American Caligula / Roman Emperor Caligula: HIstorical Background
By: Raymond Ponziny
“We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth ...” - George W. Bush
George W. Bush, the schizophrenic by-product of an influential American family grew up in a wealthy decadent world steeped in generations of treachery and political intrigue. Considered the most morally and ethically bankrupt President ever to rule the great American empire, Bush will be distinguished prominently in the collective memory of humanity as a greedy and corrupt war monger and war profiteer. For the innocent men women and children on the receiving end of his cluster bombs and uranium-238 weapons he is thought of as a mass murderer and a war criminal. History records the behavior of a sociopath and predator, utterly lacking in empathy, concerned only with power and the satisfaction of his dark desires. He seems oblivious to the human and environmental costs of his regime, and unconcerned with the immense suffering they are causing on the planet.
Bush is a powerful and dangerous psychotic with a below average intellect who believes himself to be in communication with god, stating: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did". Bush has instituted Military tribunals, drumhead trials, and executions, taking the position that people captured by his regime are no longer entitled to either the rights afforded prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, or to those covering criminal defendants within the US courts. This violation of constitutional and civil rights is no great leap for a man who himself has allegedly used the FBI to drive his enemies to suicide. During Bush's despotic reign and endless terror war, America is sinking into economic disrepair. People are saying if Bush and his gang steal another election it will mean the end of democracy and the end of the American way of life. Others say it will mean the end of the middle class and the beginning of a two class society of rich and poor. And there are those who believe that what we are now witnessing is the emergence of a fascist corporate police state with aspirations of world domination.
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky said, "If we are to win, it's clear we need to do more, do it louder, do it faster and do it better. And if we don't, in 2008 we will live in a country and a world far different from the one we have had and the one to which we aspire. This President is seriously undermining the rule of law, the Constitution of the United States, and precious civil liberties and doing it all in the name of patriotism." Helen Thomas called George W. Bush, "the worst president ever." Jonathan Chait ranks him "among the worst presidents in US history." Paul Berman labels him, "the worst president the US has ever had", and George A. Akerlof, 2001 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics said, "This is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy, this is a form of looting." Lt. Cmdr. Al Martin, US Navy, (Ret) said, "You have to look at the entire Bush Family in this context - as if the family ran a corporation called ‘Frauds-R-Us,’ George Jr.’s specialty was insurance and security fraud, Jeb’s specialty was oil and gas fraud, Neil’s specialty was real estate fraud, Prescott’s specialty was banking fraud, and George Sr.’s specialty? All of the above." Christopher Hitchens, Washington Editor for Harpers and columnist for The Nation said, “George Bush, he’s bad on drugs, he’s sick mentally and physically, if he was a dog he’d be shot. He’s a scumbag. That’s why he won’t be re-elected. He’s not morally, physically or mentally fit to be President.”
Many have noted that Bush exhibits a strange fascination with death, and like Caligula, he seems to enjoy executing people. As a boy George W. Bush had fun sticking firecrackers into frogs and blowing them up and shooting them with a BB gun. His youthful Cruelty to animals was a mere precursor to his later adult cruelty to human beings. As Governor of Texas, George W. Bush was known as the ‘Texecutioner’ setting a record in all fifty states with 152 executions, the most people ever killed by a Governor. During an interview with Talk magazine, he exhibited what could be characterized as sadistic tendencies. Writer, Tucker Carlson described Bush mimicking Karla Fay Tucker’s final pleas for her life, "Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me." Of course her execution proceeded. Again during the 2000 presidential debates when he spoke of executing people, an odd change came over him. "The three men who murdered James Byrd, guess what's going to happen to them?” Bush paused and grinned at the camera... “They're going to be put to death,” he proclaimed with satisfaction.
As president of the United States George W. Bush is barely functional having held only nine carefully scripted press conferences as compared with Bill Clinton’s thirty-three ‘real’ press conferences by the same time in office. Bush often demonstrates serious lapses in judgment with his many Bhopals like, "As you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say." and, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." When the full extent of Bush’s horrific actions in America and the world are realized he will not be remembered as a liberator or a patriot, but as a fourth generation war profiteer, a corrupt liar who started a ‘privatized’ war for oil which killed thousands of innocent men women and children.
