Marble portrait of the Roman Emperor Caligula. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Caligula considered himself the equal of the gods. Thus, it seemed natural to him to make the Temple of Castor and Pollux, on the Forum of Rome, an extension of his own palace, a place in which he was greeted by amazed passers-by in the name of Jupiter. The treacherous great-grandson of Augustus ruled the Roman Empire from AD 37-41. J.-C. In a little less than four years, he managed to make himself hated by a whole people. His tragic end saddened no one, not even the members of his family whom he constantly threatened with poisonous little phrases such as "This charming head will fall as soon as I order it", reported by the Roman historian Suetonius. Still, Caligula should never have made it to the purple. A succession of murders and malevolence within his own family led him to the highest step of power. As a child, Caligula lives in the military camps of Germania with his family. His mother got into the habit of dressing him up as a little soldier, with “caligae »leather on the feet. Caligula was born on August 31, 12 AD. AD in Antium, present-day Anzio, Italy. He is the third son of the great general Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, the favorite granddaughter of Augustus. Despite this fine pedigree, nothing predestined him to take the helm of the Empire. As a result, his mother raised him to make him a good soldier. While his brothers receive a careful education in Rome, Caligula shares the life of his parents in the camps of Germania. His mother gets into the habit of dressing him up as a little soldier, caligae leather on the feet. It is from this military sandal that he gets his nickname "Caligula". Sequestered in Capri After the accession of Tiberius, Germanicus is sent on a mission to the East. Caligula still follows his parents. At the age of 6, he discovered the riches of the ancient kingdom of Cleopatra where his grandfather Marc Antoine lived. But his father died prematurely in Antioch, Syria. Rumor has it that Tiberius, jealous of his successes, ordered his poisoning. The trip back to Rome with her mother turns into a long mourning procession. From then on, Agrippina undertook the impossible to impose her eldest sons as official successors of Tiberius. The intrigues of this virago exasperate the emperor who, under fallacious pretexts, ends up having her imprisoned with her two eldest children before letting them die. Seventeen-year-old Caligula watches helplessly as his family is destroyed by Tiberius. He is entrusted to his grandmother Antonia. It is there that he gets closer to his sister Drusilla and that their incestuous relationship would have started, a desperate and totally inappropriate family retreat of a teenager losing his bearings. The grandmother surprises Caligula in bed with her sister. He is sent to Capri, to the island fortress of Tiberius. For nearly six years, Caligula was almost sequestered in Capri by Tiberius who, for lack of anything better, ended up making him his heir. In public, he perfectly controls his emotions. All the hatred it contains finds an outlet in the bloody gladiator fights he especially loves, the spectacle of death sentences, nighttime brawls in dark streets, and sex. These pastimes are not abnormal for a young Roman aristocrat, but Caligula is excessive:he feeds on the suffering of others. A popularly acclaimed assassin In March 37, Caligula no longer wants to play the comedy of the docile little prince facing a cacochyme Tiberius. He smothers her under a pillow. His advent occurs in the general jubilation. The people adore him, the Senate respects him and the army keeps for the kid in caligae considerable affection. The first months of this new reign are promising. Caligula is fair and measured in his political decisions, and generous towards the people. No one imagines that the seeds of revenge are germinating in him, fertilized by a megalomania and a paranoia that his rise to power has rendered pathological. Caligula grew up with the idea transmitted by his mother that he belongs to the noblest family and the most worthy to rule Rome. In addition, Eastern cultures, such as that of Egypt, which make their kings into beings of divine essence fascinate him. He dreams of being a king in Rome equal to the gods, recognized as naturally superior to anyone. But Rome is not Alexandria. The Romans hate anything resembling royalty and hold above all the fiction of the “diarchy”, which divides power between the Senate and the Emperor. Also, nobody laughs when, receiving a delegation of vassal kings, Caligula thunders this Homeric verse taken from The Iliad "Let's have only one leader, only one king", ready to trade his laurel crown for a royal diadem. In addition to his protrusions and his royalist inclinations, the religious escapades of the young emperor irritated. Really perceiving himself as their equal, Caligula allows himself to appear in public dressed as Jupiter or even Venus, when he is not wearing the cuirass of Alexander the Great which he had had taken from his tomb. For the Romans, such an affront to the gods is tangible proof of his mental disorder. Certainly, but Caligula also tries very clumsily to establish a royalty of divine order and of Egyptian inspiration, which immediately attracts the hostility of the senators. Mad about his horse Incitatus, Caligula had an ivory manger built for him and even considered appointing him consul. Caligula hates those senators who did nothing to save his parents and brothers. Moreover, they form an obstacle to his dreams of absolutism. To humiliate and destroy them, the young emperor is ready for all injustices, all madness. He degrades several aristocratic families. Thus, the descendants of Pompey are prohibited from using the nickname "Great", because no one can be greater than