1

Before considering the difficulties in the sentence containing Caligula’s barb, I would like to comment on an old difficulty that has been silently resolved or ignored, to judge from the scholars cited in the second note. Stroux suggests that harenam can be the subject of esse, and Bardon does so regard it, believing that taking Seneca’s style as the subject of the infinitive is over-complicated.Footnote ⁵ Hurley regards the construction as difficult and the subject of the infinitive as unclear, but Wardle says that taking harenam as the subject is ‘very difficult’.Footnote ⁶ I agree with Wardle, and perhaps recognizing the clever combination of figures will help resolve the issue. Whether one calls the figure in which one word is used literally and figuratively at the same time ‘zeugma’ or ‘syllepsis’, Caligula (or Suetonius) has used it, since in the first phrase Senecam refers to the person and in the second, by a common metonymy, to his works. Seneca would probably have found the distinction between himself and his works unimportant because he firmly adhered to the idea talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis uita (Ep. 114.1).Footnote ⁷ Given the pervasiveness of that commonplace,Footnote ⁸ Caligula (or Suetonius) may have seen nothing odd about the construction.

It is difficult to say with certainty which Seneca Caligula is disparaging.Footnote ⁹ Seneca appears six times in Suetonius. Annaeus Seneca only occurs at Ner. 7.1; he appears simply as Seneca in the next line and with praeceptor at 35.5 and 52.1. So the only references to Seneca outside of Nero are Calig. 53.2 and Tib. 73.2. From these passages Grisart concludes that Suetonius refers to the Younger with his cognomen or praeceptor and to the Elder as simply Seneca. But since the fragment in Tiberius is sometimes attributed to the Elder’s History, sometimes to a lost work of his son’s, this is a doubtful inference.Footnote ¹⁰

Problems with dating the works of the two Senecas make it difficult to determine which ones Caligula was disparaging. Caligula became emperor in March 37 and was murdered in January 41.Footnote ¹¹ Estimates of the date of Seneca the Elder’s death range from ‘probably not too long after 37’ to ‘before 41’.Footnote ¹² At the beginning of the Controuersiae Seneca tells his sons that he is writing in old age (1 pr. 2) and that he intends to publish (1 pr. 10). We do not know whether he did in fact publish the Controuersiae and the Suasoriae. If the unspecified works that his son, in the De uita patris, says his father composed and wanted published do include those two, he did not.Footnote ¹³ Thanks to the subscriptio to P.Herc. 1067, there is no longer any doubt that Seneca the Elder’s Historiae were published. For our purposes, however, the papyrus throws no light on the date of publication, which, in any event, must have been posthumous, since Seneca was working on the Historiae almost until the day of his death, according to his son’s De uita patris. So we are left with the first sentence of that fragment—si quaecumque composuit pater meus et edi uoluit, iam in manus populi emisissem, ad claritatem nominis sui satis sibi ipse prospexerat—which suggests the passage of some time after his father’s death.Footnote ¹⁴ Since the interval between the deaths of Seneca the Elder and Caligula was small—perhaps less than a year—the Historiae may well have been published after the emperor’s death. But then again, if published before it, that could explain Senecam tum maxime placentem, assuming that the new work had caused a stir.

If the Controuersiae and the Suasoriae were published before Caligula died, they surely would have attracted his attention, given his interest in oratory. Suetonius’ chapter containing the barb begins with Caligula’s preference for rhetoric among the liberal arts: minimum eruditioni, eloquentiae plurimum attendit (53.1). There is other testimony to his interest in oratory. Caligula delivered the laudatio funebris for his great-grandmother Livia (Suet. Cal. 10; Tac. Ann. 5.1), his oratory in Greek and Latin was praised by Josephus (AJ 19.208), and Dio says that Caligula thought himself superior to all orators (59.19.3).

