When people think of Rome’s worst emperor, Caligula is usually the first name they blurt out. He has become a sort of shorthand for tyranny, madness, and depravity. If you want an example of how absolute power corrupts absolutely, the popular image of Caligula will do the job. He is the emperor who supposedly made his horse a consul, slept with his sisters, declared himself a god, ordered his troops to pick seashells as spoils of war, and murdered for fun. But as with most historical caricatures, the truth is much murkier. Behind the madness lies a man named Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, a product of Rome’s most powerful family, a survivor of palace intrigue, and a ruler whose short reign was distorted by hostile sources and centuries of mythmaking.
It is impossible to tell Caligula’s story without first recognizing how we know what we know. Almost everything we have comes from writers who were not his contemporaries and certainly not his friends. Suetonius wrote about him eighty years later. Cassius Dio, a senator, wrote nearly two centuries afterward. Both had every reason to paint him in lurid colors. They were writing in a world that liked simple morality tales: emperors who were virtuous and emperors who were monstrous. Caligula, they decided, belonged in the latter category. Modern historians have learned to squint at those accounts, questioning whether some of the most outrageous stories are history or gossip that hardened into fact. That does not mean he was innocent or benevolent. It means the truth sits somewhere between propaganda and perversion.
Caligula was born on August 31, AD 12, in Antium, a coastal town south of Rome. His father was Germanicus, the golden boy of Rome, beloved by both the people and the army. His mother, Agrippina the Elder, was a granddaughter of Augustus, and a woman of fierce will. As a child, Gaius often accompanied his father on military campaigns. The soldiers adored him and dressed him in miniature legionary gear. They nicknamed him “Caligula,” which means “Little Boots.” What began as a term of endearment became a curse when he was older, because he never escaped it. He was not Caligula to himself. He was Gaius, a Caesar by blood, destined to rule.
The Julio-Claudian family was less a family and more a cage. Germanicus died in AD 19, probably of disease, although his wife and many others suspected foul play. Agrippina openly accused the emperor Tiberius and his ally Sejanus of poisoning her husband. That was a dangerous accusation to make. Over the next decade, Agrippina and her sons fell into disgrace. She starved herself to death in prison after clashing with Tiberius. Caligula’s brothers, Nero and Drusus, also died in exile. By his teenage years, he was the last male survivor of his immediate line, a precarious position for a young man with enemies at every turn.
In AD 31, Tiberius summoned him to Capri. Tiberius had withdrawn from Rome into a villa that became infamous for cruelty and vice. Gaius learned to keep his head down, to flatter when necessary, and to never reveal what he truly thought. Tiberius once called him a viper and warned that he would kill many men when he grew older. He was not entirely wrong. What kept Gaius alive was his alliance with Naevius Sutorius Macro, the Praetorian Prefect. Macro shielded him from rivals and positioned him as Tiberius’s heir. When Tiberius died in AD 37, there were rumors that Caligula and Macro smothered the old man. Whether that is true or not, it did not stop the Senate and people from hailing him as emperor at just 24 years old.
The joy that greeted him was genuine. After the secretive and morbid reign of Tiberius, the people wanted an emperor who smiled, who spent money, who seemed alive. The first seven months of his reign were remembered as a Golden Age. He abolished the sales tax, staged grand games, and honored the memory of his parents. He elevated his sisters to positions of visibility, gave his grandmother Antonia new honors, and made his uncle Claudius a consul. Philo of Alexandria, who lived through this period, described the city as bathed in prosperity and hope.
Then came the illness. Late in 37, Gaius fell gravely sick. Some thought he would die. When he recovered, he was changed. He turned on those closest to him, ordering the forced suicides of Gemellus, his adopted heir, and his father-in-law Silanus. Soon after, Macro, his protector, was executed. These purges can be seen either as signs of paranoia or as the cold logic of an emperor eliminating possible rivals. In 38, his sister Drusilla died. He grieved deeply and went so far as to have her deified, insisting on mourning rites as if she had been a goddess. To Romans, this was unprecedented, and to the Senate, it was alarming.
Caligula’s domestic policies were a mixture of ambition and excess. He launched great construction projects. The Temple of Augustus was completed. The Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus aqueducts began under his direction. He rebuilt theaters and planned a massive circus. He erected an Egyptian obelisk that still stands today in St. Peter’s Square. He poured money into spectacles, expanding the Circus Maximus and delighting the crowds with chariot races. Ancient sources accused him of bankrupting the treasury, claiming he spent Tiberius’s entire reserve of 2.7 billion sesterces. Modern scholars suspect this was exaggerated. By redistributing Tiberius’s hoarded wealth, he may have actually stimulated the economy. Claudius, who succeeded him, inherited a functioning treasury. But Caligula also invented new taxes, some petty and unpopular, like levies on taverns, prostitutes, and artisans. Worse, he made the Praetorian Guard collectors of these taxes, linking resentment directly to him.
