Caligula was Rome’s third emperor and he reigned from 37 A.D. – 41.A.D. Quite frankly, he was a twisted individual in many ways thus making him a popular subject on television shows and movies. Some historians have pegged him as a cruel, sadistic, extravagant, sexually perverted, tyrant, while at the same time giving him credit for the infrastructure he worked so hard on such as roads and water pipelines into Rome.
The first emperor of Rome was Augustus, who Caligula was related to, and he was well loved among Romans and reigned from 27 B.C. – 14 A.D. Emperors had greater power over the Senate than the past Caesars. Tiberius became the emperor after Augustus died between 14 A.D. – 37 A.D. He was Caligula’s uncle, but he adopted him as his son for a succession plan to keep the power in the royal family of Augustus, since Tiberius didn’t have a son of his own.
Tiberius was a terrible ruler. He didn’t really care for the job except for having power over people, and he was always paranoid that he’d get killed. He didn’t live in Rome his last seven years as emperor and instead he had a beautiful estate built on the island of Capri where he took care of his duties ineffectively. In his absence Rome became chaotic with a mob rule mentality. The senators were livid that Tiberius continued to neglect his duties.
Tiberius had Caligula live with him for six years up until he died which was when Caligula was 26 years old. He never left the island the whole time while Tiberius groomed him to become emperor. Tiberius also had a grandson (Gemellus) who lived with him who was also a potential heir, but he was too young at the time so if Caligula stayed alive, he was next in line.
The citizens of Rome hadn’t seen an emperor in years so there was a lot of fanfare over Caligula riding into town. For the first seven months of his reign, he could do no wrong. The people loved him because he concentrated on meeting their basic needs of food and shelter along with reinstituting gladiator fighting in the coliseum which hadn’t been done in over 100 years. The senators liked him because he sought their council instead of dictating decrees like Tiberius did.
But things went drastically south when Caligula passed out and fell into a coma which at the time, they called a brain fever. Worried that someone might make a move to take over as emperor, Caligula’s bodyguard approached Gemellus and told him they should hold an emergency meeting with the senate to let them know they were in a standby mode to take over should Caligula not make it. In my opinion, this makes sense to create some stability but several weeks later when Caligula woke up, he saw it differently and had both men killed. This was just the start of the horrific twist in his demeanor. Historians can’t know for sure what happened to Caligula medically speaking, but it appears the fever did a number on him, and he became both paranoid and cruel. He even slept with the wives of several of the senators and he didn’t hide it.
He became paranoid about not having a son to take over as emperor and he ended up sleeping with all three of his sisters until one of them (Drusilla), finally became pregnant. He was in fact deeply in love with her. The power had gotten to his head, and he neglected to realize that Roman citizens would be appalled at his incest. It was like a flip of a switch to where one day Romans loved him, and the next, they wanted him removed out of disgust as there was no greater sexual taboo in ancient Rome, than incest.
About eight months into the pregnancy Drusilla became ill and both she and the baby died. Caligula was devasted and a deep depression set in. He made a decree that Drusilla would be an official goddess and had her image placed in different parts of the city. No Roman Caesar or Emperor had ever done anything like this before and the people became even more incensed.
Getting paranoid by the minute in not having an heir, Caligula took a bride who was eight months pregnant by another man, figuring that if she has a son, he’ll adopt him and if not, at least he knows his new wife could bear children. This woman happened to be part of a very respected military family. When she had her baby, it ended up being a girl which was once again a crushing blow to Caligula, but he was going to forge on to have a child of his own with his new wife in hopes of having a son which never happened.
His remaining two sisters and one of their husbands, felt that Caligula was moving on in trying to build his own family thus leaving them with no opportunities to remain part of the royal family. They saw their power slipping away and decided to kill Caligula, but the plot was foiled, and he sent his sisters into exile, and his brother-in-law was executed. A brother-in-law by the way who knew his wife was sleeping with her brother. There’s been no wilder soap opera throughout the history of mankind, than that of the rulers of Rome and those around them.
Caligula kept going down darker and darker paths creating statues of himself around Rome, basically presenting himself as a god. He would throw lavish parties which included orgies. Some say the cause of his “Brain Fever,” might have been a sexually transmitted disease as he was engaged in this type of activity even before he moved to Rome.
His counselor warned him that he better slow down on all his projects because Rome was about to go bankrupt. To find more revenue, Caligula reinstituted a Treason Law which gave him the opportunity to kill anyone he wanted and take their possessions. Since there were around 600 men in the senate who were some of the wealthiest people in Rome, they were the first to fall victim to Caligula who didn’t care if someone committed treason or not. He would have the senator killed and all things of value including his home, became Caligula’s property so the senators’ families were left with nothing. Have I mentioned Caligula was evil?
Even after killing and stealing money from thousands of Roman citizens, Caligula still didn’t have enough money to run Rome. The only way he could see bringing in vast amounts of gold was to invade another country and since Rome had never been successful conquering Britannia (Britain) in the past, he thought it would be a great legacy for him to accomplish what even Caesar couldn’t.
It ended up being a fiasco. The only way to get to Britain was to cross the English Channel and Roman ships weren’t seaworthy vessels, they mostly stayed along the coastline and went up and down rivers to deliver supplies. Thousands of Roman soldiers fled refusing to board the boats. He had a mutiny on his hands. And since the boats were smaller than regular seafaring ships, it took a lot of trips to try and get all the soldiers across the water and by then the element of surprise was gone and Britain began building up forces.
Then when Caligula was confronted with supply issues and that the soldiers were starving, he told his generals to murder two army divisions to thin out the ranks. They thought he was crazy before, but this was completely over the top and they began trying to figure out a way to kill Caligula and take the soldiers home. Instead, Caligula relented and said they’d go back but he wasn’t going to go back as a failure so in his usual corrupt way, he had countless soldiers dress up as conquered prisoners, and he marched them into Rome. Even though there were around one million Romans at this point, there’s no doubt family members saw their own men acting like prisoners and got word out that Caligula was trying a fast one. The senate quickly found out what Caligula did and wanted him removed from power. Knowing he wouldn’t step down on his own, some senators decided they would assassinate him.
They chose to murder him during the next gladiator games because there were underground passages to the arena, and he’d only have his personal guard with him as he walked through. Several senators showed up with swords but instead Caligula’s personal guard drew his sword and killed him. After four years as emperor and at the age of 28, Caligula was dead.
It was the senators’ hope that they could do away with the emperor position and instead return to a republic but that didn’t happen as they didn’t realize that Caligula’s uncle (Claudius) had positioned himself to take over the role of emperor which he held for around 13 years. He was completely different from Caligula and ended up being one of the most effective leaders in Rome’s long history. He showed integrity and he was extremely intelligent. After experiencing being led by someone who was considered a “Mad Man,” Claudius was very much appreciated. The statue below is one of many that Caligula had done.