In fact, Calig. 53 may be exclusively devoted to oratory, although scribendi genus gives some pause.Footnote ¹⁵ Stroux (n. 5), 350 takes the phrase to indicate that we have lost many of Seneca’s published writings, but scribendi genus, whether Caligula’s or Suetonius’, at the very least includes speeches. The sentence after the barb says that Caligula would write against successful speeches and deliver his own before the Senatorial court and the equestrians. Dio reports that Caligula read the speech he composed against Domitius Afer to the Senate (59.19.3). So even if one takes scribendi genus as ‘kind of writing’, it could refer to writing for oral delivery. But lenius comptiusque scribendi genus surely refers to Seneca’s style, which is ‘too restrained and elegant’ for Caligula’s gladiatorial disposition. Although Suetonius uses ratio scribendi to refer to the stylistic precepts given by Lucius Ateius Philologus to Asinius Pollio (Suet. Gram. et rhet. 10.6), one would expect dicendi genus if Caligula (or Suetonius) were referring only to oratorical style.Footnote ¹⁶ On balance, however, it appears that Caligula is scorning Seneca’s oratory, since all of chapter 53 concerns oratory with the possible exception that scribendi genus includes non-oratorical writing.

If, however, Caligula only has speeches in mind, he is probably referring to Seneca the Younger, since there is no evidence that the Elder wrote any speeches, much less ones that had some public success. The Younger’s popularity as a speaker is attested. According to Dio (59.19.7–8), Caligula was homicidally envious of a good speech that he heard Seneca deliver before the Senate.Footnote ¹⁷ In fact, since Dio’s is the only reference to a particular speech by Seneca during Caligula’s lifetime,Footnote ¹⁸ it is not impossible that Seneca’s successful speech was the occasion for the emperor’s barb.Footnote ¹⁹ Right before the barb, Suetonius describes Caligula as ‘quick to respond’ (promptus); the first three examples of Caligula’s atrocitas uerborum are savage retorts (29.1), and Josephus says that Caligula could reply on the spot to speeches others had prepared in advance (AJ 19.208). In any event, if Seneca the Younger is Caligula’s target, some speech or other is more likely to have been the provocation than the ad Marciam, as far as we know, the only publication available to Caligula.Footnote ²⁰ Unless some of Seneca the Younger’s early works have not survived, it is hard to see how his writings could have made him ‘very popular at that time’.Footnote ²¹

Scholars’ attempts to apply commissiones meras and harenam sine calce to the style of the Senecas by no means clarify Caligula’s reference, since they differ so widely. Consider these three examples:

1. 1. The two phrases ‘s’appliqueraient très bien à la fois aux “traits” (sententiae) des déclamateurs recueillis par Sénèque le Rhéteur et à la “manière” de Sénèque, qui les rapporte en les juxtaposant, sans les lier’ (Grisart [n. 9], 304–5).

2. 2. ‘The point of the critique is to suggest that Seneca’s [the Younger] writing is composed only of the crunchy parts, the neat one-liners that form the sand; it has nothing to glue it together’ (Wilson [n. 2], 69).

3. 3. ‘Paragraphs are carefully linked internally by both verbal correspondences and figures of thought. Hence, Caligula’s description of Seneca’s [the Younger] style as “sands without lime” … is inaccurate’ (von Albrecht [n. 2], 701).

It is hardly surprising that Caligula’s suggestive phrases have stimulated a variety of interpretations, but when they characterize the anthology of Seneca the Elder, criticize the lack of coherence of his son’s style, and are declared an inaccurate characterization of it, this variety does indicate that trying to work from the style of the Senecas to an interpretation of the phrases themselves will not be of much use. Furthermore, if Caligula is only referring to oratory, we do not have a speech by either Seneca on which to form a stylistic judgement. Such evidence as we have makes it difficult to feel certain about the target of Caligula’s barb, but I am inclined to believe that it was the Younger’s speeches. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that Caligula was taking aim at the Elder’s Controuersiae and Suasoriae.Footnote ²²

