Thus, having abhorred the ancient inhabitants of Your holy land, who performed hateful deeds of sorcery and impious sacrifices, and ruthless murderers of children, and at sacrificial feasts, devouring the insides of human flesh and blood in secret meetings, and parents who killed helpless souls, - You wanted to destroy them by the hands of their fathers ours, so that the earth, most precious to you all, would receive a worthy population of the children of God ...
(The Book of Solomon 12:1-7)
Real name - Gaius Caesar
Personality - cruel
Temperament - choleric
Religion - pagan-pantheist
Attitude to power - greedy
Attitude towards subjects - contemptuous
Attitude towards love is cynical
Attitude towards flattery - enthusiastic
Attitude towards material wealth - acquisitive
Attitude to own reputation - indifferent
Gaius Caesar Caligula, Roman emperor (12-41)
Germanicus, the father of Gaius Caesar, enjoyed great respect among the people. The people loved him. He loved so much that when Germanicus arrived somewhere or left somewhere, whole crowds gathered around him, stretching for many miles. The ancient Roman historian Suetonius wrote about him: “As you know, Germanicus was endowed with all bodily and spiritual virtues like no other: rare beauty and courage, remarkable abilities for science and eloquence in both languages, unparalleled kindness, ardent desire and an amazing ability to ingratiate himself with the people and earn his love ... He more than once defeated the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. He did not stop speaking in court even after the triumph. Even Greek comedies remained among the monuments of his learning. Even on trips, he behaved like a simple citizen, he entered free and allied cities without lictors.
The same Suetonius gave Gaius Caesar a completely different description: “He was tall, his complexion was very pale, his body was heavy, his neck and legs were very thin, his eyes and temples were sunken, his forehead was wide and gloomy, the hair on his head was sparse, with a bald patch on the crown of his head. , and on the body - thick. Therefore, it was considered a capital crime to look at him from above when he passed by, or to utter the word "goat" inadvertently.
His face, already by nature evil and repulsive, he tried to make it even more ferocious, in front of the mirror inducing a frightening and frightening expression on him. He did not differ in health either bodily or mental. As a child, he suffered from epilepsy; in his youth, although he was hardy, but at times, from sudden weakness, he could hardly walk, or stand, or hold on, or come to his senses.
Adopted by the emperor Tiberius, his paternal uncle, Germanicus worked hard for the glory of the empire until he died at the age of thirty-four. He died suddenly, unexpectedly, while on business in Antioch. It was suspected that he was poisoned by order of Tiberius, who saw a dangerous competitor in the favorite of the people. The version with poisoning was confirmed by blue spots that appeared all over the body of Germanicus, and foam on his lips.
Germanicus was married to Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Agrippa and Julia. They had six children, two of whom died in infancy. Three girls survived: Agrippina the Younger, Drusilla and Livilla, and three boys: Nero, Drusus and Gaius Caesar. Nero and Drusus were declared enemies of the state by the Roman Senate on charges of Tiberius and put to death.
Gaius Caesar was born in 12 AD. Conflicting information has been preserved about the place of his birth.
“Poems that went around shortly after he came to power indicate that om was born in winter camps: He was born in the camp, grew up under his father’s arms: Don’t you know that the highest power has been summed up for him?” Suetonius wrote.
Whether Gaius Caesar was born in a military camp or not is a moot point. But it is reliably known that he grew up among the soldiers, dressed him as an ordinary soldier. There he received his nickname Caligula, which means "boot" - from harsh soldiers, devoid of joys. family life, a little boy, shod in a reduced copy of real soldier's boots, evoked tenderness.
This upbringing gave Gaius Caesar the love of the entire Roman army. According to contemporaries, by his mere appearance he could calm the excited crowd of soldiers who had gone out of obedience.
Caligula grew up as a cunning and cautious child. The death of his father and two brothers taught him to keep his thoughts to himself and trust no one. Without a doubt, this modest-looking young man was an excellent actor. Emperor Tiberius brought him closer to him and appointed him his heir when Caligula was in his nineteenth year. Many of the emperor's associates, by cunning or force, tried to arouse any expression of discontent in the young Caligula, but failed. Caligula behaved as if he did not know or completely forgot about the fate of his father and brothers.
All humiliations and insults (Tiberius, who was distinguished by a very bad temper, was often unfair to him), the future emperor endured, skillfully pretending to be humble and meek, “... hiding huge claims under the guise of modesty, he was so in control of himself that neither the condemnation of his mother, nor the death of his brothers did not wrest a single exclamation from him; how Tiberius began the day, he had the same look, almost the same speeches. Hence the winged word of the orator Passien, which later became widely known: there has never been a better slave or a worse master, ”wrote the ancient Roman historian Tacitus about Caligula.
Even then Caligula could not curb only two qualities of his nature - his cruelty and his depravity.
“With greedy curiosity, he was present at the torture and execution of the tortured, at night in false hair and long dress wandered through taverns and brothels, danced and sang on stage with great pleasure. Tiberius willingly allowed this, hoping by this to tame his fierce temper. The shrewd old man saw right through him and more than once predicted that Gaius lives to ruin both himself and everyone, and that in him he feeds a viper for the Roman people and Phaethon [Phaeton, the son of the Sun, according to a well-known myth, burned the whole earth, unable to cope with the solar chariot. - A. Sh.] for the entire earthly circle,” wrote Suetonius.
Even during the life of Tiberius, Caligula married. His chosen one was a young beauty named Junia Claudilla, the daughter of one of the most noble Romans, Mark Silanus. Their marriage was short-lived - Junia died in childbirth. Caligula, who did not interrupt his vicious activities with his marriage, did not grieve about her at all.
He was occupied with one single goal - to become the heir to the aging Tiberius, and in the name of this goal, the unprincipled and power-hungry Caligula was ready to make any sacrifice. So, for example, he entered into a relationship with Ennia Nevia, the wife of the noble nobleman Macron, who commanded the Praetorians, and even promised that he would marry her, becoming emperor, in which he took an oath and a receipt. However, Tacitus claimed that it was the cunning and far-sighted Macron who ordered his wife to seduce Caligula in order to have influence over him.
The commander of the Praetorians (or, in other words, the Praetorian Guard) was a very influential figure in ancient Rome. Since the time of Augustus, the main support of the emperors' power has been and remained the army, and above all its best part - the Praetorian Guard, which was the object of close attention and tireless care of all emperors. Praetorians were regularly paid substantial salaries, and at the end of their service they were given a large "severance" allowance from the treasury. The entire Roman army was professional. Entering its ranks, a Roman citizen took an oath of allegiance to the emperor. Personally to the emperor, not to the senate and not to the people of Rome. The army service lasted about thirty years. At first, only Roman citizens had the right to serve in the Praetorian Guard, but even during the life of Augustus, free residents of the provinces also received this right.
