To finance the project, Caligula announces he will auction off all his belongings at a banquet with beautiful women and costly admission. Lucretius presents sumptuous construction plans to Caligula and a group of senators. At Livia's funeral, held on a beach, Miriam Celsia, close friend and an Egyptian priestess of the god Anubis, speaks against a Christian burial - the idea being that Livia's God failed to defend her - and in favor of cremation according to Anubis, who speaks of vengeance.
In his nightmares, Caligula is visited by the shades of Aetius and Livia. The senators, however, do not believe that the peaceful Christians were responsible and continue to plot against Caligula, discussing their options. He spreads word that they were killed by fanatical Christians, and persecutes them. The emperor orders Messala to kill Aetius on the spot. While being raped, Livia commits suicide with Caligula's dagger. He rapes the woman in the woods in front of her young lover Aetius, a consul's son. Riding along the beach with Messala, Caligula encounters a group of Christians, among whom he spots Livia. Domitius ends up losing his tongue and having his tendons cut at Caligula's behest. The poet Domitius approaches and tries to assassinate him with a dagger, but the attempt is thwarted by Ulmar, Caligula's bodyguard. Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar Caligula, alone in his bed, is plagued by nightmares in which a man, his head covered in a helmet, tries to shoot him with an arrow.