[-22-] In spite of all this he did not secure any surplus. He kept up his expenditures both for the objects that regularly interested him, producing some spectacles at Lugdunum, and also for the army. For the number of soldiers he had gathered amounted to twenty myriads, or, as some say, to twenty-five myriads. Seven times was he named imperator by them (just as pleased him), though he had won no battle and slain no enemy. To be sure, he did once by a ruse seize and make prisoners a few of the latter, but it was his own people whom he wasted most, striking some of them down individually and butchering others _en masse_. Once he saw a crowd either of prisoners or some other persons and gave orders (in the cant phrase) that they should all be slain from baldhead to baldhead. Another time he was playing dice and, finding that he had no money, called for the census of the Gauls and ordered the wealthiest of them to be put to death. Then he returned to his fellow gamblers and said: "Here you are playing for a few denarii, while I have collected nearly fifteen thousand myriads." So these men perished without consideration. Indeed, one of them, Julius Sacerdos, who was fairly well off but not so extremely wealthy as naturally to become the object of attack, nevertheless fell a victim because of a similarity of names. This shows how carelessly everything went.
Others who perished I need not cite by name, simply mentioning enough to satisfy the requirements of my record. One, then, that he killed was Gastulicus Lentulus, a man of good reputation in every way, who had been governor of Germany for ten years; his death was due to the fact that the soldiers liked him. Another that he murdered was Lepidus, that lover and favorite of his, husband of Drusilla, the man who together with Gaius had maintained criminal relations with the emperor's other sisters Agrippina and Julia, the man whom he had permitted to stand for office five years earlier than the laws allowed, whom he also declared he should leave to succeed him as emperor. To celebrate the event he gave the soldiers money, as though he had worsted some hostile force, and sent three daggers to Mars the Avenger in Rome. His sisters for their connection with Lepidus he deported to the Portian islands, having first written to the senate a great deal of outrageous and brutal comment upon them. Agrippina was given the victim's bones in a jar and ordered to keep it in her bosom throughout the entire journey and bring it back to Rome again. Also, since many honors had been voted to these women on the emperor's account, the emperor forbade any distinction being awarded to any of his relatives again.