Caligula
Roman emperor from AD 37 to 41 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (/kəˈlɪɡjʊlə/), was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in AD 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, Augustus' granddaughter, members of the first ruling family of the Roman Empire. He was born two years before Tiberius was made emperor. Gaius accompanied his father, mother and siblings on campaign in Germania, at little more than four or five years old. He had been named after Gaius Julius Caesar, but his father's soldiers affectionately nicknamed him "Caligula" ('little boot').[lower-alpha 1]
Caligula | |||||
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Roman emperor | |||||
Reign | 16 March 37 – 24 January 41 | ||||
Predecessor | Tiberius | ||||
Successor | Claudius | ||||
Born | Gaius Julius Caesar 31 August AD 12 Antium, Italy | ||||
Died | 24 January AD 41 (aged 28) Palatine Hill, Rome, Italy | ||||
Spouses | |||||
Issue |
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Dynasty | Julio-Claudian | ||||
Father | Germanicus | ||||
Mother | Agrippina |
Germanicus died at Antioch in 19, and Agrippina returned with her six children to Rome, where she became entangled in a bitter feud with emperor Tiberius, who was Germanicus' biological uncle and adoptive father. The conflict eventually led to the destruction of her family, with Caligula as the sole male survivor. In 26, Tiberius withdrew from public life to the island of Capri, and in 31, Caligula joined him there. Tiberius died in 37 and Caligula succeeded him as emperor, at the age of 24.
Of the few surviving sources about Caligula and his four-year reign, most were written by members of the nobility and senate, long after the events they purport to describe. They portray Caligula as a noble and moderate emperor during the first six months of his rule, but increasingly self-indulgent, cruel, sadistic, extravagant and sexually perverted thereafter, an insane tyrant who demanded and received worship as a living god, and planned to make his horse a consul. Most modern commentaries seek to explain Caligula's position, personality and historical context. Many of the allegations against him are dismissed as misunderstandings, exaggeration, mockery or malicious fantasy.
During his brief reign, Caligula worked to increase the unconstrained personal power of the emperor, as opposed to countervailing powers within the principate. He directed much of his attention to ambitious construction projects and luxurious dwellings for himself. He began the construction of two aqueducts in Rome: the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus. During his reign, the empire annexed the client kingdom of Mauretania as a province. He had to abandon an attempted invasion of Britain, and the installation of his statue in the Temple of Jerusalem. In early 41, Caligula was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy by officers of the Praetorian Guard, senators, and courtiers. At least some of the conspirators might have planned this as an opportunity to restore the Roman Republic and aristocratic privileges; but if so, their plan was thwarted by the Praetorians, who seem to have spontaneously chosen Caligula's uncle Claudius as the next emperor. Caligula's death marked the official end of the Julii Caesares in the male line, though the Julio-Claudian dynasty continued to rule until the demise of Caligula's nephew, the emperor Nero.