2

The first part of Caligula’s barb, commissiones meras, is more difficult to understand and has provoked significant disagreement despite the twenty-first-century consensus that it means something like ‘public displays of oratory’. The process by which that interpretation became the consensus is instructive and unusual, for it begins not with the interpretation of this passage in Suetonius but with Henri Estienne’s entry for ἀγώνισμα in his dictionary. After defining it as ‘Ostentatio quæ fit in turba, sive apud turbam, ab eo videlicet qui specimen ingenii sui vult edere’, Estienne states, ‘Ac tale quid esse videtur commissio Latinis quale ἀγώνισμα, exponendo cum Hesychio ὀχλικὴν ἐπίδειξιν’, and cites Suet. Aug. 89.3.Footnote ²³ In his commentary on this passage Casaubon writes: ‘Commissiones sunt quas Graeci dicunt δείξεις, ἐπιδείξεις vel ἀγῶνας’. In support he cites four passages in which committo appears; in the second edition of his commentary he adds an instance of commissio.Footnote ²⁴ When he comes to Calig. 53.2, Casaubon refers to his earlier discussion and says ‘ea notione accipi hic quoque debet haec dictio, certe potest’ (249), proceeds to quote Isocrates, states ‘Imo vero commissiones sunt ἀγωνίσματα’, and adds to Estienne’s citation of Thucydides others from Aristotle and Polybius before quoting Pliny’s translation of Thucydides’ ἀγώνισμα (Ep. 7.17.3) and Quintilian’s superior rendering (Inst. 10.1.31). Since neither Latin author uses committo or commissio, all the supporting evidence, except for the two passages from Suetonius and one from Pliny’s Panegyricus, comes from Greek authors. This equation of commissio with ἀγώνισμα (or sometimes with ἐπίδειξις) remains a fixture in the exegetical tradition from Justus Lipsius to Lewis and Short.Footnote ²⁵

Most of this evidence for ἀγώνισμα as ‘show-piece declamation, prize composition’ (CGL) is unobjectionable, but its relevance to Suetonius depends entirely upon Estienne’s intuition that the Greek means roughly the same thing as commissio. It is clear that committo can mean ‘To begin, commence (games; also other activities or enterprises)’ (OLD s.v. 9).Footnote ²⁶ Suetonius says that Caligula started games on the spur of the moment (Calig. 18.3 commisit et subitos) and that Claudius, when he rededicated Pompey’s theatre, inaugurated the games from a platform placed in the orchestra (Claud. 21.1 ludos dedicationis Pompeiani theatri, quod ambustum restituerat, e tribunali posito in orchestra commisit). Suetonius also uses committo absolutely for Claudius beginning to read his history in public: et cum primum frequenti auditorio commisisset (Claud. 41.1). But when one turns to commissio, neither the TLL nor the OLD explicitly refers to speaking. Furthermore, the eleven instances in the PHI database provide little—perhaps no—support for Estienne’s intuition.

‘The commencement, holding, of games or other contests’ (OLD s.v. 1a) prudently does not insist upon a moment, because sometimes commissio refers to the beginning of the games, sometimes simply to their holding, and sometimes it is difficult to tell. Four instances of commissio definitely do not refer to beginnings:

1. 1. Seneca says that he is talking about the chorus known to ancient philosophers, for in performances today (in commissionibus nostris) there are more singers than there were spectators then (Ep. 84.10).

2. 2. Pliny complains that wretched adulation is everywhere, since emperors are praised at the games and even in contests/performances (ludis etiam et commissionibus).Footnote ²⁷

3. 3. Augustus cautions the praetors not to allow his name to be degraded in competitions (ne paterentur nomen suum commissionibus obsolefieri, Suet. Aug. 89.3).

4. 4. An edict announcing ludi honorarii following Septimius Severus’ ludi saeculares of 204 records three new productions (commissio noua [3x]).Footnote ²⁸

On the other occasions commissio definitely or probably refers to the beginning of games:

1. 5. Cicero asks Atticus for an account of how the games are received from their very beginning (ab ipsa commissione) and of the ones that follow (Att. 15.26.1).