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Perle, Wolfowitz, and Bush Sr. do not represent the American people, but a small circle of corporations and military industrialists concerned only with the accumulation of power and wealth at any cost. George Jr. the willing puppet and participant in the scheme is not only motivated by greed, but some very strange sexual needs as well. Certainly if there is any truth to the information on the internet concerning rape, and homosexuality, he is far from being the 'good Christian man' portrayed by the corporate media. Strip away the tissue thin veneer, which his handlers have worked so very hard to create and we see that Bush, like Caligula, was also a tragically corrupt and incompetent sexual predator, and during his reign of ‘terror’ America is sinking quickly toward its economic demise.
Though He was born into a life of wealth and privilege Bush’s introduction into the super secret super decadent society of the ruling rich and his first alleged homosexual experiences probably began in 1968 while he was a student at Yale University. In her book 'Secrets of the Tomb---Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power,’ Alexandra Robbins describes how Skull & Bones initiates were selected from American aristocracy to be pushed to the heights of power in a globalist empire. Initiates took part in satanic rituals in a windowless building at Yale University, known as ‘The Tomb’. As part of the initiation ritual, new members engaged in homosexual acts in a coffin while divulging secrets about their sex lives and other personal information. From that day forward the acts committed by the initiate and their confession were used as a means of control, and it formed a dark bond among the inner circle members of the Skull & Bones Order.
Legal activist Sherman Skolnick, Chairman of the Citizens' Committee to Clean up the Courts, reported that suppressed stories and photos are being used by various nations to blackmail the Bush administration. One picture allegedly shows George W. Bush in the Skull & Bones Society satanic ritual coffin engaging in homosexual acts with his reputed male sex-mate. Another photo reveals a drunken George W. Bush dancing naked on top of a tavern bar. According to Mr. Skolnick The reputed Bush male sex-mate details have seriously compromised the Bush regime, enabling other countries to obtain U.S. industrial, financial, and military secrets in return for media silence. Reporters with the British Broadcasting Company, BBC, and Canadian Broadcasting Company, CBC, have on their own verified and corroborated the information uncovered by Mr. Skolnick. In an attempt to silence the story the FBI and Justice Department are using all means necessary to spy on both foreign and domestic reporters and forcibly stop the publishing and electronic transmission of any stories or pictures relating to George W. Bush in a Skull & Bones Society satanic ritual coffin engaging in homosexual acts.
Years After Skull and bones, and the Harken Energy Corp dealings, and the stadium built with taxpayer money, and his selection in the1994 Texas Governors race, we get another glimpse of George W. Bush’s Caligula like world. On October 26, 2000 the attempted abduction of pretty young married black 37 year old Margie Schoedinger took place at her residence. It was one of many nights of endless unspeakable torment that Mrs. Schoedinger and her husband had endured, but on this particular evening, in a cry for help she resisted her abductors. When the Texas Sugar land police arrived they treated the three intruders with deference and respect. No incident report was taken and the three men were allowed to leave while Mrs. Schoedinger was questioned at length.
Margie Schoedinger’ had once dated George W. Bush when she was a minor, and this had been her unfortunate connection to him. According to her Petition, George Jr. had her watched continuously and frequently used her for aberrant sex. After filing a lawsuit against Bush and the FBI on October 26, 2000, the harassment by law enforcement of Mrs. Schoedinger’s family and friends became intolerable. Fearfully she withdrew the suit, but the harassment continued. Out of desperation Mrs. Schoedinger wrote letters to the FBI begging them for help, but her pleas were only passed along to Bush.
In a subsequent conversation Mrs. Schoedinger had with Bush and people from his gang she was told that the harassment by the FBI and local police would continue and that her only way out would be to commit suicide, which Bush recommended. He informed Mrs. Schoedinger that her entire background had been destroyed. She would never have a clean credit record again, her husband would never be able to find work again, Her Graduate Degree had been revoked and any degree she might earn in the future would be revoked.
They told her that: she would be placed on an AIDs watch list for the rest of her life, she would be watched by the CIA, and harassed by the Secret Service. They said she would be placed on the National Security Agency’s Photo Array to be considered as a possible suspect in any crime, and they said her home was under constant surveillance and the images would be put on the internet and made available to prison web sites, military web sites, and any internet location that could possibly cause her to be harmed.
Mrs. Schoedinger begged Bush to have mercy and let her pursue a degree and start her life over. Desperately she tried to assure him that she would never mention his name again and that nobody would believe her even if she did. She soon got his answer, her bank account was expunged, her husband dismissed from his job, and she was again raped and savagely beaten resulting in a miscarriage. Upon her arrival at the hospital FBI agents were waiting with more threats and intimidation. Mrs. Schoedinger left the hospital prematurely with no certainty that doctors had collected the pathology of her dead child.