Caligula was born in Antium on 31 August AD 12, the third of six surviving children of Germanicus and his wife and second cousin, Agrippina the Elder. Germanicus was a grandson of Mark Antony, and Agrippina was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder, making her the granddaughter of Augustus.[2] The future emperor Claudius was Caligula's paternal uncle.[3] Caligula had two older brothers, Nero and Drusus, and three younger sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla.[2][4] At the age of two or three, he accompanied his father, Germanicus, on campaigns in the north of Germania.[5] He wore a miniature soldier's outfit devised by his mother to please the troops, including army boots (caligae) and armour.[5] The soldiers nicknamed him Caligula ("little boot"). Winterling believes he would have enjoyed the attention of the soldiers, to whom he was something of a mascot, though he later grew to dislike the nickname.[6][7]
Germanicus was a respected, immensely popular figure among his troops and Roman civilians of every class. He died after a lingering illness at Antioch, Syria, in AD 19, aged only 33, convinced that he had been poisoned by an enemy.[8][lower-alpha 2]. Many believed that he had been killed at the behest of his uncle, the reigning emperor Tiberius, who saw him as a potential rival.[9][10]
After the death of his father, Caligula lived with his mother, Agrippina. She made no secret of her imperial ambitions for herself and her sons, and in consequence, her relations with Tiberius rapidly deteriorated.[11] Tiberius believed himself under constant threat from treason, conspiracy and political rivalry. He forbade Agrippina to remarry, for fear that a remarriage would serve her personal ambition, and introduce yet another threat to himself.[12][13] Agrippina and Caligula's brother, Nero, were banished in the year 29 on charges of treason.[14][15] The adolescent Caligula was sent to live with his great-grandmother (Tiberius' mother), Livia. After her death, he was sent to live with his grandmother Antonia Minor.[11] In the year 30, Tiberius had Caligula's brothers, Drusus and Nero, declared public enemies by the Senate. Drusus was imprisoned and Nero was exiled.[15][16] Caligula and his three sisters remained in Italy as hostages of Tiberius, kept under close watch.[17]
In the year 31, at the age of 19, Caligula was remanded to the personal care of Tiberius at Villa Jovis on Capri. He lived there for six years.[11] Roman historians describe Caligula at this time as a first-rate orator, well-informed, cultured and intelligent, an excellent natural actor who recognized the danger he was in, and hid his resentment of Tiberius' maltreatment of himself and his family behind such an obsequious manner that it was said of him that there had never been "a better slave or a worse master."[11][18][19]
Caligula was befriended by Tiberius' Praetorian prefect, Naevius Sutorius Macro. Macro had been active in the downfall of Sejanus, his ambitious and manipulative predecessor in office, and was a trusted communicant between the emperor, and his senate in Rome.[20][13] Macro spoke well of Caligula to Tiberius, attempting to quell any ill will or suspicion the Emperor held towards the youth; Macro also saved Caligula's life on several occasions. [21] In 33, Tiberius gave the 20 year old Caligula an honorary quaestorship, the lowest ranking office in the cursus honorum (course of offices); Caligula held this very junior post as a member of the Senate until his rise to emperor.[22] Meanwhile, both Caligula's mother and his brother Drusus died in prison; Nero died in exile.[23] In the same year, Tiberius arranged Caligula's marriage to Junia Claudilla, daughter of one of Tiberius' most influential allies in the Senate, Marcus Junius Silanus. Claudilla died in childbirth the following year, along with her baby.[20] In the year 35, Caligula was named joint heir to Tiberius' estate along with Tiberius Gemellus, Tiberius' grandson.[24] Gemellus was Caligula's junior by seven years, not yet an adult, but was otherwise a viable candidate for the throne; Tiberius seemed in good health, and likely to survive to Gemellus' majority.