Information about the death of Tiberius is somewhat contradictory. According to Tacitus, one day Tiberius stopped breathing, and everyone thought he was dead. However, when Caligula was already accepting congratulations as the new emperor, he was suddenly informed that Tiberius woke up and even asked to bring him food.
The congratulators, frightened by the revenge of the “resurrected” Caesar, immediately fled, and Caligula became very depressed, not expecting anything good for himself. The situation was saved by Macron, who retained both composure and decisiveness. He ordered his people to strangle Tiberius, throwing a pile of clothes over him, and the seventy-seven-year-old emperor died for real.
Suetonius claims that Caligula poisoned Tiberius, but he could not give up his spirit. Then Caligula ordered the servant to cover the head of the emperor with a pillow, and he, for fidelity, squeezed the throat of Tiberius with his strong hands.
Caligula ordered the servant holding the pillow to be crucified on the cross immediately after the murder - as an unnecessary witness.
“So he achieved power in fulfillment of the best hopes of the Roman people, or, rather, of the entire human race,” wrote Suetonius. -
He was the most desirable ruler for most of the provinces and troops, where many remembered him as a baby, and for the entire Roman crowd, who loved Germanicus and pitied his almost ruined family. Therefore, when he set out from Mizenum, despite the fact that he was in mourning and accompanied the body of Tiberius, the people along the way met him with dense jubilant crowds, with altars, with victims, with lit torches, admonishing him with good wishes, calling and " light, and "darling", and "chrysalis", and "baby".
And when he entered Rome, he was immediately entrusted with supreme and complete power by the unanimous verdict of the senate and the crowd that broke into the curia, contrary to the will of Tiberius, who appointed his minor grandson as co-heir to him.
According to contemporaries, the joy of the people was so great that in three months more than one hundred and sixty thousand animals were sacrificed.
The love of the Roman citizens was joined by the affection of strangers. Thus, the Parthian king Artaban, who throughout the entire reign of Tiberius openly expressed hatred and contempt for him, on his own initiative asked the new emperor for friendship and even, crossing the Euphrates, paid homage to the Roman eagles, badges of the legions and images of the emperors of Rome.
It should be noted that the prudent Caligula himself did everything possible to make the people imbued with even greater love for him. The murdered Tiberius was solemnly buried, and Caligula himself, bursting into bitter tears, honored the memory of his predecessor with a heartfelt speech.
Wanting to emphasize his filial love, he, despite the stormy weather, sailed to the islands to collect the ashes of his mother and brothers in urns, which he solemnly buried in the mausoleum. In memory of them, Caligula established annual funeral rites, and in honor of his mother, in addition, annual circus games, during which the image of Agrippina the Elder was taken around Rome on a special chariot. He did not forget about his father either, in memory of him he renamed the month of September into Germanicus.
After the dead, it was the turn of the living. In a Senate resolution, Caligula appointed truly great honors to his grandmother Antonia. He took his uncle (and successor) Claudius, who at that time was a Roman horseman (the aristocratic class, the second after the senatorial class), adopted his brother Tiberius on the day he came of age and gave him the honorary title of “head of youth”, and in honor of the sisters ordered to add to any oath taken by his subjects: "And let me not love myself and my children more than Gaius and his sisters."
Caligula granted amnesty to all criminals and defendants, returned some previously banned works to the libraries, allowed officials to freely rule the court without asking for anything. He even tried to return the election of officials to the people by restoring the people's assemblies, but the Senate opposed this, and Caligula did not insist on his own. In his populism, he even went so far as to free Italy from a half-percent sales tax and compensate the losses of citizens affected by fires. Twice Caligula organized nationwide distributions of money, during which each free Roman got three hundred sesterces. Often there were distribution of gifts and treats.
The people rejoiced more than ever, and the senate dedicated a golden shield to the young emperor, which was supposed to be brought to the Capitol every year on a fixed day with hymns and doxology.
Caligula was a great lover of gladiator fights and fisticuffs, during which he entertained his cruelty. He often arranged theatrical performances and circus competitions. All this contributed to the growth of his popularity, since the people of Rome adored the spectacle.
“In addition, he invented a new and hitherto unheard of spectacle,” wrote Suetonius. - He threw a bridge across the bay between the Baiae and the Puteolan Pier, almost three thousand six hundred paces long. To do this, he collected cargo ships from everywhere, lined them up at anchor in two rows, poured an earthen rampart on them and leveled them according to the model of the Appian Way. On this bridge he rode back and forth for two days in a row: on the first day - on a dismantled horse, in an oak wreath, with a small shield, with a sword and in a golden cloak; the next day - in the clothes of a driver, on a chariot drawn by a pair of the best horses, and in front of him rode the boy Darius from the Parthian hostages, followed by a detachment of Praetorians and a retinue in wagons.
There was no sense in this spectacle for the audience, but the Romans liked it for its novelty. Caligula himself was inspired to take this step by the old prediction of the astrologer Thrasillus Tiberius, preoccupied with the search for an heir, that Gaius Caesar would rather ride horses through the Bay of Bay than be emperor.
Caligula did not forget about creation either - he completed a number of buildings that were not completed by Tiberius, began to build a water supply system, restored the temple of the gods in Syracuse that had collapsed from decay, and laid several new buildings.
He got off to a good start, and there was no end in sight to the praise.
One fine day, Caligula experienced what is commonly called "dizziness from success", Caligula ordered to give himself divine honors, dedicated a special temple to his deity, appointed priests and established sacrifices in his honor. Suetonius writes that "the victims were peacocks, flamingos, black grouse, guinea fowl, pheasants - each day has its own breed."
The emperor decided to take an unheard of step - he ordered to bring images of the gods from Greece, including Zeus himself, to remove their heads and replace them with their own.
Considering that he had done enough to strengthen his power, Caligula decided that it was enough for him to pretend and restrain himself. The change was striking - from a kind ruler, beloved by the people, he turned into a bloodthirsty libertine. More precisely, the bloodthirsty libertine threw away the mask of a good ruler and revealed his true face to the people of Rome.
Caligula subjected his grandmother Antonia, who repeatedly tried to reason with her grandson and for that, asked him to talk in private, many humiliations, thereby (and according to some, poison) bringing her to the grave, and after death did not give her any honors. They said that, having received the old woman in the presence of Macron, Caligula threatened her: “Do not forget that I can do anything and with anyone!”
