amongst informers and debauchees, with his heart and brain
poisoned by power to the point of crime and most extraordinary insanity.
Then the palace of Caligula followed, an enlargement of that of Tiberius,
with arcades set up to increase its extent, and a bridge thrown over the
Forum to the Capitol, in order that the prince might go thither at his
ease to converse with Jove, whose son he claimed to be. And sovereignty
also rendered this one ferocious--a madman with omnipotence to do as he
listed! Then, after Claudius, Nero, not finding the Palatine large
enough, seized upon the delightful gardens climbing the Esquiline in
order to set up his Golden House, a dream of sumptuous immensity which he
could not complete and the ruins of which disappeared in the troubles
following the death of this monster whom pride demented. Next, in
eighteen months, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius fell one upon the other, in
mire and in blood, the purple converting them also into imbeciles and
monsters, gorged like unclean beasts at the trough of imperial enjoyment.
And afterwards came the Flavians, at first a respite, with commonsense
and human kindness: Vespasian; next Titus, who built but little on the
Palatine; but then Domitian, in whom the sombre madness of omnipotence
burst forth anew amidst a /regime/ of fear and spying, idiotic atrocities
and crimes, debauchery contrary to nature, and building enterprises born
of insane vanity instinct with a desire to outvie the temples of the
gods. The palace of Domitian, parted by a lane from that of Tiberius,
arose colossal-like--a palace of fairyland. There was the hall of
audience, with its throne of gold, its sixteen columns of Phrygian and
Numidian marble and its eight niches containing colossal statues; there
were the hall of justice, the vast dining-room, the peristylium, the
sleeping apartments, where granite, porphyry, and alabaster overflowed,
carved and decorated by the most famous artists, and lavished on all
sides in order to dazzle the world. And finally, many years later, a last
palace was added to all the others--that of Septimius Severus: again a