In an ominous final conversation Mrs. Schoedinger had with Bush, he took full responsibility for the actions being carried out against her. She was told again that committing suicide would be her best option, and it was his opinion that she was essentially dead anyway. Although Mrs. Schoedinger and her husband had been drugged each time she had been gang raped, Bush revealed that he and the FBI agents were very concerned that she might actually remember the individual sex crimes that they had committed against her.
On Monday September 22, 2003, nine months after Margie Schoedinger filed case, #22127, against George W. Bush in the County Civil Court of Fort Bend County, Texas, for both physical and punitive damages, she was found dead in her home of a "gunshot wound to head". 38 year old Margie D. Schoedinger had died of an apparent "suicide", according to the Harris County Medical Examiner's office, but those familiar with CIA / Mafia lingo know that "suicide" also means "murder."
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This article is © copyright 2004 by Raymond Ponziny. Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached and the title remains unchanged.
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Gaius (Caligula) (A.D. 37-41)
Garrett G. Fagan
Pennsylvania State University
From: http://www.roman-emperors.org/gaius.htm
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Introduction
Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (b. A.D. 12, d. A.D. 41, emperor A.D. 37-41) represents a turning point in the early history of the Principate. Unfortunately, his is the most poorly documented reign of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The literary sources for these four years are meager, frequently anecdotal, and universally hostile.[[1]] As a result, not only are many of the events of the reign unclear, but Gaius himself appears more as a caricature than a real person, a crazed megalomaniac given to capricious cruelty and harebrained schemes. Although some headway can be made in disentangling truth from embellishment, the true character of the youthful emperor will forever elude us.
Gaius's Early Life and Reign
Gaius was born on 31 August, A.D. 12, probably at the Julio-Claudian resort of Antium (modern Anzio), the third of six children born to Augustus's adopted grandson, Germanicus, and Augustus's granddaughter, Agrippina. As a baby he accompanied his parents on military campaigns in the north and was shown to the troops wearing a miniature soldier's outfit, including the hob-nailed sandal called caliga, whence the nickname by which posterity remembers him.[[2]] His childhood was not a happy one, spent amid an atmosphere of paranoia, suspicion, and murder. Instability within the Julio-Claudian house, generated by uncertainty over the succession, led to a series of personal tragedies. When his father died under suspicious circumstances on 10 October A.D. 19, relations between his mother and his grand-uncle, the emperor Tiberius, deteriorated irretrievably, and the adolescent Gaius was sent to live first with his great-grandmother Livia in A.D. 27 and then, following Livia's death two years later, with his grandmother Antonia. Shortly before the fall of Tiberius's Praetorian Prefect, Sejanus, in A.D. 31 he was summoned to join Tiberius at his villa on Capri, where he remained until his accession in A.D. 37. In the interim, his two brothers and his mother suffered demotion and, eventually, violent death. Throughout these years, the only position of administrative responsibility Gaius held was an honorary quaestorship in A.D. 33. [[3]]
When Tiberius died on 16 March A.D. 37, Gaius was in a perfect position to assume power, despite the obstacle of Tiberius's will, which named him and his cousin Tiberius Gemellus joint heirs. (Gemellus's life was shortened considerably by this bequest, since Gaius ordered him killed within a matter of months.) Backed by the Praetorian Prefect Q. Sutorius Macro, Gaius asserted his dominance. He had Tiberius's will declared null and void on grounds of insanity, accepted the powers of the Principate as conferred by the Senate, and entered Rome on 28 March amid scenes of wild rejoicing. His first acts were generous in spirit: he paid Tiberius's bequests and gave a cash bonus to the Praetorian Guard, the first recorded donativum to troops in imperial history. He honored his father and other dead relatives and publicly destroyed Tiberius's personal papers, which no doubt implicated many of the Roman elite in the destruction of Gaius's immediate family. Finally, he recalled exiles and reimbursed those wronged by the imperial tax system [[4]]. His popularity was immense. Yet within four years he lay in a bloody heap in a palace corridor, murdered by officers of the very guard entrusted to protect him. What went wrong?