Caligula executed his brother Tiberius, accusing him of secretly taking the antidote, as if fearing that the emperor would order him to be poisoned. In fact, Tiberius was taking medicine for a constant cough that tormented him.
Caligula forced the father of his late wife to commit suicide. The imaginary fault of the unfortunate man was that he had not once sailed with his son-in-law across the turbulent sea for the ashes of his mother and sisters of Caligula, allegedly hoping to take possession of Rome himself in the event of a shipwreck. The real reason for avoiding participation in the voyage was Mark Silan's seasickness.
With all his sisters, Caligula was in an incestuous love affair. It was rumored that Drusilla, his most beloved sister, was deprived of virginity by Caligula while still a teenager, and Antonia's grandmother, with whom they grew up together, once caught them during sexual intercourse.
Drusilla married Lucius Cassius Longinus, a consular senator, but Caligula, becoming emperor, brazenly violated the laws, taking her away from her husband and openly cohabiting with her.
Caligula was strongly attached to Drusilla, no doubt as vicious and depraved as he is. However, he, without hesitation, gave it to the amusement of the chiefs of the Praetorian cohorts, wanting to win them over even more. The nymphomaniac Drusilla was able to endure many days of violence, but she could not endure the monstrous humiliation and soon faded away from grief.
When she died, Caligula established the strictest mourning, during which not only all kinds of entertainment and laughter for any reason were punishable by death, but even bathing and family meals together. Caligula himself from now on swore only by the name of the deity Drusilla.
Caligula loved his other sisters not so passionately and strongly. He repeatedly gave them to the amusement of his favorites, and subsequently sent them into exile on charges of debauchery (just think!) And complicity in a conspiracy against him.
In the words of Suetonius, “it is difficult to say about his marriages what was more obscene in them: conclusion, dissolution or stay in marriage.”
The noble Roman Livia Orestilla, who was marrying Gaius Piso, Caligula personally came to congratulate her on her marriage and, succumbing to a fit of passion, immediately ordered her to be taken away from her husband. A few days later, Livia got bored with him, and he let her go home, but two years later he suddenly sent her into exile because she had the imprudence to get back together with her husband.
Another noble lady, Lollia Pavlina, the wife of a military leader, he summoned from the province, having heard about her beauty. The rumors were justified, so Caligula, by his edict (decree), divorced Lollia from her husband and took him as his wife in order to soon let go, forbidding her from now on to allow anyone to come to her.
“Caesonia, who was not distinguished by either beauty or youth, and who had already given birth to three daughters from another husband, he loved most and longest of all for her voluptuousness and extravagance,” Suetonius wrote, “often he led her to the troops next to him, on horseback, with with a light shield, in a cloak and helmet, and even showed her naked to friends. He honored her with the name of his wife not earlier than she gave birth to him, and on the same day he declared himself her husband and father of her child. This child, Julius Drusilla, he carried through the temples of all the goddesses and, finally, placed it in the bosom of Minerva, instructing the deity to raise her and feed her. He considered her fierce disposition to be the best proof that this was the daughter of his flesh: even then, in a rage, she reached the point that she scratched the faces and eyes of the children who played with her with her nails. Truly, a better proof of blood relationship with a tyrant was not required!
Caligula could put his friends to death for the smallest offense, and without any guilt at all. As they say, there would be a desire, but there is always a reason.
Caligula dealt even with Macron himself and his wife Ennia, who brought him to power. Caligula, contrary to his promise, never married Ennia Nevia, she remained his mistress. When Ennia got tired of him, Caligula, accompanied by the executioner, showed up at Macron's house, entered his bedroom and forced the spouses to make love in front of witnesses. Having seized the right moment, the executioner, at the sign of Caligula, hacked Macron with his sword, and Ennia Caligula strangled himself. The executioner himself was killed by the Praetorians who came running to the noise, thinking that he dared to attack their adored emperor.
Yes - the army and the people continued to love Caligula, despite all his antics, and thanks to this love, the power of the bloodthirsty emperor seemed eternal and indestructible.
Caligula used to take one of the other wives to his chambers during a feast, and having enjoyed it in full, return it to her husband, accompanying his act with a detailed story about how exactly they made love, and at the same time noting both the shortcomings and virtues of a woman .
The subjects of the emperor dutifully endured his antics, fearing to show the slightest discontent, so as not to be executed.
“He showed just as little respect and meekness to the senators,” Suetonius testified, “some of those who held the highest positions, dressed in togas, he forced to run for several miles behind his chariot, and at dinner stand at his bed at the head or in legs, girded with a cloth [Girded servants in ancient Rome walked. - A. Sh.]. Others he secretly executed, but continued to invite them as if they were alive, and only a few days later he falsely announced that they had committed suicide. Consuls who forgot to issue an edict on his birthday, he deprived of office, and for three days the state remained without supreme power. He ordered his quaestor, accused of a conspiracy, to be scourged, tearing off his clothes and throwing them at the feet of the soldiers, so that they would have something to rely on when striking.
With the same arrogance and cruelty he treated the rest of the estates. Once, disturbed in the middle of the night by the noise of the crowd, which was in a hurry to take their places in the circus, he dispersed them all with sticks: in confusion, more than twenty Roman horsemen, the same number of married women and an uncountable number of other people were crushed.
As soon as the price of cattle, which, among other things, were fattened for wild animals for spectacles, was raised, Caligula ordered the use of animal criminals for this purpose instead of animal criminals, and he did not hesitate to personally bypass prisons and choose future victims.
Branding innocent subjects with red-hot iron, slaughtering them with chains and scourges, burning them at the stake, throwing them to wild animals or, for example, sawing them in half with a saw, Caligula forced the relatives of the unfortunate to be present at these monstrous executions. None of those on whom the anger or hostility of the emperor fell could count on an easy death. A simple murder of Caligula was not enough, he certainly wanted to enjoy the torment of the doomed, without which the executions lost all meaning for him.
Caligula always demanded that executions be carried out slowly, with small, frequent blows; at the same time, he sentenced, referring to the executioner: “Beat so that he feels that he is dying!”
He lived and ruled according to the principle read in one of the tragedies: “Let them hate, if only they were afraid!” Caligula owns the famous expression: “Oh, if the Roman people had only one neck!” These words he uttered during a chariot race in which he himself took part. Caligula's anger was caused by the fact that the audience dared to applaud one of his competitors.
