[s4e1] Working For Caligula [FAST]

"The horse is the new Consul," Caligula announced, his voice a melodic rasp. He turned to Lucius, eyes gleaming with a manic, unblinking intensity. "Scribe! Draft the decree. Incitatus requires a marble stable and a house with furniture. He shall host dinner parties for the Senate."

The nights were the hardest. Caligula suffered from chronic insomnia and expected his staff to share it. They would wander the labyrinthine corridors of the Palatine Hill, the Emperor talking to the moon as if she were a fickle lover. One moment, he was a philosopher, quoting Homer with tears in his eyes; the next, he was a tyrant, ordering a senator’s execution because the man’s sandals creaked too loudly. [S4E1] Working for Caligula

Lucius knelt in the wet sand, dutifully filling chests with seashells. He labeled them: Spoils of the Ocean, conquered by the Living God. "The horse is the new Consul," Caligula announced,

"Gather the spoils!" Caligula screamed over the roar of the surf. Draft the decree

Lucius survived by becoming a shadow. He learned to anticipate the shifts in the Emperor's "divine" weather. When Caligula declared himself a god and demanded to be addressed as Jupiter, Lucius didn't flinch. When Caligula ordered a bridge of ships to be built across the Bay of Baiae just so he could ride across it in the armor of Alexander the Great, Lucius simply calculated the tonnage of grain ships required.

One evening, Caligula leaned in close to Lucius. The smell of expensive wine and madness was overwhelming. "Do you know why I keep you around, little scribe?"