Читать книгу The Empresses of Rome онлайн

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In the spring or early summer of the year 39 we find him perpetrating one of his stupendous acts of folly at Baiæ. He was accustomed, in the warmer weather, to cruise about the coast of Campania with his wife and suite. He had two great Liburnian galleys built, each with ten banks of oars, their prows blazing with gold and jewels, their decks adorned with vines, colonnades, and divers freaks of irresponsible wealth. As they cruised by the bay, some one reminded him of an old proverb which spoke of riding from Baiæ to Puteoli, across an arm of the bay, as one of the most certain impossibilities. At once he ordered a bridge to be built across the water and elaborately decorated. In what was supposed to be the armour of Alexander the Great, over which was thrown a mantle of purple silk, the conqueror of impossibilities rode from Baiæ to Puteoli. On the following day he drove his chariot across; and far into the night, the hills around being lit up with immense fires, he carried the debauch which celebrated his glorious feat. In their intoxication numbers reeled from the bridge into the scented waters.