“There is reason to think that because of the clouding of the mind, the most opposite vices coexisted in him - exorbitant self-confidence and at the same time desperate fear,” Suetonius suggested. -
Indeed, he, who so despised the gods themselves, at the slightest thunder and lightning closed his eyes and wrapped his head, and if the storm was stronger, he jumped out of bed and hid under the bed. In Sicily, during his trip, he cruelly mocked all the local shrines, but suddenly fled from Messana in the middle of the night, frightened by the smoke and roar of the Etna crater.
Was Caligula mentally sane? Definitely - no. It is impossible to establish an exact diagnosis over the years, but there is no doubt that he was either a schizophrenic or a psychopath, and in any case, the course of the disease was aggravated by the unlimited power that Caligula possessed.
“The best laudable feature of his character, he considered, in his own words, equanimity, that is, shamelessness,” wrote Suetonius.
Caligula, without embarrassment, regretted aloud that his reign was not marked by any national disasters and risks being inglorious because of public well-being. He envied the divine Augustus, whose reign was remembered for the terrible defeat of the military leader Quintillius Varus, when the Germans completely destroyed as many as three legions, along with the commander, legates and all auxiliary troops. He envied Caligula and Tiberius, in whose reign the amphitheater in Fidenae, packed with people, collapsed. He envied - and passionately dreamed of a great military battle, of a severe famine, of a plague epidemic, of terrible fires or devastating earthquakes.
Caligula could have caused a disaster himself. For example, during the consecration of a bridge in one of the provinces, he gathered a great crowd of people for a celebration and suddenly ordered them to be thrown off the coast into the sea. He himself sailed on a ship among the drowning, enjoying their horror, and with a hook pushed away those who tried to escape by grabbing the stern.
Any sacrilege was within his power. So, once during a sacrifice in the temple, Caligula dressed himself as an assistant carver, and when a sacrificial animal was brought to the altar, he suddenly swung and calmly killed the priest-carver himself with one blow of the hammer.
There was even more envy and malice in Caligula than cruelty. He ordered the destruction of all the statues of famous men of the past, and also forbade the erection of statues or sculptural portraits of living people without his approval. Of course, only the images of the emperor himself and no one else received approval.
Caligula could order to shave the back of the head of a handsome young man in order to disfigure him, or he could simply order to kill the impudent one who dared to outshine the emperor himself with the beauty. Suetonius wrote: “There was a certain Aesius Proculus, the son of a senior centurion, for his huge growth and handsome appearance, nicknamed Colossus-Eros [that is, huge as a colossus, and beautiful as Eros, the messenger of love. - A. Sh.]\ during the spectacles, he suddenly ordered him to be driven away, taken to the arena, pitted against a lightly armed gladiator, then with a heavily armed one, and when he emerged victorious both times, he was tied up, dressed in rags, led through the streets for the amusement of the women, and, finally , cut. Truly there was no person so rootless and so wretched, whom he would not try to deprive.
Caligula did not shy away from sodomy, which in ancient Rome, in contrast to Ancient Greece, was condemned and punished very severely - up to the death penalty.
A certain Valerius Catullus, a young man from a noble Roman family, did not hesitate to complain to his friends that his lower back hurt from tireless amorous pastimes with the voluptuous emperor. Caligula also had many other male lovers.
He was so loving that he did not make any difference between men and women, and, quenching his passion, he certainly tried to hurt the victim. Rough sex was ubiquitous in ancient Rome, where it was believed that victory in the love arena was inseparable from violence, but Caligula left all his contemporaries far behind.
Growing up among the soldiers and, it would seem, not accustomed to luxury, Caligula, becoming emperor, surpassed the most desperate spenders from among his predecessors with his exorbitant waste. Let us listen to Suetonius, who left us very detailed records of the lives of the twelve Roman Caesars, beginning with the divine Julius: “He (Caligula. - A. Sh.) invented unheard-of ablutions, outlandish dishes and feasts - he bathed in fragrant oils, hot and cold, drank precious pearls dissolved in vinegar, distributed bread and snacks on pure gold to his companions. “You need to live either a modest person or a Caesar!” he said. He even threw a considerable amount of money at the people from the roof of the Julian Basilica for several days in a row. He built Liburnian galleys with ten rows of oars, with a pearl stern, with multi-colored sails, with huge baths, porticos, banqueting chambers, even with vineyards and orchards of every kind: feasting in them in broad daylight, he sailed along the coast to music and singing Campaigns. Constructing villas and country houses, he forgot about every common sense trying only to build what seemed impossible to build. And because of this, dams rose in the deep and stormy sea, passages were cut through the flint cliffs, valleys rose in embankments to the mountains, and the mountains, dug up, were leveled with the ground - and all this with incredible speed, because for delay they paid with life.
Tiberius left two billion seven hundred million sesterces in the treasury - a gigantic amount for those times. Caligula managed to get her down in less than a year.
Left without money, the young emperor began to extract them with his characteristic shamelessness.
He forced people whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers bought Roman citizenship for themselves and their descendants to pay again, extending the concept of "descendants" only to the sons of the acquirer. He aspired to become joint heir to almost every inheritance in Rome. He did not hesitate to impose exorbitant requisitions on his subjects. He arranged a wide variety of auctions, personally appointing and inflating prices for them. Of course, all the proceeds from the auction went to the imperial treasury. Noble people who wanted to dine with the emperor had to fork out well, and in general, subjects were used to paying Caligula for everything, literally for every sneeze or for every breath. The emperor did not disdain even banal usury, lending money at fabulous interest rates and mercilessly collecting what was due (and often more than that) from debtors.
Overwhelmed by the mania of money-grubbing and not at all ashamed, moreover, of his subjects, frightened to shiver, Caligula arranged a luxurious and huge brothel (in ancient Roman - lupanar), where, under his compulsion, respectable married matrons, as well as young men and girls from noble families, offered themselves to everyone for money who went straight to Caligula.
As soon as Caligula had a daughter, he immediately began to demand from his subjects gifts for her upbringing and dowry.
His passion for gold reached the point that Caligula ordered the servants to scatter gold coins on the floor so that they completely covered it, and began to walk on gold with bare feet or even roll on it with his whole body. It was not enough for him the benefits that were purchased for money - he sought to enjoy directly from contact with gold coins.
With all the cruelty and bloodthirstiness, Caligula was not a warrior, and even more so a commander. For all the time of his reign, he only once attended to the war, and even then by pure chance. Once the emperor was reminded that he should replenish the detachment of his German bodyguards, and he suddenly decided to go to war against Germany.