Gaius's "Madness"
The ancient sources are practically unanimous as to the cause of Gaius's downfall: he was insane. The writers differ as to how this condition came about, but all agree that after his good start Gaius began to behave in an openly autocratic manner, even a crazed one. [[5]] Outlandish stories cluster about the raving emperor, illustrating his excessive cruelty, immoral sexual escapades, or disrespect toward tradition and the Senate. The sources describe his incestuous relations with his sisters, laughable military campaigns in the north, the building of a pontoon bridge across the Bay at Baiae, and the plan to make his horse a consul. [[6]] Modern scholars have pored over these incidents and come up with a variety of explanations: Gaius suffered from an illness; he was misunderstood; he was corrupted by power; or, accepting the ancient evidence, they conclude that he was mad.[[7]] However, appreciating the nature of the ancient sources is crucial when approaching this issue. Their unanimous hostility renders their testimony suspect, especially since Gaius's reported behavior fits remarkably well with that of the ancient tyrant, a literary type enshrined in Greco-Roman tradition centuries before his reign. Further, the only eye-witness account of Gaius's behavior, Philo's Embassy to Gaius, offers little evidence of outright insanity, despite the antagonism of the author, whom Gaius treated with the utmost disrespect. Rather, he comes across as aloof, arrogant, egotistical, and cuttingly witty -- but not insane. The best explanation both for Gaius's behavior and the subsequent hostility of the sources is that he was an inexperienced young man thrust into a position of unlimited power, the true nature of which had been carefully disguised by its founder, Augustus. Gaius, however, saw through the disguise and began to act accordingly. This, coupled with his troubled upbringing and almost complete lack of tact led to behavior that struck his contemporaries as extreme, even insane.
Gaius and the Empire
Gaius's reign is too short, and the surviving ancient accounts too sensationalized, for any serious policies of his to be discerned. During his reign, Mauretania was annexed and reorganized into two provinces, Herod Agrippa was appointed to a kingdom in Palestine, and severe riots took place in Alexandria between Jews and Greeks. These events are largely overlooked in the sources, since they offer slim pickings for sensational stories of madness. [[8]] Two other episodes, however, garner greater attention: Gaius's military activities on the northern frontier, and his vehement demand for divine honors. His military activities are portrayed as ludicrous, with Gauls dressed up as Germans at his triumph and Roman troops ordered to collect sea-shells as "spoils of the sea." Modern scholars have attempted to make sense of these events in various ways. The most reasonable suggestion is that Gaius went north to earn military glory and discovered there a nascent conspiracy under the commander of the Upper German legions, Cn. Lentulus Gaetulicus. The subsequent events are shrouded in uncertainty, but it is known that Gaetulicus and Gaius's brother-in-law, M. Aemilius Lepidus, were executed and Gaius's two surviving sisters, implicated in the plot, suffered exile. [[9]] Gaius's enthusiasm for divine honors for himself and his favorite sister, Drusilla (who died suddenly in A.D. 38 and was deified), is presented in the sources as another clear sign of his madness, but it may be no more than the young autocrat tactlessly pushing the limits of the imperial cult, already established under Augustus. Gaius's excess in this regard is best illustrated by his order that a statue of him be erected in the Temple at Jerusalem. Only the delaying tactics of the Syrian governor, P. Petronius, and the intervention of Herod Agrippa prevented riots and a potential uprising in Palestine. [[10]]
Conspiracy and Assassination
The conspiracy that ended Gaius's life was hatched among the officers of the Praetorian Guard, apparently for purely personal reasons. It appears also to have had the support of some senators and an imperial freedman. [[11]] As with conspiracies in general, there are suspicions that the plot was more broad-based than the sources intimate, and it may even have enjoyed the support of the next emperor Claudius, but these propositions are not provable on available evidence. On 24 January A.D. 41 the praetorian tribune Cassius Chaerea and other guardsmen caught Gaius alone in a secluded palace corridor and cut him down. He was 28 years old and had ruled three years and ten months. [[12]]
Conclusion
Whatever damage Tiberius's later years had done to the carefully crafted political edifice created by Augustus, Gaius multiplied it a hundredfold. When he came to power in A.D. 37 Gaius had no administrative experience beyond his honorary quaestorship, and had spent an unhappy early life far from the public eye. He appears, once in power, to have realized the boundless scope of his authority and acted accordingly. For the elite, this situation proved intolerable and ensured the blackening of Caligula's name in the historical record they would dictate. The sensational and hostile nature of that record, however, should in no way trivialize Gaius's importance. His reign highlighted an inherent weakness in the Augustan Principate, now openly revealed for what it was -- a raw monarchy in which only the self-discipline of the incumbent acted as a restraint on his behavior. That the only means of retiring the wayward princeps was murder marked another important revelation: Roman emperors could not relinquish their powers without simultaneously relinquishing their lives.
