Life of Caligula
adoptatus, quaesturam quinquennio ante quam per leges liceret et post eam consulatum
statim gessit, missusque ad exercitum in Germaniam, excessu Augusti nuntiato, legiones
uniuersas imperatorem Tiberium pertinacissime recusantis et sibi summam rei p. deferentis
incertum pietate an constantia maiore compescuit atque hoste mox deuicto triumphauit.
Consul deinde iterum creatus ac prius quam honorem iniret ad componendum Orientis
statum expulsus, cum Armeniae regem deuicisset, Cappadociam in prouinciae formam
redegisset, annum agens aetatis quartum et tricensimum diuturno morbo Antiochiae obiit,
non sine ueneni suspicione. Nam praeter liuores, qui toto corpore erant, et spumas, quae per
os fluebant, cremati quoque cor inter ossa incorruptum repertum est, cuius ea natura
existimatur, ut tinctum ueneno igne confici nequeat.
being adopted by his paternal uncle Tiberius [4 A.D.], held the quaestorship [7 A.D.] five
years before the legal age and passed directly to the consulship [12 A.D.] [i.e., without
holding any of the intermediate offices of the cursus honorem]. When the death of
Augustus [14 A.D.] was announced, he was sent to the army in Germania, where it is hard
to say whether his filial piety or his courage was more conspicuous; for although all the
legions obstinately refused to accept Tiberius as emperor, and offered him the rule of the
state, he held them to their allegiance. And later he won a victory over the enemy and
celebrated a triumph [17 A.D.]. Then chosen consul for a second time [18 A.D.], before he
entered on his term he was hurried off to restore order in the Orient, and after vanquishing
the king of Armenia and reducing Cappadocia to the form of a province, died of a lingering
illness at Antioch, in the thirty-fourth year of his age. There was some suspicion that he
was poisoned; for besides the dark spots which appeared all over his body and the froth
which flowed from his mouth, after he had been reduced to ashes his heart was found
entire among his bones; and it is supposed to be a characteristic of that organ that when
steeped in poison it cannot be destroyed by fire.