Caligula has long taught the Romans that all his desires, even the most extravagant ones, should be fulfilled immediately and exactly. Soon the army was assembled and went on a campaign, led by the emperor himself.
Caligula tried to play the role of a wise and strict commander, but his idea failed, which, however, did not prevent the emperor from returning to Rome in triumph.
“And he wrote to his treasury guards so that they would prepare a triumph such as no one had ever seen, but would spend as little as possible on it: after all, they have at their disposal the property of the entire population,” Suetonius wrote.
Many atrocities could not pass without a trace - according to contemporaries, Caligula was tormented by insomnia. At night, he could not sleep for a long time, and when sleep finally came to him, he was very restless and the emperor slept for no more than three hours in a row. Caligula was disturbed by strange visions, sometimes ghosts appeared to him. Without a doubt, there were among them those who fell victim to the fierce and bloodthirsty emperor. Inspiring fear in his subjects, he wandered in anticipation of the long-awaited dawn through the endless passages of his palace, looking for someone to vent evil on.
The imperial manner of dressing amazed the Romans. Without thinking at all about the impression his outfit makes on others, Caligula could appear in public in clothes unworthy not only of the emperor, but also of an ordinary man. “Often he went out to the people in colored capes embroidered with pearls, with sleeves and wrists, sometimes in silks. (silk clothes at that time were worn only by women. - A. Sh.) and women's bedspreads, shod either in sandals or cothurni [special high-soled boots worn by tragic actors so that the public can see them better. -BUT. Sh.], sometimes in soldier's boots, and even in women's shoes; many times he appeared with a gilded beard, holding in his hand a lightning bolt, or a trident, or a rod - the signs of the gods, or even in the garb of Venus. He wore a triumphal robe constantly even before his campaign, and sometimes put on the armor of Alexander the Great, obtained from his tomb, ”wrote Suetonius.
Caligula was an excellent speaker - eloquent, resourceful, not reaching into his pocket for a well-aimed word. Loving to show off, he was always ready to make a speech to any audience, finding special joy in this lesson if the speech was accusatory. His acting skills were beyond praise - he skillfully mastered his voice, giving it the expressiveness appropriate to the moment, and reinforced it with thoughtful, honed gestures and facial expressions that looked completely natural and sincere. For all that, Caligula, who was more accustomed to speaking to soldiers and the mob than to patricians and educated people in general, despised the elegant style and was never distinguished by the softness of his colorful expressions. Of course, Caligula passionately envied the success of other orators. Poor, poor orators... The highest envy must have cost them dearly!
Caligula's talents were versatile and multifaceted. “A gladiator and a charioteer, a singer and a dancer, he fought with military weapons, acted as a charioteer in circuses built everywhere, and he enjoyed singing and dancing so much that even at national spectacles he could not resist not to sing along to the tragic actor and not echo in front of everyone dancer's movements, approving and correcting them...
He sometimes danced even in the middle of the night: once, after midnight, he summoned three senators of the consular rank to the palace, seated them on the stage, trembling in anticipation of the worst, and then suddenly ran out to them to the sound of flutes and rattles in a woman's veil and tunic to the toes, danced dance and left.
However, for all his dexterity, he could not swim,” says Suetonius.
Without a doubt, such a monster as Caligula could not help but make a great many enemies. Many of those whom he caused grief wanted to take revenge on him, intending to end him in one way or another, but up to a certain point all plots failed, and the conspirators paid with their lives for their intentions.
Finally, the cup of anger overflowed. There were two brave men, two noble Romans, whose names were Cassius Chaerea and Cornelius Sabinus. With great reason, we can assume that almost the entire Senate and almost all the patricians of Rome were behind them, because while Caligula was in power, no one, regardless of the nobility of origin, position in society, wealth and past merits, could not feel in security. In addition, the bloody millstones, untwisted by Caligula, were gaining and gaining momentum, and no one believed that they could stop without outside participation ...
Cassius Hereia and Cornelius Sabin developed a plan to kill Caligula and managed to implement it. In case of failure, the conspirators did not lose anything - their own lives literally hung in the balance, because the emperor already suspected them of malicious intent against his sacred person. Caligula was generally characterized by groundless, or, more precisely, unsubstantiated, unfounded suspicions.
According to the plan, Caligula should have been attacked during the Palatine Games (three-day games established in honor of Emperor Augustus after his death), at exactly noon, when the emperor was supposed to leave the performance.
The main role was voluntarily assumed by Cassius Kherea. He was a well-deserved and respected man of venerable age in Rome, who held the high position of tribune of the Praetorian cohort. All these circumstances did not prevent Caligula from constantly (and very subtly - the emperor did not like to repeat himself, finding it humiliating) to mock Cassius. A favorite area for the highest ridicule was everything related to love affairs. Caligula teased Cassius as a womanizer, not without a second thought assigned him the words “Priapus” or “Venus” as a password, publicly showed obscene gestures to the tribune ... The arsenal was great, and the hatred of the offended Cassius was just as great, in addition to everything he realized that sooner or later, his mental anguish will bore the emperor and the time will come for physical anguish, which will inevitably end in death.
The ancient Romans adored all sorts of divination, predictions and signs. Of course, such a grandiose deed as the death of the tyrant Caligula could not do without signs. It was said that shortly before his murder, the statue of Jupiter, which Caligula ordered to be dismantled and transported from Olympia to Rome, suddenly burst into a thunderous peal of laughter, which frightened all the witnesses almost half to death. They said that in Capua lightning struck the capitol, and in Rome she chose the temple of Apollo as her target, and they interpreted what happened as signs portending to the emperor the danger emanating from his servants.
The astrologer Sulla, in response to Caligula's question about his horoscope, allegedly announced to the emperor that his death was inevitably approaching. The fact is debatable, since Sulla got away with such a statement (he outlived Caligula for many years), which, knowing the cool temper of Caligula, is impossible to believe. There is also a legend saying that the oracles of Fortune of Actia advised Caligula to beware of the intrigues of Cassius, which is why he immediately sent the killers to a certain Cassius Longinus, who was then the proconsul of Asia, not remembering that the hated by him Kherey is also called Cassius.
Caligula, according to his own story, on the night before his death had a dream in which he stood in heaven at the foot of the throne of Jupiter, who kicked him from heaven to earth with a kick. On the very day of the murder, Caligula was allegedly spattered with the blood of a flamingo during a sacrifice, which was clearly interpreted as a bad sign...