Bibliography
The bibliography on Gaius is far too vast for comprehensive citation here. Most of the ancient material can be found in Gelzer and Smallwood. Ample reference to relevant secondary works is made in Barrett, Caligula (319-28) and Hurley (219-30). The works listed below are therefore either the main treatments of Gaius or are directly pertinent to the issues discussed in the entry above.
Balsdon, J.P.V.D. The Emperor Gaius. Oxford, 1934.
________. "The Principates of Tiberius and Gaius." ANRW 2.2 (1975): 86-94.
Barrett, A.A. Caligula: The Corruption of Power. New Haven, 1989.
________. Agrippina. Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire. New Haven, 1996.
Benediktson, D.T. "Caligula's Madness: Madness or Interictal Temporal Lobe Epilepsy?" Classical World 82 (1988-89), 370-5.
Bicknell, P. "The Emperor Gaius' Military Activities in AD 40." Historia 17 (1968): 496-505.
Bilde, P. "The Roman Emperor Gaius (Caligula)'s Attempt to Erect his Statue in the Temple of Jerusalem." STh 32 (1978): 67-93.
Boschung, D. Die Bildnisse des Caligula. Berlin, 1989.
Charlesworth, M.P. "The Tradition About Caligula" Cambridge Historical Journal 4 (1933): 105-119.
Davies, R.W. "The Abortive Invasion of Britain by Gaius." Historia 15 (1966): 124-28.
D'Ecré, F. "La mort de Germanicus et les poisons de Caligula." Janus 56 (1969): 123-48.
Ferrill, A. Caligula, Emperor of Rome. London, 1991.
Gelzer, M. "Iulius Caligula." Real-Enzyclopädie 10.381-423 (1919).
Grant, M. The Roman Emperors. A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 BC - AD 476 (New York, 1985), 25-28.
Hurley, D.W. "Gaius Caligula in the Germanicus Tradition." American Journal of Philology 110 (1989): 316-38.
________. An Historical and Historiographical Commentary on Suetonius' Life of C. Caligula. Atlanta, 1993.
Jerome, T.S. "The Historical Tradition About Gaius," in id., Aspects of the Study of Roman History. New York, 1923.
Katz, R.S. "The Illness of Caligula." Classical World 65 (1971-72): 223-5
McGinn, T.A.J. "Caligula's Brothel on the Palatine," EMC 42 (1998): 95-107.
Massaro, V. and I. Montgomery. "Gaius: Mad Bad, Ill or All Three?" Latomus 37 (1978): 894-909
________. "Gaius (Caligula) Doth Murder Sleep." Latomus 38 (1979): 699-700.
Maurer, J. A. A Commentary on C. Suetoni Tranquilli, Vita C. Caligulae Caesaris, Chapters I-XXI. Philadelphia, 1949.
Morgan, M.G. "Caligula's Illness Again." Classical World 66 (1972-73): 327-9
Philips, E.J. "The Emperor Gaius' Abortive Invasion of Britain." Historia 19 (1970): 369-74.
Simpson, C. J. "The 'Conspiracy' of AD 39." In Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History II, edited by C. Deroux, 347-66. Brussels, 1980.
Smallwood, E.M. (ed.). Documents Illustrating the Principates of Gaius, Claudius and Nero. Cambridge. 1967.
Wardle, D. Suetonius' Life of Caligula: A Commentary. Brussels, 1994.
Woods, D. "Caligula's Seashells." Greece and Rome 47 (2000): 80-87.
Wood, S. "Diva Drusilla Panthea and the Sisters of Caligula." AJA 99 (1995): 457-82.
NOTES
[[1]] The main ancient sources for Gaius's reign are: Suet. Gaius; Dio 59; Philo In Flaccum and Legatio ad Gaium; Jos. AJ 19.1-211. Tacitus's account of the reign is lost. However, he makes occasional references to Gaius in the extant portions of his works, as does Seneca. All of these sources have reason to be hostile to Gaius's memory: Seneca's style was roundly abused by the emperor (Suet. Gaius 53.2; Dio 59.19.7-8); Philo and Josephus, as Jews, resented Gaius's blasphemous demands for divinity that almost roused Palestine to rebellion (see above, Gaius and the Empire); and the later sources inherited a tradition about Gaius that can be shown to be biased and exaggerated, cf. Charlesworth, "The Tradition about Gaius." Besides these literary sources, inscriptions and coins also offer some information, see Smallwood, Documents Illustrating.
