His madness showed itself sometimes in gluttonous extravagance, as when
he ordered a supper which cost more than 8,000_l_; sometimes in a
_bizarre_ and disgraceful mode of dress, as when he appeared in public
in women's stockings, embroidered with gold and pearls; sometimes in a
personality and insolence of demeanor towards every rank and class in
Rome, which made him ask a senator to supper, and ply him with drunken
toasts, on the very evening on which he had condemned his son to death;
sometimes in sheer raving blasphemy, as when he expressed his furious
indignation against Jupiter for presuming to thunder while he was
supping, or looking at the pantomimes; but most of all in a ferocity
which makes Seneca apply to him the name of "Bellua," or "wild monster,"
and say that he seems to have been produced "for the disgrace and
destruction of the human race."
We will quote from the pages of Seneca but one single passage to justify
his remark "that he was most greedy for human blood, which he ordered
to stream in his very presence with such eagerness as though he were
going to drink it up with his lips.
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