"Will Durant's Analysis of Gaius Caesar (Caligula) AD 37–41"

gaius the populous celebrated the old Emperor's passing with cries of Tiberius to the Tiber and hailed the Senate's ratification of Gaius Caesar Germanicus as his successor born to Agri Pina as she was accompanying Germanicus on his northern campaigns Gaius had been brought up among soldiers had imitated their dress and had been affectionately named Caligula or little boot from the half boot khaleja worn in the army he now announced that he would follow the principles of Augustus in his policy and would cooperate respectfully with the Senate and everything he distributed among the citizens the 90 million sesterces that Livia and Tiberius have bequeathed them and added a gift of three hundred sesterces to each of the two hundred thousand recipients of state corn he restored to the committee of the power to choose the magistrates promised low taxes and rich games recalled the banished victims of Tiberius and brought his mother's ashes piously to Rome he seemed to be in always the opposite of his predecessor prodigal cheerful humane within three months of his accession the people had sacrificed a hundred and sixty thousand victims to the gods in gratitude for so charming and beneficent a prince they had forgotten his lineage his father's mother was the daughter of Antony his mother's mother was the daughter of Augustus in his blood the war between Antony and Octavian was renewed and Antony won Caligula was proud of his skill as a jeweller a gladiator and a charioteer but he was troubled with the falling sickness and at times was hardly able to walk or collect his thoughts he hid under the bed when it thundered and fled in terror from the sight of Aetna's flames he found it hard to sleep and would wander through his enormous Palace at night crying for the dawn he was tall huge hairy except for a bald crown his hollow eyes and temples made him look forbidding to his delight he practiced all kinds of fearsome expressions before a mirror he had received a good schooling was an eloquent orator at a keen width and a sense of humor that knew no scruple and no law infatuated with the theater he subsidized many performers and himself privately acted and danced desiring an audience he summoned the leaders of the Senate as if to some vital conference and then displayed his steps before them the quiet life of responsible labour might have steadied him but the poison of power made him mad sanity like government needs checks and balances no mortal can be omnipotent and sane when Caligula's grandmother antonia gave him some advice he rebuked her with the remark remember that I have the right to do anything to anybody in the midst of a banquet he reminded his guests that he could have them all killed where they reclined and while embracing his wife or mistress he would say pleasantly off comes this beautiful head whenever I give the word soon therefore the young prince who had been so respectful of the Senate began to give it orders and exact an oriental subservience he let senators kiss his feet in homage and Senators thanked him for the honour he admired Egypt and its ways introduced many of these to Rome and longed to be worshipped Pharaoh liked as a god he made the religion of Isis one of the official cults of the Roman state he did not forget that his great-grandfather had planned to unite the Mediterranean region under an oriental monarchy he too thought of making his capital at Alexandria but distrusted the wit of its people sweet o Gnaeus describes him as living in habitual incest with all his sisters it seemed to him an excellent Egyptian custom ill he made his sister Drusilla heir to his throne when she married he made her divorce her husband and treated her as his lawful wife two other desired women he sent letters of divorce in their husbands names and invited them to his embraces there was scarcely one woman of rank whom he did not approach amid these and some homosexual amour as he found time for for marriages attending the wedding of Libya or Estella and Gaius PI so he took the bride to his own house married her and in a few days divorced her hearing that lolli a Paulina was very beautiful he sent for her divorced her from her husband married her divorced her and forbad her to have relations with any man thereafter his fourth wife says onea was pregnant by her husband when he married her she was neither young nor fair but he loved her faithfully in this imperial frolic government was an aside and could usually be left to inferior minds Caligula a blir avise the roster of the business class and promoted its best members to the Senate but his extravagance soon exhausted the full Treasuries left him by Tiberius he took his baths not in water but in perfumes on one banquet he spent ten million sesterces he built great pleasure barges with colonnades banquet halls baths gardens fruit trees and gem sets turns he had his engineers span baiis bay with a bridge resting on so many boats that rome suffered famine for lack of ships to import corn when the bridge was completed a great celebration took place illuminated by floodlights in the modern manner the people drank merrily boats overturned and many were drowned from the roof of the Basilica Julia he would scatter gold and silver coins among the people below and watch with glee their fatal scrambling he was so devoted to the green faction at the races that he gave a charioteer two million sesterces he built a marble stall and an ivory manger for the racehorses in key tattoos invited it to dinner and proposed to make a console to raise funds for his lifelong Saturnalia Caligula restored the custom of presenting gifts to the Emperor he accepted these in person on his palace terrace from all who came to give he encouraged citizens to name him heir in their wills he levied taxes upon everything a sales tax on all food attacks on all legal processes the twelve and a half percent tax on the wages of porters on the earnings of prostitutes sweet onea servers he laid a tax of as much as each received for one embrace and the law provided that those who had ever been prostitutes should remain subject to this tax even after they married he had rich men accused of treason and condemned to death as an aide to the Treasury he personally auctioned off gladiators and slaves and forced aristocrats to attend and bid when one of these slept Caligula interpreted his nods as bids so that the sleeper awaking found himself richer by 13 gladiators and poorer by 9 million sesterces he compelled senators and knights to fight as gladiators in the arena after three years a conspiracy was formed to end this humiliating buffoonery Caligula detected it and revenged himself by a reign of terror enhanced by his maniac joy and inflicting pain the executioner's were instructed to kill his victims by numerous slight wounds so that they may feel that they are dying if we may believe die o Cassius he forced his saintly grandmother antonia to kill herself sweet o Gnaeus recounts that when meat ran short for feeding the beasts kept for gladiatorial games Caligula ordered all bald-headed prisoners to be fed to the animals for the public good that he had men of high rank branded with irons condemned to mines thrown to beasts or shut up in cages and then sawn into these are stories that we have no means of disproving and must record as the tradition but sweet Onias loved gossip the senator Tacitus hated the Emperor's and died Oh Cassius wrote two centuries after the event more credible is the report that Caligula began the war between the principle and philosophy by exiling Karen s secundus and sentencing to other teachers to death the young Seneca was marked for execution but was spared because he was sickly and might be relied upon to die without prodding Claudius uncle of Caligula escaped because he was or pretended to be an insignificant book ridden dolt Caligula's final pleasantry was to announce himself as a God equal to Jupiter himself famous statues of Jove and other deities were decapitated and crowned with heads of the Emperor he enjoyed sitting on a throne in the temple of castor and pollux and receiving divine worship at times he would converse with an image of Jupiter often in terms of reproof and he had a contrivance made by which he could reply to Jove's thunder and lightning peel for peel and stroke for stroke he set up a temple to his Godhead with the core of priests and the supply of select victims and he appointed his favorite horse says one of the priests he pretended that the moon goddess had come down to embrace him and asked Vitellius could he not see her no answered that wise courtier only you gods can see one another the people were not deceived when a Gallic cobbler saw Caligula masquerading as Jupiter and was asked what he thought of the Emperor he said simply a big humbug Caligula heard but did not punish such refreshing courage a29 this God was an old man worn out by excesses probably venereal e diseased with a small and half bald head upon a fat body with complexion hollow eyes and a sinister glance his fate came suddenly and from that praetorian guard who support he had long purchased with gifts a Tribune of the guard Cassius kyria insulted by the obscenities that Caligula gave him as passwords day after day killed him in a secret passage of the palace 41 when the news went out the city hesitated to believe it men feared that this was a trick of the Imperial prankster to find out who would rejoice at his death to clarify the issue the assassins killed Caligula's final wife and dashed out his daughter's brains against a wall on that day says die Oh Caligula learned that he was not a god