[[2]] Tac. Ann. 1.41.3; Suet. Gaius 9.1.
[[3]] Death of Germanicus and aftermath: Tac. Ann. 2.69-3.19; Gaius with Livia, Antonia, and Tiberius: Tac. Ann. 6.20.1; Suet. Gaius 10.1, 23.2; fate of Agrippina: Tac. Ann. 5.3.2 - 5.5.2, 6.25.1; and of Nero and Drusus Caesar: Tac. Ann. 5.3.2, 6.23.4-5, Suet. Tib. 54, Gaius 7; Gaius's quaestorship: Dio 58.23.1. For the alleged involvement of Gaius in his father's death, see D'Ecré, "La mort de Germanicus."
[[4]] Early reign and first acts: Suet. Gaius 13-16; Philo Leg. 8-13; Dio 59.2-3. Macro's full name: Smallwood, Documents Illustrating, no. 254. Date of Gaius's arrival in Rome: Acta Fratrum Arvalium (Smallwood, Documents Illustrating, no. 3.15-17). Gemellus: Suet. Gaius 14.1, 15.2, 23.3; Dio 59.1.2-3, 59.8.1-2; Philo Leg. 23-31.
[[5]] Seneca, without explanation, believes he went mad (Brev. 18.5-6; Helv. 10.4; Tranqu. 14.5; Ben. 7.11.2). Josephus also thinks that Gaius went mad but alludes to a love-potion administered by his wife Caesonia as the cause (AJ 19.193), apparently after two years of good rule (AJ 18.256). Philo blames an illness in the fall of A.D. 37 (Leg. 14-22). Suetonius mentions simply a "brain sickness" (valitudo mentis; Gaius 51.1). Dio thinks that faults of character led to a deterioration in his behavior (59.3-4). Surviving references suggest that Tacitus thought Gaius at least of troubled and impulsive mind, which is not the same thing as crazed (Agr. 13.2; Ann. 6.20.1, 6.45.5, 13.3.6; Hist. 4.48.2).
[[6]] Incest: Suet. Gaius 24.1; Dio 59.3.6; Jos. AJ 19.204. Military campaigns: Tac. Hist. 4.15.3, Germania 37.5, Suet. Gaius 43-46, Dio 59.21.1-3. Bridge at Baiae: Suet. Gaius 19; Dio 59.17; Jos. AJ 19.5-6. Horse as consul: Suet. Gaius 55.3; Dio 59.14.7; His alleged setting up of a brothel in the palace may contain a kernel of truth, even if the story is much embellished, see T.A.J. McGinn, "Caligula's Brothel on the Palatine," EMC 42 (1998): 95-107.
[[7]] Alcoholism: Jerome, "Historical Tradition"; hyperthyroidism/thyrotoxicos: Katz, "Illness of Caligula"; mania: Massaro and Montgomery, "Gaius: Mad, Bad, Ill or All Three" and "Gaius (Caligula) Doth Murder Sleep"; epilepsy: Benediktson, "Caligula's Madness." Morgan ("Caligula's Illness Again") makes some astute observations on the weakness of the medical approach as a whole. He points out that the ancient concept of physiognomy -- that people's characters are manifest in their appearance -- makes any diagnosis highly suspect. In fact, all such medical explanations are doomed to failure. The sources simply cannot be trusted, and diagnosing a patient 2,000 years dead is, at best, a stretch. Balsdon (The Emperor Gaius) argued that Gaius was misunderstood and attempted to offer rational explanations for all of his apparently deranged antics. A useful summary and critique of "madness" theories is to be found in Barrett, Caligula, 213-41. For a recent acceptance of the madness thesis, cf. Ferrill, Caligula, Emperor of Rome.
[[8]] Mauretania: Dio 59.25.1; see also Barrett, Caligula, 115-20. Agrippa: Jos. AJ 18.228-37; Phil Leg. 324-26; see also E. M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule (Leiden, 1976), 187-200. Alexandrian riots: Philo Flacc and Leg.