About the murder of Caligula, which took place on January 24, 41, two versions have come down to us. According to the first of them, when Caligula was talking with the boys from among the Roman nobility, Cassius Chaerea approached him from the back, suddenly, with an accurate blow of the sword, deeply cut the back of his head and exclaimed: “Do your job!”, Calling his partner Cornelius Sabin to action, too tribune. He did not blunder - with lightning speed he snatched the sword from its scabbard and plunged it into the chest of the tyrant right up to the hilt.
According to another version, it all started with the fact that the centurions from the emperor's guard, initiated into the conspiracy, pushed back the crowd of his companions from Caligula. Then Cassius Chaerea shouted: "Get yours!" - and when Caligula turned to scream, he cut his chin with his sword. The emperor fell to the ground, writhing in pain and shouting: “I am alive! I'm alive!" - after which the rest of the conspirators finished him off with many blows (for Suetonius, about thirty). The German imperial bodyguards ran to the noise, and a bloody scuffle ensued, which, undoubtedly, would have pleased Caligula if he were alive.
After the death of the emperor, his wife Caesonia was hacked to death, the same one “not distinguished by either beauty or youth”, and the daughter of Caligula, Julia Drusilla, was killed by the conspirators, taking her by the legs and smashing her head against the wall.
The conspirators first tried to burn the body of Caligula on a funeral pyre, but it did not burn out entirely and was hastily buried. Subsequently, the remains of Caligula were dug up, burned to the end and buried properly by his sisters - Agrippina the Younger and Livilla, who returned from exile after the death of their brother.
The people of Rome did not immediately believe in the death of Caligula. At first, many suspected that the emperor himself ordered the rumor about his own murder to be spread in order to find out how his subjects really felt about him.
Caligula's successor was Claudius, already mentioned here, about whom Antonia's own mother said that her son, among other people, looked like a real freak, that nature began him and did not finish, but intending to convict someone of lack of intelligence, she said: “He is more stupid than my Claudius ". The people of Rome were unlucky again, although the divine Claudius, in terms of the atrocities they committed, could not be compared with either his predecessor Caligula or his successor Nero.
Gaius Caesar, nicknamed Caligula, lived for twenty-nine years, of which he ruled only three years, ten months and eight days, but managed to leave a monstrous memory of himself as a bloodthirsty and utterly licentious creature, unworthy of the name of man.
In the entire history of mankind, few of the rulers managed to surpass Caligula in atrocities.
Speaking of his unbridled voluptuousness, one cannot use the high word "love" so as not to desecrate him. Caligula never knew any love - he was tormented only by passions, base and vicious passions. His example convinces that the best of people are not always honored with the high honor to rule their brethren. And it is unlikely that any story, any book, any film that tells about Caligula can convey the horror that his unfortunate subjects experienced during the reign of the tyrant.
There is no documentary evidence that Caligula actually made his horse a senator, as the popular story claims, but still some facts about the eccentricities of the Roman emperor in relation to his beloved horse named Incitat are known. He treated his pet better than most of his subjects.
This horse had its own home, and it was not at all some kind of improved stable. Caligula gave the horse his own multi-room house with furniture and slaves, who were ordered to fulfill all the wishes of Incinatus. During lunch, Caligula "invited" his horse to dine with him. The horse was brought to the dining table, where wine was served to the emperor and Incinatus in golden glasses, and the first toast was for good health horses.
The emperor even ordered the soldiers to guard the peace of the animal. One of the historians wrote that after Caligula noticed that the crowd of spectators in the arena was disturbing his horse with their cries, he sent soldiers to silence everyone present at any cost.
The imperial throne was not enough for Caligula. He wanted to be a god and even created his own cult. The emperor of Rome built temples where the people were supposed to worship him. There were life-size statues of Caligula made of pure gold. And that's not all.
Caligula planned to remove the head of the statue of Zeus at Olympia - one of the seven wonders ancient world- and replace it with your image. He even hired his own team of priests to perform extravagant rituals designed by the emperor. To show devotion to Caligula, it was not enough to sacrifice a bull, as before. His worshipers had to sacrifice flamingos and peacocks in honor of the emperor.
The obsession of Caligula, who dreamed of becoming a god, almost brought the country to revolt. At some point, considering that the Jews did not worship him much, Caligula ordered the consul-sufect Publius Petronius, governor of Syria, to install a giant statue of himself beloved in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Jews were ready to raise an uprising, but everything was limited to the execution of Publius Petronius, who refused to install a statue.
Legend has it that Caligula once declared war on the sea god Neptune and ordered his men to attack the English Channel. There are reasons to think that this story is a little exaggerated, but there is no doubt that Caligula sent an army to the English Channel. The version accepted by most historians is that Caligula waged an unsuccessful campaign against the British, and his troops were about to revolt as the emperor cut their pay. Then Caligula brought his entire army, including catapult crews, to the English Channel and told the people that they could fill their helmets with any number of shells instead of a salary.
When Caligula took the throne, he allowed some of the political enemies of Tiberius (the previous emperor) to return to Rome. Caligula even invited one of them to his private conversation and asked how this man spent his time in exile. He answered him that he "constantly prayed to the gods that Tiberius died and Caligula could become emperor." The man tried to flatter Caligula, but instead his words led to the death of several thousand people. After the conversation, Caligula decided that all the people expelled by him were praying against him in the same way. And he gave the order to kill every person he sentenced to exile.
Caligula may have been crazy, but he definitely knew how to party. When he came to power, he ordered the construction of two huge floating "pleasure palaces" in which to hold orgies. These giant barges, located on Lake Nemi, were covered precious stones, and their floors were lined with glass mosaics. The ships were filled with huge statues and golden goblets. Even the sails were made of purple silk, a material so rare at the time that it was used exclusively for the clothing of emperors.
Caligula held crazy orgies on these ships floating on Lake Nemi, and his favorite guests were ... his own sisters. But he didn't stop at incest. Caligula ordered his courtiers to bring their wives. He made women line up in front of him, then examined their bodies and chose the next favorite for the evening. The pleasures of the emperor with this woman should have been watched by her husband, sitting in an armchair next to the bed.
The greatest achievement of Caligula was the construction of a 5-kilometer floating bridge across the Bayi Bay. At that time, such a bridge was completely unheard of - and the emperor built it, as they say, "out of harm." Before Caligula became emperor, an astrologer named Thrasyllus predicted that Caligula "had a better chance of riding a horse across the Gulf of Bailly than of becoming emperor." As a result, Caligula ordered the construction of a temporary pontoon bridge so that everyone could see that the astrologer was mistaken. As you might guess, he triumphantly drove over it on a horse.