In Philo's account, Tiberius was genuinely fond of Gemellus, and feared for his safety should Caligula come to power. He also doubted Gemellus' personal capacity to rule. Suetonius claims that Tiberius, ever mistrustful but still shrewd in his mid 70's, saw through Caligula's apparent self-possession to an underlying "erratic and unreliable" temperament, not one to be trusted in government. Suetonius claims that Caligula was by this time already cruel and vicious, and that Tiberius deliberately indulged the young man's taste for theatre, dance and singing, in the hope that this would help soften his otherwise savage nature; "he used to say now and then that to allow Gaius to live would prove the ruin of himself and of all men, and that he was rearing a viper for the Roman people and a Phaethon for the world."[25] Winterling points out that this judgment draws on later, not particularly accurate accounts of Caligula's rule, and credits Tiberius with a knowledge of human nature which in reality was not only foreign to him, but famously unsound. At Capri, Caligula learned to dissimulate. He probably owed his life to that and, as all the ancient sources agree, to Macro. [26][lower-alpha 3] Many believed that given a little more time, Tiberius would have eliminated Caligula as a possible successor but died before this could be done. Caligula, who was virtually unknown to most, inexperienced in government and the day-to-day exercise of political power, was made emperor.[27][28]
Early reign
Tiberius died on 16 March AD 37, a day before the Liberalia festival. Suetonius and Tacitus repeat rumours that Caligula, possibly assisted by Macro, smothered Tiberius with a pillow.[29][20][30] Philo, who wrote during Tiberius' reign, and Josephus, who served Nero a generation later, describe Tiberius' death as natural.[31][32] On the same day, Caligula was hailed by members of the Praetorian guard at Misenum. His leadership of the domus Caesaris ("Caesar's household") as its sole heir and pater familias was ratified by the senate, who acclaimed him imperator two days later. When he arrived in Rome, on 28 March, the Senate conferred on him the "right and power to decide on all affairs".[33][34] Tiberius' will, naming two heirs, was annulled with the standard justification that he had been insane, incapable of good judgment.[29][35] Caligula continued to benefit from Macro's advice and savoir faire concerning the behaviour and manners appropriate to a princeps at banquets, games, law courts, debates and receptions of foreign dignitaries. Caligula took up a first consulship some months after succession. He refused the title pater patriae ("father of the fatherland") on the grounds of his youth, until the year 37.[36]
To legalise Caligula's succession, the Senate was compelled to constitutionally describe and define his role, but the rites and sacrifices to the living genius of the emperor already acknowledged his constitutionally unlimited powers over his "friends" and opponents alike. Each princeps was, in reality, a monarch who played the challenging role of primus inter pares ("first among equals") not through the exercise of policy but through self-restraint, decorum, persuasion and above all, tact; personal qualities in increasingly short supply to Caligula during his brief reign,[37] Caligula's father, Germanicus, had been a superb diplomat, and a skilled orator. Caligula showed the beginnings of a considerable talent for oratory and diplomacy but once he became emperor, he tended to speak his mind, something Barrett describes as being of little value in politics[38][39][40]
Philo describes Caligula as the first emperor admired by "all the world, from the rising to the setting sun."[41] Suetonius writes that Caligula was loved by many, for being the beloved son of the popular Germanicus[42] and for not being Tiberius.[43] Three months of public rejoicing ushered in the new reign.[44] Philo describes the first seven months of Caligula's reign as a "Golden Age" of happiness and prosperity.[45]
Although Tiberius' will had been set aside, Caligula honoured many of its terms. Tiberius had provided each praetorian guardsman with a generous gratitude payment of 500 sesterces. Caligula doubled this, and took credit for its payment as an act of personal generosity;[35][46] he also paid bonuses to the city troops and the army outside Italy.[35][lower-alpha 4] Every citizen in Rome was given 150 sesterces, and heads of households twice that amount. Building projects on the Palatine hill and elsewhere were also announced, which would have been the largest of these expenditures.[46]
Caligula made a public show of burning Tiberius' secret papers, which outlined many of the senate's various acts of villainy, betrayal and treason against itself and the previous emperor. Caligula claimed - falsely, as it later turned out - that he had read none of these documents before burning them. He used coinage issues to advertise his restoration of the rule of law and reduced a backlog of court cases in Rome by adding more jurors and suspending the requirement that sentences be confirmed by imperial office.[47] Stressing his descent from Augustus, he went in person to retrieve the remains of his mother and brothers for interment in the Mausoleum of Augustus.[48][49] He granted his sisters and other family members, including Claudius – who had not been recognised as a member of the imperial household during Tiberius' reign – political and priestly honours. He began work on a temple to Livia, widow of Augustus; she held the honorific title of Augusta while still living, and was eventually made a diva (goddess) of the Roman state under Claudius. The temple had been vowed in her lifetime, but not constructed.[48] Claudius was made Caligula's consular colleague in the new emperor's first consulship.