[[9]] Fake Germans in triumph: Suet. Gaius 47. Military campaigns: see above, note [6]. For modern rationalizations of these campaigns, cf., e.g., Bicknell, "Military Activities"; Davies, "Abortive Invasion"; Philips, "Abortive Invasion"; Barrett, Caligula, 125-39, and Woods, "Caligula's Seashells.". Execution of Gaetulicus and exile of sisters: the Gaetulicus affair is ably assessed in Barrett, Caligula, 91-113, and id. Agrippina, 60-70; for a contrasting view, see Simpson, "The 'Conspiracy' of AD 39."
[[10]] The Jerusalem affair is described most fully by Josephus (AJ 18.261-309; BJ 2.184-203) and Philo (Leg. 188, 198-348). Thorough modern assessments can be found in Barrett, Caligula, 188-91, cf. 140-53 (on Gaius's demand for divine honours, which Barrett argues are exaggerated by the sources); Bilde "Statue in the Temple"; and Smallwood, Jews (above, note [8]), 174-80. Drusilla: Suet. Gaius 24.2-3; Dio 59.11; Smallwood, Documents Illustrating, nos 5.12-15, 11, 128, 401.12; Wood, "Diva Drusilla."
[[11]] The named Praetorian conspirators include three tribunes -- Cassius Chaerea (Suet. Gaius 56.2; Dio 59.29.1; Sen. Const. 18.3; Jos. AJ 19.18, 21, 28-37); Cornelius Sabinus (Suet. Gaius 58.2; Dio 59.29.1; Jos. AJ 19.46, 48, 261); Papinius (Jos. AJ 19.37) -- and the Prefect M. Arrecinus Clemens (Jos. AJ 19.37-46). Senators associated with the plot are M. Annius Vinicianus (Jos. AJ 19.18, 20, 49-51), M. Valerius Asiaticus (Tac. Ann. 11.1.2), Cluvius Rufus and L. Nonius Asprenas (Jos. AJ 19.91-92, 98). Gaius's freedman Callistus is also a named participant (Tac. Ann. 11.29.1; Dio 29.29.1; Jos. AJ 19.63-69).
[[12]] The possible involvement of Claudius in the plot is assessed by B. Levick, Claudius (New Haven, 1990), 33-39. The fullest account of the assassination is that of Josephus (AJ 19.70-113), with more summary accounts found in Suetonius (Gaius 58) and the epitome of Dio (59.29.5-7).
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Copyright © 1997, Garrett G. Fagan. This file may be copied on the condition that the entire contents, including the header and this copyright notice, remain intact.
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Roman Emperor Caligula (August 31, 12 – January 24, 41 AD): Historical Background
From: http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/caligula.html
March, 37 CE: At about 25 years old, Caligula was named Rome's third emperor, the first direct descendant of Augustus to take the throne (click here for a coin on which Caligula emphasizes this relationship). The reign began with good feelings all around, since Caligula declared an amnesty for all Romans imprisoned or exiled under Tiberius, posthumously restored honor to his mother and brothers, and stopped the treason trials, getting rid of the informers in the process. One month after his accession, his grandmother, Antonia, died.
October, 37 CE: Caligula fell seriously ill, with what was described at the time as a “brain fever”; there was great mourning in Rome, and much joy at his recovery. There were a number of freedmen in his close circle who attained considerable influence: Helicon, his chamberlain; Apelles, a tragic actor; and most wealthy and powerful of all, Callistus, a kind of imperial secretary.
38 CE: Early in the year, Caligula forced his father-in-law, Gaius Silanus, and young Gemellus, grandson of Tiberius, to commit suicide by accusing them of treasonable activities. Although the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Macro, had been influential in helping Caligula secure the throne, the emperor apparently felt that Macro was becoming too powerful. Caligula tricked Macro into believing that he was being made prefect of Egypt and then had him arrested and executed. Later in the year Caligula's favorite sister, Drusilla, died; he had been so close to her that there were rumors of incest. In the manner of the eastern monarchs, Caligula had Drusilla deified; she was the first Roman woman ever officially declared a deity, but her divinity did not survive his reign because he had so egregiously flouted Roman precedent (in contrast, when Claudius had Livia deified, he emphasized her role as “diva Augusta,” wife and mother of emperors). Caligula also minted coins in Drusilla's honor (scroll down on this page to see a coin featuring the three sisters of Caligula).
