Gore Vidal’s Caligula by William Howard Page A

statue of Gaius Caligula lying fallen on the ground.
    “Who did this?” howled Caligula, his face a mask of fear.
    “I have no idea, but . . .” Chaerea began.
    At that moment, a workman clad in the leather apron of a stonemason approached them, wiping the back of his hand across his face to clean the dust off.
    “We did, Lord,” he told Caligula.
    Anger made the young man’s nostrils flare. “By whose orders?”
    The mason shook his head. “No one’s, Lord. We were just making some repairs, that’s all.”
    Relief flooded Caligula, and his blue eyes lit up in a smile. It was not an omen after all. No significance, not a particle. He could see now. There was a chip here, a slight erosion there. It was being fixed. Of course. The statue would be better than ever. He was safe. So far.
    “Ahhhhh,” he sighed happily, staring down at his carved marble image. Then he looked impishly at the stern-faced Roman officer. “Which is more beautiful, Chaerea?” He touched his own face lightly with his fingers. “This?” Then, prodding the statue with his foot, “Or this?”
    A look of astonishment came over the colonel’s features.
    “Beautiful? I don’t know, Lord. I mean . . . well, it’s a good likeness . . . but . . .” It was evident that he was totally unprepared to deal with the mischievous vanity of this princeling. Could this be the commander Germanicus’ son? The same child who, dressed in a private soldier’s armor, had held onto the pommel of Chaerea’s saddle like a grown-up legionary of Rome?
    But Caligula had turned away, bored. “Is my beloved grandfather in good health?” he asked in a tone of feigned interest.
    Here Chaerea was on safe territory. “Excellent, praise heaven,” he boomed.
    “Praise heaven,” echoed Caligula, according to rote.
    “He looks forward to going to Rome again. To see the Senate. To see his people . . .”
    “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Caligula smiled faintly and pointed to the crowd of supplicants who, seeing that they’d caught his attention, tried to surge past the guards, still waving their scrolls and petitions. “Just look at them. They’ve not seen their Emperor for more than ten years. How sad for them!”
    “Are you ready, Prince?” asked the colonel.
    “Ready?”
    “For the trip up the mountain, Lord. The Emperor is waiting. The mules are saddled and at your disposal.”
    Caligula took a deep breath and nodded. He was as ready as he’d ever be, he supposed.
    The trip up the cliffs to the Villa Io was slow, for there was but one road, and that one almost impassable in several places. But Tiberius had chosen Capri years ago for that very reason—its inaccessibility. Even before he’d selected Capri, the Emperor had taken refuge from the crowds he so despised. He had left Rome for Campania, where he posted guards to keep the people away from him, and issued edicts forbidding the disturbance of his privacy. But he came to hate Campania too, because it was part of the mainland and had easy access to Rome and the Romans.
    Capri was ideal for him. It was isolated; three miles of water separated it from the tip of the Surrentum promontory. Apart from the small stretch of beach where Caligula had landed, it was harborless, and only a few sentries were needed to guard its approaches. In the winter the climate was mild, and in summer it was glorious. So it was on Capri that Tiberius had built the Villa Io. Actually, the estate comprised twelve separate villas, each exquisite and contributing to the whole, each separately named. The Romans, who had heard of the incredible debaucheries practiced by Tiberius in his private brothel, called the place not Villa Io, but “The Villa of the Monsters”. The name had stuck, and in fact Tiberius was amused by it. He determined to give the Roman gossips their money’s worth. In time, the entire island of Capri became known in Rome as “Caprineum”, a Latin pun on the word for “goatish”, because