During intermissions when performing in arenas ancient rome usually for the entertainment of the crowd, criminals were executed. People were lined up, after which their throats were cut. Caligula liked this idea very much, but one day, when there were no criminals for execution during the intermission, the emperor became bored. He ordered his guards to throw random spectators from the stands into the arena. Then wild animals were released into the arena to tear the people alive.
In his youth, Caligula had a hair problem, to which he was very sensitive. Hair grew everywhere on his body, except for the top of his head, where the future emperor had a bald head. When Caligula became emperor, at first he forbade drawing him with a bald head. Then, on his orders, it became a crime to say "goat" in the presence of the emperor.
And Caligula introduced a rule that subjects can greet him only once a day. A second meeting with the emperor during the day could result in the death penalty.
Caligula once executed a man just because he was handsome. The emperor noticed the impeccably dressed handsome man with a beautiful haircut, and he was visited by such a feeling of envy that Caligula ordered his execution. father of this young man did everything he could to save his son's life. He begged Caligula to spare his son, but this had only the opposite effect.
Immediately after the execution, Caligula invited his father to have dinner and drink with him by the emperor himself. The man was forced to drink a toast to the health of the emperor, dine with him at the same table and accept gifts from Caligula ... and all the while he had to look at the man who had just killed his son. According to Senator Seneca, the father had to sit and smile, knowing that his other sons would die if he showed the slightest hint of grief.
No one will know if Caligula had such a twisted sense of humor, or if he really was mentally ill. There are historical records of Caligula having hallucinations throughout his life. He rarely slept more than three hours at a time because his hallucinations escalated at night. For example, he once stayed up all night complaining that the ocean was talking to him.
The reports of the chroniclers have reached our time that he often spoke with the god Jupiter, and by no means respectfully. He argued heatedly with an imaginary interlocutor whom no one else could see. The philosopher Seneca claimed that he once witnessed Caligula threatening Jupiter. They were watching a ballet when a thunderstorm started. Enraged that the show was interrupted, Caligula began to scream, threatening Jupiter with a thrashing.
Having come to power after the death of his great-uncle Tiberius, the second Roman emperor (it is believed that Tiberius was involved in the death), the twenty-five-year-old Caligula very quickly lost control of himself. In particular, he declared himself a living deity. He liked to stand in the temple between the statues of the gods, to receive honors proper to a god from visitors, and to converse with Capitoline Jupiter. Some considered him crazy, others - a man who could not stand the test of power. But everyone was afraid of Caligula, from whom everything could be expected. Crazy spending on spectacles, feasts, gift giving, senseless but grandiose buildings. The feasts, having completely devastated the treasury, were replaced by no less large-scale tax policy to replenish it. Lèse-majesté trials have resumed, often with the sole aim of confiscating the property of the accused.
“I can do everything in relation to everyone,” Caligula argued and proved this in practice. If Tiberius crossed all the accepted boundaries in his respect for the Senate, then Caligula humiliated him even more boundlessly. According to Suetonius, he even wanted to appoint his favorite horse Incitatus as consul. At the age of 39, Gaius Caesar Caligula issued an edict declaring his hostility to the Senate and refusal to cooperate with it. The Roman nobility perceived this as a usurpation of power and the establishment of a tyranny regime in Rome. And she answered with a whole series of conspiracies. On January 24, 41, Gaius Caligula was killed by horsemen Cassius Chereia and Cornelius Sabinus.
Murder after the show
Murder. (wikipedia.org)
On the morning of January 24, at the Palatine, Caligula attended a performance in which boys from noble families of Asia participated, and was very pleased with them. The emperor went to breakfast. On the way, he ended up in an underground gallery, where the boys were preparing for the next performance. Caligula stopped to praise them. “They tell about the future in two ways,” notes Suetonius. “Some say that when he was talking with the boys, Kherea, approaching him from behind, with a blow of the sword deeply cut the back of his head with a cry: “Do your job!” - and then the tribune Cornelius Sabinus, the second conspirator, pierced his chest from the front. Others say that when the centurions, initiated into the conspiracy, pushed back the crowd of satellites, Sabinus, as always, asked the emperor for the password; he said: "Jupiter"; then Kherea shouted "Get yours" - and when Guy turned around, cut his chin. He fell, screaming in convulsions "I'm alive!" - and then the rest finished him off with thirty blows - they all had one cry. "Beat more!" Some even stabbed him in the groin with a blade. At the first noise, porters with poles came running to the rescue, then the German bodyguards; some of the conspirators were killed, and with them several innocent senators."
“What those times were like can be judged by the fact that people did not immediately believe even the news of the murder of Caligula, suspecting that he himself invented and spread a rumor about the murder in order to find out what the people think about him,” continues Suetonius. “The conspirators were not going to hand over power to anyone, and the Senate rushed to freedom with such unanimity that the consuls convened the first meeting not in the Julian Curia, but in the Capitol, and some called for the destruction of the memory of the Caesars and the destruction of the temples of Julius Caesar and Augustus.”
After the murder
The impression made by his reign on Roman society was so strong that at a meeting of the Senate convened by the consuls, they started talking about the restoration of the republic. But while the Senate was arguing about the political structure of the state, the people had already decided this issue. Surrounding the curia, the crowd chanted the name of the new emperor. It turned out to be Caligula's uncle Claudius.
What was the fate of the tyrannicides? Cassius Hereia wanted to destroy the tyrant in order to restore the republic. The new emperor Claudius could not forgive this. He subsequently forced Cassius to commit suicide. On the contrary, Cornelius Sabinus was pardoned by the new princeps, although he also committed suicide; this speaks in favor of the fact that Sabin joined Kherea more out of friendship than out of conviction.
Caligula is a Roman emperor of the 1st century, whose name is strongly associated with madness and cruelty - though not to the same extent as the name of Nero.
How cruel and insane was the emperor really?
Birth
The full name of the emperor is Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. He was the son of Germanicus, a famous military leader and statesman, and his wife Agrippina the Elder.
Germanicus started grandiose German campaigns, in which he took his son when he was still a child. There, Guy put on small children's boots - soldier's shoes, for which the legionnaires jokingly called him Caligula - under this name he went down in history. Guy himself did not like this nickname.
Emperor
Tiberius before his death announced his heir. More precisely, heirs: he gave equal rights to Caligula and Tiberius Gemellus, the son of Drusus the Younger (and, therefore, his grandson), but stated that it was Caligula who should take the throne after him.
According to Philo, Tiberius knew that Caligula should not be trusted with power, but for a strange reason he went for it. Guy did not understand public administration, but he was very thirsty for power. In order to eliminate a competitor - Gemellus, he even strangled him with his own hands (some authors, however, report that Gemellus was strangled by Macron - the head of the Praetorians, an ally of Caligula).