2. 6. Cicero also tells Atticus that he is not surprised by a rumour that there was not much of a crowd at the opening of the Greek shows (Att. 16.5.1 commissione Graecorum … Graecis ludis). When commissio is followed by ludorum (or understood, as in this example), it often would be redundant if it did not indicate the time.

3. 7. The narrator of Trimalchio’s dinner party says that suddenly a new beginning of the entertainment restored the gaiety (noua ludorum commissio).Footnote ²⁹

4. 8. Pliny mentions his attendance at some sacerdotal games that were opened by a pantomime (Ep. 7.24.6 proximis sacerdotalibus ludis, productis in commissione pantomimis), where, again, commissio would probably be redundant if it did not indicate the time.Footnote ³⁰

5. 9. At the beginning of the games (commissione ludorum) to dedicate Marcellus’ theatre Augustus fell when his chair of state collapsed; the obvious moment for such an accident would have been when he first sat down (Suet. Aug. 43.5).

6. 10. Galba, as praetor, at the beginning of the games of the Floralia (commissione ludorum Floralium) exhibited tightrope walking elephants—which certainly would have made a spectacular opening act (Suet. Galb. 6.1).Footnote ³¹

A search in BREPOLiS’ Library of Latin Texts from c.200–500 turns up an additional sixteen instances of commissio, ten of which refer to the commission of a sin or crime, two others to joining battle (Jer. Comm. in Zach. 14:3; Ps.-Acro in Hor. Carm. 3.5.20), and one to artistic joining together (Ambr. Hex. 2.5.21). Two of the three remaining refer to beginnings:Footnote ³²

1. 11. Saturninus, seeking the crown of martyrdom, made trial of a leopard at the beginning of the show (Passio Perpetuae 19.2–3 in commissione spectaculi; the Greek version reads ἐν ἀρχῇ γοῦν τῆς θεωρίας).

2. 12. Before the beginning of the show (ante spectaculi commissionem) Autronius Maximus fastened his slave to a gibbet and drove him through the Circus (Macrob. Sat. 1.11.3).

3. 13. Laberius, at the very next performance (sequenti statim commissione), inserted some verses in a new mime (Macrob. Sat. 2.7.9).

From this list only the third might refer to a speaking competition and, by metonymy, might be taken to indicate the speech itself. The historical context, however, is perplexing, since warning the praetors indicates a public occasion—but which one?Footnote ³³ The acta of Augustus’ ludi saeculares of 17 b.c.e. mention three different kinds of ludi scaenici that formed part of the ludi honorarii, but say nothing about a speaking competition.Footnote ³⁴ Suetonius (Ner. 12.3) and Tacitus (Ann. 14.20–1) say that Nero instituted a quinquennial competition in the Greek manner and was awarded the first prize for Latin oratory. In his report of arguments in favour of the competition Tacitus includes the stimulus to natural abilities provided by victory in prose and poetic contests. Did the Neronia, then, stage the first competition in Latin prose in ludi at Rome?Footnote ³⁵ Furthermore, Augustus, who loathed the politically charged dominus, checked the indecorous and dangerous flattery of spectators at theatrical games when they applied words in a mime—o dominum aequum et bonum!—to him (Suet. Aug. 53.1). Although he restricted the summary power of the praetors to punish actors to public performances, he severely punished the wanton license of actors (histrionum licentiam) on three occasions (45.3–4). Suetonius does not mention Augustus’ reaction when the audience at the games took a line spoken about a priest of Cybele as an insult of the emperor as a cinaedus ruling the world (Aug. 68 uidesne ut cinaedus orbem digito temperat?), but when Augustus warned the praetors not to let his name be degraded in commissionibus, he was probably more concerned with this kind of theatri licentia (Tac. Ann. 1.77.1) than with oratory.Footnote ³⁶ Since it is hard to imagine that he wanted the praetors to interfere with public declamations in the rhetorical schools, the safest interpretation of commissionibus in this passage is ‘competitions’ or ‘performances’.Footnote ³⁷ But even if a ‘speaking competition’ is meant, one occurrence out of thirteen does not suggest that commissio meaning ‘a prize declamation, ostentatious speech’ (Lewis and Short) was in regular use. And if it had been, one would have expected to find it at least once in Seneca the Elder, who uses declamatio more than thirty times and scholastica four times, or in Quintilian, who uses declamatio about fifteen times and scholastica a couple of times.Footnote ³⁸