Relations with the Senate, already strained, collapsed. He mocked senators, forced them into humiliating ceremonies, and reminded them of their dependence on his favor. He briefly restored voting rights to the assemblies of the people, only to take them back, just to prove he could. The story of his horse Incitatus being made consul almost certainly grew from this contempt. It was not that he loved horses more than statesmen. It was that he wanted to show senators their irrelevance.
Abroad, his ambitions stumbled. In 39 and 40, he marched north to Germania. Executions followed, including the killing of a legate and the exile of his sisters Agrippina and Livilla. Then he announced an invasion of Britain. His troops reached the Channel, but instead of crossing, they gathered seashells. Ancient writers scoffed at the absurdity. Some modern historians think the shells may have been a symbol for Neptune, or that the term was a mistranslation of siege equipment. It is also possible that British chiefs had already surrendered, making the invasion unnecessary. Whatever the reality, Claudius would later use Caligula’s preparations to launch his own conquest of Britain in 43. In the East, Caligula ordered a statue of himself placed in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. To Jews, this was blasphemy beyond measure. Only his assassination prevented the plan from being carried out, avoiding a likely rebellion.
The personal side of Caligula’s life only added to his dark reputation. He married four times. His final wife, Milonia Caesonia, was older than him and not considered beautiful, but he loved her and had a daughter with her, Julia Drusilla. Gossip spread that he committed incest with his sisters. Suetonius made the charge, but no contemporary critic did. Even Seneca, who despised him, never accused him of it. Most modern scholars view these tales as slander designed to reinforce the image of depravity. As for his supposed divine delusions, he certainly dressed as gods and accepted honors as Jupiter or Apollo. To some Romans, this looked insane. But rulers across the empire were flattered as divine figures. Caligula may have enjoyed shocking sensibilities, but the line between godlike honors and political theater was always thin in Rome.
On January 24, AD 41, the Praetorian Guard struck. The conspirators were led by Cassius Chaerea, a tribune whom Caligula had mocked as effeminate. The emperor was cut down backstage at a performance. His wife and daughter were slaughtered soon after. His loyal German bodyguards rampaged, killing innocents until the Praetorians secured control. The Senate hesitated, some hoping to restore the Republic. But the Guard found Claudius, hiding in the palace, and declared him emperor. The republicans were brushed aside, and imperial rule continued. The conspirators were executed, and Caligula’s reign was reduced to an ugly memory.
That memory, however, would live on. Statues were defaced. His name was erased from inscriptions. Yet the stories kept growing. Suetonius, Dio, and Tacitus left portraits of a monster. Later generations believed them. By the time the infamous 1979 film “Caligula” appeared, the line between history and pornography had been erased. The movie reveled in every lurid claim, cementing the emperor’s image as a lunatic obsessed with sex and cruelty. Even now, when someone uses the name Caligula, it conjures not the young man who ruled Rome for four years, but the cinematic caricature of incest, sadism, and madness.
Modern historians urge caution. They remind us that Caligula lived in a brutal world, where emperors were either praised as golden gods or damned as demons. The Senate had no interest in preserving his dignity. They wanted him remembered as a cautionary tale. That does not absolve him. He was cruel, arbitrary, and self-indulgent. But was he truly insane? The evidence is thin. Roman law did not hold the insane accountable. If senators had thought him incapable of rational thought, they would not have bothered to assassinate him. They would have dismissed him. Instead, they killed him because they knew he was dangerous, and because he wielded power with too much contempt for their dignity.
So what is left of Caligula’s legacy? He was an emperor who came to power with genuine popular support, only to squander it in arrogance and extravagance. He was a man who grew up in a family torn apart by paranoia and betrayal. He was a ruler who mocked his nobility, indulged his theatrics, and made himself hated by those who wrote the history. He remains both emperor and myth, a reminder that history is not always written by the victors, but by the survivors.
Caligula has been remembered as Rome’s mad emperor. But perhaps the madness is not his alone. It may belong just as much to the empire that raised him, the dynasty that destroyed itself, and the historians who sharpened their pens to cut him down.
DAVE DOES HISTORY 
Leave a comment