Those whom Tiberius alone had supported lost out; most were purged, though not immediately. Philo reports that in late 37, Caligula suffered a serious illness, and hovered between life and death for some time. He was still a very popular emperor, and Rome's public places were filled by citizens who implored the gods for his recovery, some even offering themselves and their lives in return. When Caligula's health seemed restored, he embarked on what seems to have been a purge of suspected opponents. Gemellus, having been happily adopted into the Imperial dynasty as Caligula's son, and given the adult toga virilis, was charged with having taken an antidote, "implicitly accusing Caligula of wanting to poison him"; he was forced to kill himself. Tiberius' political associate Silanus, senior senator, ex-consul, once Caligula's father-in-law, criticised by the historian Tacitus for his servile attitude, was executed as a supporter of Gemellus; in early 38, Caligula forced suicide on his Praetorian Prefect, Macro, without whose help and protection he would not have survived, let alone gained the throne as sole ruler.[50][51] These purges suggest to Weidemann that "the new emperor had learnt a great deal from Tiberius" and "that attempts to divide his reign into a 'good' beginning followed by unremitting atrocities... are misplaced".[48] This division into good and bad phases has variously been attributed to the death of Antonia in summer 37, Caligula's illness in autumn that year, or the death of Caligula's beloved sister Drusilla on 10 June AD 38.[52]
During his illness in AD 37, after Gemellus' death, Caligula named his brother-in-law, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus as heir, marrying him to his sister Drusilla. Ancient sources allege that he and Lepidus were homosexual lovers. After Drusilla's death in June AD 38, she was deified in September the same year.[53]
Public profile
Caligula shared many of the popular passions and enthusiasms of the lower classes and young aristocrats: public spectacles, particularly gladiator contests, chariot and horse racing, the theatre and gambling. He trained with professional gladiators and staged exceptionally lavish gladiator games, being granted exemption by the senate from the sumptuary laws that limited the number of gladiators to be kept in Rome. He largely ignored Macro's advice concerning imperial etiquette. Unlike his imperial predecessors, he was openly and vocally partisan in his uninhibited support or disapproval of particular charioteers, racing teams, gladiators and actors, shouting encouragement or scorn, sometimes singing along with paid performers or declaiming the actors' lines, and generally behaving as "one of the crowd". In chariot races, he supported the Greens, and raced as a member of the Green faction. Most of Rome's upper class would have thought this an unacceptable indignity for any of the elite, let alone their emperor. [54][55]
In these public appearances, Caligula seems to have shown little respect for distinctions of rank, status or privilege, least of all to the senate, whose members Tiberius had once described as "men ready to be slaves". Among those Caligula recalled from exile were actors and other public performers who had somehow caused Tiberius offence.[46][56] On the whole, Caligula seems to have been most comfortable in the undemanding company of infames, disreputable public performers, and the lower nobility (equestrians) rather than with the senators and nobles, whom he clearly and openly despised and humiliated for their insincere simulations of loyalty.[40]
Roman sources claim that Caligula forced equestrians and senators to fight in the arena as gladiators;[57][58][59] Condemnation to the gladiator arena as a combatant was a standard punishment, doubling as public entertainment, for non-citizens found guilty of certain offences; Laws of AD 19 by Augustus and Tiberius banned voluntary elite participation in any public spectacles. The ban, which was never particularly effective, was broadly ignored in Caligula's reign. To reverse declining membership of the equestrian order, Caligula recruited new, wealthy members empire-wide, and scrupulously vetted the order's membership lists for signs of dishonesty or scandal. He seems to have ignored trivial misdemeanours, and would have anticipated the creation of "new men" (novi homines) in the senate house, who owed him a debt of gratitude for their advancement.[60] During Caligula's illness two citizens, one of whom was an equestrian, offered to fight as gladiators if only the gods would spare the emperor's life. When Caligula recovered, he seems to have called in the debt, in what Winterling (2011) describes as insincere offers taken at face value: "cynical, but not without wit of a kind".[61]