Emendations are the most extreme way to cope with the difficulty of understanding commissio. First, unwilling to believe that Caligula took a word referring to the opening of the ludi, then to the ludi themselves, and leapt to a metaphorical designation of Seneca’s works as ‘reine Theaterstücke’, Stroux proposes commissuras, but his emendation has rightly found little support.Footnote ³⁹ Unwilling to emend, Bardon takes commissio in the same sense as commissura—a joint in masonry—and cites lapidum iuncturas et commissiones (Cassiod. Hist. eccl. 9.34.3) in support.Footnote ⁴⁰ The problem, of course, is the 500-year interval between Caligula and Cassiodorus’ Historia. And was commissio even recognized as a building term in Cassiodorus’ day, since he adds it to the noun iunctura, a common word for a joint, to translate Theodoret’s τὴν ἁρμονίαν (Hist. eccl. 318.17)? Second, Habinek emends commissiones to commissationes, translates ‘drunken revelry’, and sees a pun on meras: ‘Seneca’s rhetoric, according to Gaius, is like the homeward procession that follows a party where everyone has drunk too much strong wine.’Footnote ⁴¹ This is ingenious, but since Habinek does not indicate that commissiones is the reading of the manuscripts, he does not make a case for emendation.

3

What, then, did Caligula mean by commissiones meras? There are serious objections to the consensus view (‘mere school essays’ or the like), to ‘mere juxtapositions’ and to the attempts to emend. Of the translations I have encountered, only Goodyear’s ‘mere games’ or, more adventurously, Barrett and Yardley’s ‘mere trivialities’ seems plausible.Footnote ⁴² Since nine of the thirteen instances of commissio discussed earlier refer to beginnings, I propose that Caligula’s phrase does in fact mean ‘nothing but beginnings’ or ‘mere beginnings’. Like the consensus view, this is an unprecedented figurative use of commissio, but Caligula was capable of linguistic innovation. Two of the Greek words that Suetonius tells us that Caligula used are hapax legomena (29.1 ἀδιατρεψίαν, 47 ἀξιοθριάμβευτον).

Before considering the second of Caligula’s phrases, we need to consider his conception of himself as a speaker, since it—and no doubt envy at the success of any rival—helps to explain his contempt for Seneca’s kind of writing. Caligula’s was forceful, relentless, even gladiatorial. He became more eloquent when angry, ‘especially when speaking against someone’ (53.1 utique si perorandum in aliquem esset). When about to make his speech (peroraturus), he would ‘threaten to draw the sword of his night-time meditation’ (53.2 stricturum se lucubrationis suae telum minabatur).Footnote ⁴³ He in fact prided himself on nothing more than his lack of moderation and restraint (29.1 ἀδιατρεψίαν), and one of the examples Suetonius cites is the threat to his relegated sisters that he had swords as well as islands. Caligula’s words were speech acts of the most frightening sort; the sword of his eloquence was literally ready to kill.Footnote ⁴⁴ He presumably was not interested in ‘mere beginnings’, but was completely focussed on crossing the finish line first. He scorned Seneca’s kind of writing because it was lenius comptiusque (‘too restrained and elegant’), not a weapon to finish off an oratorical enemy. Seneca’s restrained elegance just began the race, never finished it. It was a racetrack without a finish line, and without a finish line a racetrack has no point.