39 CE: Since the beginning of his reign Caligula had spent lavishly on public shows, games, and displays (sometimes even participating in them himself); in the most extravagant of these, he had hundreds of ships tied together to make a temporary floating bridge so that he could ride across the Bay of Naples on horseback. By 39, the public treasury was near bankruptcy. Therefore, at the beginning of the year Caligula revived the treason trials that had become so unpopular under Tiberius; he also began other methods of raising public money, including the auctioning off of public properties left over from shows. Many of these revealed his strange sense of humor (e.g., at one of these auctions a senator fell asleep and Caligula took each of his nods as bids, selling him 13 gladiators for a huge sum). In the words of historian Michael Grant, “Caligula had an irrepressible, bizarre sense of the ridiculous, deliberately designed to shock, but frequently taken by his alarmed subjects too seriously. Notoriously absurd traditions . . . such as the story that he intended to give a consulship to his favorite horse Incitatus no doubt originated from his continual stream of jokes. Probably he remarked that Incitatus would do the job as well as most of the recent incumbents; and meanwhile he ordered silence in the entire neighborhood, to prevent the horse from being disturbed” (The Twelve Caesars, [New York: Scribner, 1975], 113). Some of his jokes were more sadistic, as when he arranged an oratory competition in which all the losers had to erase their wax tablets with their tongues. All these activities, as Grant points out, “meant that he had far less time available for governing the empire. Caligula, that is to say, became the first emperor to attempt this enormous task as a part-time job” (116).
September, 39 CE: When Caligula was going to Germany to join the legions for a military campaign, he discovered a serious conspiracy against his life, engineered by the army commander Gaetulicus, who apparently intended to replace Caligula with the former husband of Drusilla, M. Aemilius Lepidus (called “Ganymede” in I, Claudius), who was at the time the lover of one of Caligula's other sisters, Agrippina the Younger (called “Agrippinilla” in I, Claudius). Caligula had the two men executed and banished his two sisters, Agrippina and Julia Livilla (called “Lesbia” in I, Claudius). He wintered in Germany, but the campaign there and the proposed invasion of Britain were never carried out; instead the troops engaged in drills and maneuvers, including the collection of sea shells to be displayed in a triumphal parade as the spoils of battle. Caligula became increasingly suspicious, almost paranoid, and his relations with the Senate deteriorated.
40 CE: Caligula announced his self-deification, building temples and erecting statues, even in Rome, to his glorified self. He even ordered that a statue of himself should be placed in the Temple of Jerusalem and the Jews be forced to worship him (the procurator wisely postponed executing this order, and it had not yet been carried out when Caligula was assassinated). This deification was part of Caligula's apparently systematic concept of imperial power, of what he liked to term his “inflexibility” (called by Robert Graves his “immovable rigor”). Was Caligula clinically insane? Was he the evil monster portrayed by Robert Graves? The ancient sources are uniformly hostile, and modern historians differ in their interpretations of his behavior. It is impossible to answer these questions with any certainty. What we can conclude is that he was carried away by the absolute nature of the power that he had inherited from more hard-working and stable emperors. He seemed to be determined to flaunt that power and to strip away all the pretense and euphemisms in which Augustus (and Tiberius, to a lesser extent) had cloaked it. Caligula's bizarre behavior demonstrates what can happen when absolute power is combined with a total lack of responsibility and respect for others (see Garrett Fagan's biography for a balanced assessment of Caligula).
January 21, 41 CE: Caligula was assassinated by members of his own Praetorian Guard, including M. Arrecinus Clemens, co-prefect of the Guard, and Cassius Chaerea, a military tribune of the Guard, in conspiracy with several high-ranking senators, notably Marcus Vinicius, husband of Caligula's exiled sister Julia Livilla. You can visit the underground passageway (cryptoporticus) where he was assassinated by virtually travelling to the Palatine in Region X of VRoma via the web gateway or the anonymous browser. Caligula's wife, Caesonia, and their young daughter were also killed. The Praetorian Guard proclaimed his uncle Claudius the new emperor, and the Senate subsequently ratified this action. Caligula's brief reign also demonstrates the significant role the Praetorian Guard was beginning to play in the Empire. Under Tiberius, the prefect Sejanus had come dangerously close to achieving his goal of succeeding Tiberius as emperor. The subsequent prefect, Macro, had helped Caligula secure his power. Caligula himself was assassinated because he had made a mockery of the military and alienated the leaders of the Guard; it is likely that the senatorial conspiracy would not have succeeded if the Guard had remained loyal to Caligula. Finally, it was the Praetorian Guard that quite openly chose Claudius to succeed Caligula.