[156] P. 298:
◆Suetonius, Caligula, XXV. “Cæsonia was first the mistress and afterwards the wife of the Emperor Caligula. She was neither handsome nor young when Caligula fell in love with her; but she was a woman of the greatest licentiousness.... At the time he was married to Lollia Paulina, whom, however, he divorced in order to marry Cæsonia, who was with child by him, A. D. 38.... Cæsonia contrived to preserve the attachment of her imperial husband down to the end of his life; but she is said to have effected this by love-potions, which she gave him to drink, and to which some persons attributed the unsettled state of Caligula’s mental powers during the latter years of his life. Cæsonia and her daughter (Julia Drusilla) were put to death on the same day that Caligula was murdered, A. D. 41.”
[157] P. 299:
◆The Emperor Caracalla (M. Aurelius Antoninus) was the son of the Emperor Septimus Severus and was born at Lyons, at the time his father was Governor of Gallia Lugdunensis. Caracalla (like Caligula) is really only a nickname, derived from the long Gaulish cloak which he adopted and made fashionable. Reigned from Severus’ death at York in 211 to his own assassination in 217. His brother Geta was at first associated with him in the Empire. Him he murdered, and is said to have suffered remorse for the act to the end of his life,—remorse from which he sought distraction in every kind of extravagant folly and reckless cruelty.
◆Spartianus, Caracalla, Chap. x.
[158] P. 300:
◆This son was Geta.
[159] P. 301:
◆Béatrix was the daughter of Count Guillaume de Tenda; to her second husband, Phillipe Marie Visconti, she brought all the wealth of her first husband, Facino Cane. In spite of her ripe years, Béatrix was suspected of adultery with Michel Orombelli, and Phillipe Marie had them both killed. As a matter of fact this was a convenient way of appropriating Facino Cane’s wealth.
◆Collenuccio, liv. IV., anno 1194.