At first, Caligula created the impression of a worthy ruler. The Romans were grateful to him for a number of positive reforms:
- Tax cuts;
- Payment of imperial debts;
- Payment of remuneration to Praetorians;
- Repeal of lèse-majesté law;
- Political amnesty;
- The construction of aqueducts and the modernization of the harbor in Rhegia, which made it possible to better supply the empire with grain.
The ashes of his mother Agrippina and brother Nero, expelled by Tiberius to distant lands, he ordered to be transported to Rome and solemnly buried in the mausoleum of Augustus. He also paid homage to the deceased Tiberius. However, after a while, something happened.
Various authors report that he suffered some kind of illness - encephalitis, epilepsy or something else, others point to a "shattered" nervous system Caligula since childhood, which has made itself felt only now. After the illness, the behavior of the emperor changed dramatically. Now Rome had to cope with the progressive madness of its ruler.
Madness
Caligula declared the cult of his three sisters - Drusilla, Livilla and Agrippina the Younger, as well as his grandmother Antonia. They began to be depicted on coins, they were endowed with the sacred rights of vestals, solemn oaths were taken with the mention of not only the emperor, but also the sisters with the grandmother.
The emperor also ordered Macron to commit suicide, then the father of his first wife, and then dealt with some of his relatives, including the governor of Mauretania, Ptolemy, just because he once put on a purple cloak, which only emperors were allowed to wear.
The early period of the reign of Caligula passed in countless rejoicings and festivities. The emperor did not skimp on entertainment and gifts to citizens, the empire had never known such a variety of performances, gladiator fights, pantomimes and other spectacles. And Caligula himself had the most fun, indulging in various vices - along with his voluptuous sisters; according to some reports, he even debauched with them, especially with Agrippina.
Endless festivities and vices exhausted Caligula physically and mentally, and completely devastated the treasury. To get money and continue his dissolute lifestyle, Caligula started a grandiose series of executions and persecutions.
The lèse-majesté law, which he had repealed, was returned, and it was now possible to punish anyone according to it. Here the anger of the emperor fell upon the richest Roman citizens - they were ordered to take away their property and expel them from the city, and often simply kill them.
During Caligula's illness, crowds of people stood at his palace and prayed to the gods for the recovery of their beloved emperor, and many of them swore to bring their lives as a gift to the gods for this, to perform at a gladiatorial tournament or to perform some other feat, and now Caligula decided to find these grateful inhabitants and force them to fulfill the promise.
The emperor became cowardly, he thought that he was surrounded on all sides by enemies and conspirators. Therefore, executions only multiplied. But this was not enough: Caligula declared himself a god. He ordered to build temples for himself and make sacrifices, put statues depicting him and change heads on those statues that depicted real gods - now they flaunted the face of Caligula.
He ordered his statue to be placed even in the Jerusalem temple. And with all this, Caligula continued to arrange holidays and celebrations for any, even the most insignificant occasion. The Roman people bitterly endured the imperial madness, but their cup of patience overflowed: the Praetorians Kherei and Sabine stabbed the dictator right in the theater, and then killed his wife Caesonia and little daughter.
March 28, 37 came to power in Rome emperor Caligula, whose name has acquired so many speculations that today it is extremely difficult to get to the bottom of the truth. They say he forced the suicide of all objectionable, staged bisexual orgies, slept with all three of his sisters, and promoted his beloved horse to senators. Which of this is true, and which is the slander of political opponents?
Guy Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, the third of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, was known by the nickname Caligula - "Boot": when he was small, his mother put on him a soldier's suit, including the shoes of legionnaires - "kaligi". According to some historians, Caligula indulged in debauchery from his youth and enthusiastically watched gladiator fights and torture. But not everyone shares this point of view.
The name of Caligula became synonymous with depravity and madness after the release of the scandalous film by Tinto Brass in 1979. In it, the emperor is the embodiment of absolute evil, a sadist, a pervert and a psychopath. This idea of Caligula has developed largely due to the works of Roman historians, who were his political opponents.
The historians Tacitus and Joseph were born too late to know Caligula personally, but they communicated with people from his entourage. The writings of Suetonius and Dion were published 80 and 190 years after his reign. In addition, Suetonius, according to Y. Yazovskikh, often mixed facts with rumors and outright anecdotes. The works of Suetonius and Dio are considered dubious and based on legends.
Suetonius was the first to announce Caligula's incestuous relationship with his sisters. The emperor's contemporaries, Seneca and Philo, have no mention of this, although their writings contain open criticism of the tyrant. However, historians are still inclined to the version of Caligula's sexual relationship with his middle sister Drusilla, with whom he lived as a legal wife.
It is really difficult to call the emperor chaste - he took noble women from their lawful husbands and forced them to intimacy. Those husbands who tried to argue, as well as objectionable dignitaries, received orders to commit suicide. Caligula squandered all the impressive inheritance of Tiberius in a year and introduced an incredible amount of various taxes to replenish the treasury.
However, the first 8 months of Caligula's reign showed himself in a completely different capacity. When he came to power, he immediately paid all the debts of the imperial family, including salaries to officials and legionnaires, reduced taxes, granted amnesty to prisoners, freed exiles, removed all provincial governors who were suspected of embezzlement or bribery, repealed the “Law on insult Majesty, "destroyed the lists of traitors to Tiberius, began the construction of two aqueducts, and conducted several successful military campaigns.
However, 8 months after accession to the throne, Caligula fell ill with something - presumably with encephalitis, as a result of which brain damage occurred. After recovery, the behavior of the emperor changed dramatically. At night he suffered from insomnia and nightmares, and during the day he committed atrocities.
Despite the proven facts of brutal reprisal against opponents and dissolute behavior, many historians are sure that Caligula was not such a monster as he is shown in the film by Tinto Brass. French researcher Daniel Noni is sure that most of the atrocities attributed to Caligula are baseless rumors. He calls fiction the story of the appointment of a horse as a senator and that the emperor declared himself a god. According to the historian, the total number of victims of Caligula for 3 years 10 months in power does not exceed 20, which cannot be compared with the list of victims of Tiberius, Nero or Octavian Augustus.
Caligula was killed as a result of another conspiracy when he was 28 years old. There are still disputes about whether he was a victim of political intrigue and slander, an obsessed sadist, tyrant and rapist, or a person suffering from schizophrenia or psychopathy. In addition, Caligula's promiscuity was not unprecedented in history: