Caligula
Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, also called Gaius and Caligula, was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Augustus' granddaughter Agrippina the Elder, members of the first ruling family of the Roman Empire. He was born two years before Tiberius became 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".
Germanicus died in Antioch in AD 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. For the early part of his reign, he is said to have been "good, generous, fair and community-spirited", but increasingly self-indulgent, cruel, sadistic, extravagant, and sexually perverted thereafter, an insane, murderous tyrant who demanded and received worship as a living god, humiliated the Senate, and planned to make his horse a consul. Most modern commentaries instead seek to explain Caligula's position, personality and historical context. Some historians dismiss many of the allegations against him 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 public works to benefit Rome's ordinary citizens, including racetracks, theatres, amphitheatres, and improvements to roads and ports. 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 in 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. 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.
Early life
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. The future emperor Claudius was Caligula's paternal uncle. Caligula had two older brothers, Nero and Drusus, and three younger sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla. At the age of two or three, he accompanied his father, Germanicus, on campaigns in the north of Germania. He wore a miniature soldier's outfit devised by his mother to please the troops, including army boots and armour. The soldiers nicknamed him Caligula. 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.Germanicus was a respected, immensely popular figure among his troops and Roman civilians of every class, and was widely expected to eventually succeed his uncle Tiberius as emperor. For his successful northern campaigns, he was awarded the great honour of a triumph. During the triumphal procession through Rome, Caligula and his siblings shared their father's chariot, and the applause of the populace. A few months later, Germanicus was despatched to tour Rome's allies and provinces with his family. They were received with great honour; at Assos Caligula gave a public speech, aged only 6. Somewhere en route, Germanicus contracted what proved to be a fatal illness. He lingered awhile, and died at Antioch, Syria, in AD 19, aged 33, convinced that he had been poisoned by the provincial governor, Gnaius Calpurnius Piso. Many believed that he had been killed at the behest of Tiberius, as a potential rival.
Germanicus was cremated, and his ashes were taken to Rome, escorted by his wife and children, Praetorian guards, civilian mourners and senators, then placed in the Mausoleum of Augustus. Caligula lived with his mother Agrippina in Rome, in a milieu very different from that of his earlier years. Agrippina made no secret of her imperial ambitions for herself and her sons, and in consequence, her relations with Tiberius rapidly deteriorated. 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. The last years of his principate were dominated by treason trials, whose outcomes were determined by senatorial vote. Agrippina, and Caligula's brother Nero, were tried and banished in the year 29 on charges of treason. The adolescent Caligula was sent to live with his great-grandmother, Livia. After her death two years later, he was sent to live with his grandmother Antonia Minor. In the year 30, Tiberius had Caligula's brothers, Drusus and Nero, declared public enemies by the Senate, and exiled. Caligula and his three sisters remained in Italy as hostages of Tiberius, kept under close watch.
Capri
In 31, Caligula's brother Nero died in exile. Caligula was remanded to the personal care of Tiberius at Villa Jovis on Capri.He 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. Philo, Jewish diplomat and later witness to several events in Caligula's court, writes that Macro protected and supported Caligula, allaying any suspicions Tiberius might harbour concerning his young ward's ambitions. Macro represented Caligula to Tiberius as "friendly, obedient" and devoted to Tiberius' grandson, Tiberius Gemellus, who was seven years younger than himself. Caligula is described during this time as a first-rate orator, well-informed, cultured and intelligent, a 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". Caligula's failure to protest the destruction of his family is taken by Tacitus as evidence that his "monstrous character was masked by a hypocritical modesty". Winterling observes that a forthright protest would "certainly have cost him his life".
In 33, Caligula's mother and his brother Drusus died, while still in exile. In the same year, Tiberius arranged the marriage of Caligula and Junia Claudilla, daughter of one of Tiberius' most influential allies in the Senate, Marcus Junius Silanus. Caligula was given an honorary quaestorship in the cursus honorum, a series of political promotions that could lead to consulship. He would hold this very junior senatorial post until his sudden nomination as emperor. Junia died in childbirth the following year, along with her baby. In 35, Tiberius named Caligula as joint heir with Tiberius' grandson, Gemellus, who was Caligula's junior by seven years and not yet an adult. At the time, Tiberius seemed to be in good health, and likely to survive until Gemellus' majority.
In Philo's account, Tiberius was genuinely fond of Gemellus, but doubted his personal capacity to rule and feared for his safety should Caligula come to power. Suetonius claims that Tiberius, ever mistrustful but still shrewd in his mid-70s, saw through Caligula's apparent self-possession to an underlying "erratic and unreliable" temperament, not one to be trusted in government; and he claims that Caligula took pleasure in cruelty, torture, and sexual vice of every kind. Tiberius is said to have indulged the young man's appetite 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." Winterling points out that this judgment draws on later, not particularly accurate accounts of Caligula's rule; Suetonius 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. Many believed, or claimed to believe, that given a little more time, Tiberius would have eliminated Caligula as a possible successor, but died before this could be done.