Public reform and finance
Caligula was quite capable of recognising decisions as flawed, including his own, or reversing them when faced with implacable opposition.[62] He restored the right of the popular assembly (comitia) to elect magistrates on behalf of the common citizenry, a right that had been taken over by the Senate under Tiberius and Augustus. The aediles who managed public games and festivals, and maintained the fabric of roads and shrines would now have incentive to spend their own money on lavish spectacles, to win the popular vote.[46] When the Senate outright refused to accept this, Caligula restored control of elections to them. Dio writes that restoring control of elections to common citizens "though delighting the rabble, grieved the sensible, who stopped to reflect, that if the offices should fall once more into the hands of the many... many disasters would result".[63] In 38, Caligula lifted censorship, and published accounts of public funds and expenditure. Suetonius congratulated this as the first such act by any emperor.[64][lower-alpha 5] Caligula abandoned his plan to convert the Temple of Jerusalem to a temple of the Imperial cult, with a statue of himself as Zeus, when told that the plan would arouse extreme protests, and injure the local economy.[lower-alpha 6][65] He helped those who lost property in fires, abolished certain taxes, lavished gifts of money on his favourites, especially charioteers; and gave out prizes to the public at gymnastic events. Personal generosity and magnanimity, coupled with discretion and responsibility, were expected of the ruling elite, and the emperor in particular.[66][63]
Dio remarks the beginnings of a financial crisis in 39, and connects it to the cost of Caligula's bridge-building project at Baiae.[50] Suetonius has presumably the same financial crisis starting in 38; he does not mention the bridge but lists a broad range of Caligula's extravagances, said to have exhausted the state treasury.[67] Suetonius claims that Caligula squandered 2.7 billion sesterces in his first year.[67] and addressed the consequent treasury deficit by confiscating the estates of wealthy individuals, after false accusations, fines or outright seizure, even the death penalty. The particular circumstances of each case are not known, and the victims are unnamed.[68] Suetonius ignores or overlooks Caligula's inheritance of various debts and liabilities from the somewhat miserly Tiberius. They included the deceased empress Livia's bequest, which was vast, and was dispersed among public, private and religious beneficiaries. Barrett (2015) asserts that this "massive cash injection would have given the Roman economy a tremendous boost".[69]
To Wilkinson, Caligula's uninterrupted use of precious metals in coin issues does not suggest a bankrupt treasury, though there must have been a blurring of boundaries between Caligula's personal wealth, and his income as head of state. [70] Caligula's immediate successor, Claudius, abolished taxes, embarked on various costly building projects and donated 15,000 sesterces to each Praetorian Guard in 41[71][30] as his own reign began, which suggests that Caligula had left him a solvent treasury.[72][73]
In the long term, the occasional windfall aside, Caligula's spending exceeded his income. Fund-raising through taxation became a major preoccupation. Caligula introduced an unprecedented range of taxes, and made their collection a duty of the notoriously forceful Praetorian Guard. Dio and Suetonius describe these taxes as "shameful": some were remarkably petty, and proved deeply unpopular. Caligula taxed "taverns, artisans, slaves and the hiring of slaves", edibles sold in the city, litigation anywhere in the Empire, weddings or marriages, the wages of porters "or perhaps couriers", and most infamously, a tax on prostitutes (active, retired or married) or their pimps, liable for "a sum equivalent to a single transaction". Individual liabilities for all these were fairly small, but Josephus claims that towards the end of Caligula's reign, taxes were doubled, and even then, the revenue was nowhere near enough.[74][75][20] Much larger sums were yielded through wills or in conflicts. Property or money left to Tiberius but not collected on his death would have passed to Caligula, as the emperor's heir. Roman inheritance law recognised a legator's obligation to provide for his family; Caligula seems to have considered his fatherly duties to the state entitled him to a share of every will from pious subjects. The army was not exempt; centurions who left nothing or too little to the emperor could be judged guilty of ingratitude, and have their wills set aside. Centurions who had acquired property by plunder were forced to turn over their spoils to the state.[76][77]