We also need to consider an issue raised by those two Greek words used by Caligula. A few times I have used the cumbersome ‘Caligula (or Suetonius)’ as a reminder that we do not know Suetonius’ source. He is not quoting directly, since there’s nothing like ut ipsius uerbo utar (29.1) and ut ipse dicebat (47), which he uses with the quotations of the Greek, or ait (29.1) or inquit (29.1, 32.3, 46.1, 49.1). He presumably paraphrased to place the barb in indirect statement, as he did with Cic. Off. 3.82 at Iul. 30.7 and Brut. 261 at Iul. 55.2.Footnote ⁴⁵ But the crucial difficulty is that we do not know if Suetonius is paraphrasing one utterance joined by et or combining two phrases himself.Footnote ⁴⁶ Are the two phrases closely connected?Footnote ⁴⁷ The difficult construction of harenam esse (see pages 2–3 above) might have resulted from joining two phrases. One cannot say positively that they were part of the same sentence, but taking them together reinforces the figurative use of commissio and makes for a wittier insult.

I propose, then, to revive the interpretation of harenam sine calce first suggested, as far as I know, by Justus Lipsius—a racetrack without a finish line.Footnote ⁴⁸ In addition, I want to suggest that the racetrack metaphor explains, or perhaps even corrects, ‘mere beginnings’. The et joining the phrases ought to be taken either as epexegetic (OLD s.v. 11) or, perhaps, as ‘adding a generalized or emended version of what has been said’ (OLD s.v. 3).Footnote ⁴⁹ Caligula is saying that ‘Seneca composed nothing but beginnings, that is to say, his kind of writing was a racetrack without a finish line’.

Of course, the view that Caligula’s ‘sand without lime’ refers to mortar is perfectly possible and has been standard since John of Salisbury and Erasmus.Footnote ⁵⁰ To make mortar, the Romans commonly used different types of sand and lime in different proportions (Cato, Agr. 15.1; Vitr. De arch. 2.5; Plin. HN 36.175–7; Palladius, Op. agr. 1.10). Any child who has built a sandcastle does not need Erasmus to tell them ‘Male cohaeret harena, ni calcem admisceas’. But there are two difficulties with this interpretation. First, unless commissio could mean ‘joint’ in Caligula’s day, the two parts of the barb are not related, and, more importantly, ‘sand without lime’ does not provide a clear contrast with his kind of writing, which tries to finish off his enemy.

The track for chariot races in the Circus Maximus (and other circuses) was covered with sand.Footnote ⁵¹ Although harena frequently means ‘the scene of gladiatorial combats’ (OLD s.v. 3), only a few times does it—probably—indicate the circus:

1. 1. Tacitus devotes a paragraph to Nero’s two desires for public performance—to sing to the lyre and to drive a four-horse chariot (Ann. 14.14). Hoping not to have to yield to both desires, Seneca and Burrus indulged his driving in a relatively private place. Of course, it only excited Nero to want more, and, to mitigate the disgrace, he brought poor nobles onto the stage. He also suborned notable equestrians to promise their services to the arena. Since the whole paragraph has alternated between ludi scaenici and ludi circenses, arena probably refers to the racetrack, not to an amphitheatre for gladiators.

2. 2. In Silius’ Punica the first event in the commemorative games held by Scipio is a chariot race, and four teams set out on a track complete with carcer (16.316, 16.394) and meta (16.361, 16.393). After a crash one of the teams passes a charioteer who is struggling to rise ‘in the middle of the track’ (16.414–15 mediaque Pelorus harena | surgere nitentem fugiens Atlanta reliquit). The point of media is that the fallen charioteer is still in the track and has not been knocked out of it, where there is presumably sand as well. harena reappears in the footrace, when the runners leave no footprint in the sand as they pass by (16.485 nullaque tramissa uestigia signat harena), and here ‘sand’ seems preferable to ‘track’. Since we are not told how the racetrack is set up, and the earth itself is sandy (16.325 harenosa … tellure), the first harena might simply mean sand, too.Footnote ⁵²

3. 3. We also are not told how or where Atalanta’s racetrack is set up, so when each contestant dashes off (Ov. Met. 10.653 emicat et summam celeri pede libat harenam), Ovid may mean that they barely touch the track, which might not be made of sand.

4. 4. One of the runners in the funeral games for Opheltes is described as winner ‘on the Isthmian racetrack’ or ‘in the Isthmian sand’ or, perhaps even, ‘at the Isthmian games’ (Stat. Theb. 6.558 bis in Isthmiaca uictor clamatus harena).

5. 5. Most intriguingly, a colt training for war or Olympic chariot racing is finally allowed to challenge the winds to a race over the open plain and barely places his prints on the surface of the racetrack (Verg. G. 3.195 aequora uix summa uestigia ponat harena). Mynors suggests that harena means ‘not of course the “arena”, but “the ground”’, but Virgil has cleverly used the word to continue the colt’s race against the wind, as if he were already in the circus running as fast as he can, not just out in the open.Footnote ⁵³

In none of these passages is it absolutely certain that harena is being used metonymically to mean the racetrack itself and not the sand on its surface. Nevertheless, the connection between harena and racetracks is clear, even though not as abundantly attested as its connection with the arena and the gladiators. But given the vast number of Romans who attended chariot races at the Circus, almost every Roman could easily take harenam sine calce to refer to a racetrack—especially since the second noun can mean ‘finish line’.

Since this meaning of calx is well recognized, it does not require much discussion.Footnote ⁵⁴ Commenting on a fragment from Cicero, quoniam sumus ab ipsa calce eius interpellatione reuocati (Rep. 3.6 Powell; cf. Sen. 83), Seneca says: hanc quam nunc in circo ‘cretam’ uocamus ‘calcem’ antiqui dicebant (Ep. 108.32). Seneca’s gloss might indicate that the literal sense was unfamiliar, but Cicero is using calx figuratively—the speaker has been summoned back from the finish line by an interruption—and that is the way in which the word is usually employed.Footnote ⁵⁵ One figurative use was proverbial and likely to be familiar in Caligula’s day: maxume quidem optandum est, ut cum aequalibus possis, quibuscum tamquam e carceribus emissus sis, cum isdem ad calcem, ut dicitur, peruenire (Cic. Amic. 101).Footnote ⁵⁶ A racetrack without a destination would be easy to understand, and that is the point of Caligula’s barb. Seneca’s kind of writing does not go anywhere and, especially, fails to finish off an opponent—unlike Caligula’s.

A racetrack metaphor is completely in character for Caligula, since he was passionate about chariot racing, both as a spectator and as a participant. He staged numerous ludi circenses, some daylong, others with charioteers only from the Senatorial order, still others on the spur of the moment (Suet. Calig. 18.3). He was a fan of the Greens and very close to Eutychus, one of their charioteers (Suet. Calig. 55.2; Jos. AJ 19.257; Dio 59.14.6). The story about his extravagant treatment of the racehorse Incitatus and plans to make him consul are notorious (Suet. Calig. 55.3; Dio 59.14.7). He began the construction of the Gai et Neronis Circus in the Vatican and erected an Egyptian obelisk in it.Footnote ⁵⁷ The place where he would practise chariot driving was still called the Gaianum in Dio’s day.Footnote ⁵⁸ For he did like driving as well as watching: aurigabat extructo plurifariam circo (Suet. Calig. 54.1).

A final possibility remains—a play on words.Footnote ⁵⁹ One of the verbal savageries perpetrated by Caligula contains a clever, sadistic pun. A praetorian, who had withdrawn to Anticyra for reasons of health, was asking too often for an extension of his leave. Caligula ordered him put to death and added that bloodletting was necessary for someone who had not profited from hellebore for such a long time (Suet. Calig. 29.2 adiecit necessariam esse sanguinis missionem cui tam diu non prodesset elleborum). Caligula is obviously playing with bloodletting as a common medical procedure and bleeding the man to death, but he has jumped from the man’s stay in Anticyra, famous for hellebore, a cure for all sorts of diseases, including insanity (Celsus, Med. 2.13.2–3, 3.18.17; Plin. HN 25.54–5), to the particular ability of bloodletting to draw out hellebore (Plin. HN 25.56). A man that quick-witted with language might well imply that Seneca’s kind of writing was both a racetrack without a finish line and sand without lime—it never got to the point and did not hold together.