Coinage
Caligula did not change the structure of the monetary system established by Augustus and continued by Tiberius, but the contents of his coinage differed from theirs.[78] The location of the imperial mint for the coins of precious metals (gold and silver) is a matter of debate among ancient numismatists. It seems that Caligula initially produced his precious coins from Lugdunum (now Lyon, France), like his predecessors, then moved the mint to Rome in 37–38, although it is possible that this move occurred later, under Nero.[79] His base metal coinage was struck in Rome.[80]
Unlike Tiberius, whose coins remained almost unchanged throughout his reign, Caligula used a variety of types, mostly featuring Divus Augustus, as well as his parents Germanicus and Agrippina, his dead brothers Nero and Drusus, and his three sisters Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla. The reason for the extensive emphasis on his relatives was to highlight Caligula's double claim to the Principate, from both the Julian and Claudian sides of the dynasty, and to call for the unity of the family.[81] The sestertius with his three sisters was discontinued after 39, due to Caligula's suspicion regarding their loyalty. He also made a sestertius celebrating the Praetorian cohorts as a mean to give them the bequest of Tiberius at the beginning of his reign. Caligula minted a quadrans, a small bronze coin, to mark the abolition of the ducentesima, a 0.5% tax on sales.[82] The output of the precious metal mints was small, and the sestertius were mostly made in limited quantities, which make their coins now very rare. This rarity cannot be attributed to Caligula's damnatio memoriae reported by Dio, as removing his coins from circulation would have been impossible; besides, Mark Antony's coins continued to circulate for two centuries after his death.[83] Caligula's common coins are base metal types with Vesta, Germanicus, and Agrippina the Elder, and the most common is an as with his grandfather Agrippa.[82] Finally, Caligula kept open the mint at Caesarea in Cappadocia, which had been created by Tiberius, in order to pay military expenses in the province with silver drachmae.[84]
Numismatists Harold Mattingly and Edward Sydenham consider that the artistic style of Caligula's coins is below those of Tiberius and Claudius; they especially criticize the portraits, which are too hard and lack details.[84]
Construction
In the city of Rome, Caligula completed the temple of Augustus and the theatre of Pompey, began an amphitheatre beside the Saepta and enlarged the imperial palace.[85][86] Later, he began the construction of aqueducts Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, which Pliny the Elder considered to be engineering marvels.[85][87][88] Caligula then built a large racetrack known as the circus of Gaius and Nero and had an Egyptian obelisk (now known as the "Vatican obelisk") transported by sea and erected in the middle of Rome.[89] Construction of the aqueduct Porta Maggiore started under his rule.
At Syracuse, he repaired the city walls and temples.[85] He had new roads built and pushed to keep roads in good condition throughout the empire: to this end, Caligula investigated the financial affairs of current and past highway commissioners. Those guilty of negligence, embezzlement or misuse of funds were forced to repay what they had dishonestly used, or fulfil their commissions at their own expense.[76][90][67] Caligula had planned to rebuild the palace of Polycrates at Samos, to finish the temple of Didymaean Apollo at Ephesus and to found a city high up in the Alps. He also intended to dig a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece and sent a chief centurion to survey the work.[85]
Among Caligula's various public works, Josephus mentions only the large-scale harbour extension at Rhegium and Sicily as being of benefit.[91] It was probably intended to manage increased grain imports from Egypt. It was too far south to supply the city of Rome, so it might have been meant to supply Southern Italy. It was not finished.[92]
Ships at Nemi
Caligula had two very large ships constructed at Lake Nemi. One was a floating palace, with plumbing and marble floors, and the other, slightly smaller, was a floating temple to Diana.[94][95]