Caesar. Passionate about games and racing, Caligula is crazy about his horse Incitatus. He had a marble stall built for her, an ivory manger, made for her a halter of gold and precious stones, and purple blankets. To show that his horse has more value than the senators, he plans to make him consul, a magistracy supposed to crown the senatorial career. This provocation is perceived as a new act of pure unreason, but it is above all a way of ridiculing the senators, of showing that their participation in government is worth little more than what an animal could do. The senators in the sights But these general vexations are not enough for Caligula. He attacks several senators on a personal basis. He commands some of them to stand beside him while he dines, as if they were mere slaves. Others are removed from their posts for trifles. A quaestor suspected of being involved in a plot is flogged to death before his eyes. Several senators receive at home a sicarius sent by the emperor for no apparent reason. The next day, in the Senate, Caligula pretends to be surprised at their absence. Was he hitting randomly or was he specifically targeting anyone he believed, rightly or wrongly, to have been involved in the murders of those close to him? His thirst for revenge and his will to dominate seem so intertwined that his crimes can be motivated as much by hatred as by gratuitous cruelty. His sadism reaches the height of refinement. He goes so far as to force fathers of families to watch the execution of their own sons before inviting them to dinner and taking all the trouble in the world to entertain them, just as he himself was obliged to be agreeable to the table of Tiberius, in Capri, when the latter had his hands red with the blood of half of his relatives. One very hot day, the emperor had the awning of the amphitheater folded up, which protected the spectators from the sun, and prohibited anyone from leaving the stands. Caligula also plans to attack the legions who nevertheless adore him. During his only trip to Germania, he wants to decimate the old army of Germanicus which had mutinied at the accession of Tiberius. This insult made to the authority of his father in front of his child's eyes continues to haunt him. But the legionnaires refuse to be punished for a fault committed twenty-five years earlier and threaten to draw the sword. Caligula, terrified, reconsiders his decision. He avenges himself in petty little vexations on the men of the Praetorium, those elite soldiers who watch over his personal safety. The young emperor does not spare the people any more than the aristocrats. He can ensure his domination only by making others suffer. On a very hot day, he folds up the velum of the amphitheater and prohibits anyone from leaving the stands. On another occasion, while recovering from an illness, he learns that a man had made a vow to die if the Emperor recovered. Seeing that the man in question does not offer the gods what he has promised, he forces him to walk all over the city crowned with verbena and white strips, like the sacrificial victims, before having him throw top of the Tarpeian rock. Driven mad by the disappearance of his sister Caligula's loved ones hardly get better treatment, especially not those who could possibly snatch the purple from him. Thus, he had his cousin Ptolemy, prince of Mauretania and descendant of Marc Antoine and Cleopatra, assassinated because he was appreciated by the people. No one finds favor in Caligula's eyes except his younger sister Drusilla whom he treats as if she were the Empress. By offering her the honors usually reserved for a wife, Caligula still seeks to import the Egyptian monarchical model to Rome, that of an endogamous dynasty that closes in on itself to jealously guard power. But Drusilla dies prematurely at 22. The indiscriminate cruelty shown by Caligula testifies to disorders that are certainly psychiatric:perversion, megalomania, paranoia. His youth punctuated by drama and mistreatment, and his advent at the head of the Empire increased or induced his psychopathological disorders. Drusilla's disappearance seems to make her symptoms worse. He decrees a national mourning before disappearing for several weeks in Syracuse. Upon his return, he gives free rein to all his unhealthy inclinations including gambling, rape and violence in all its forms. In this deeply deleterious atmosphere, several conspiracies are hatched, involving in particular his brother-in-law and his two sisters. Caligula will eventually be assassinated by his two Praetorian prefects, Cassius Chéréa and Cornelius Sabinus, his own bodyguards. Find out more Caligula, by Pierre Renucci, Perrin, 2011.Lives of the Twelve Caesars, by Suetone, Flammarion, 2008.The Barefoot Caesar, by Cristina Rodriguez, Flammarion, 2002. Timeline 12 apr. AD Caius Julius Caesar Germanicus was born in Antium. Son of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, great-grandson of Augustus, he would become the adopted grandson of Emperor Tiberius.35 AD. AD In his will, Tiberius designates his heirs:his biological grandson Tiberius Gemellus and Caligula, whom he welcomes to Capri after the fall and death of his mother Agrippina and his brothers Nero and Drusus.37 a.d. AD After the death of Tiberius in Capri on March 16, Caligula was acclaimed emperor in the Senate. He immediately invalidated Tiberius' will and had Tiberius Gemellus assassinated.38 AD. AD Caligula is deeply affected by the death of his sister Drusilla. He then married Milonia Cæsonia. The emperor undertakes military campaigns in Germania and tries to invade Great Britain.41 apr. AD The conspiracy hatched by Lepidus and Gaetulicus fails, but Caligula will be assassinated during the Palatine Games by the praetorians Cassius Cherea and Cornelius Sabinus. Caligula's sadism A cloudy passion for games Caligula's passion for gladiatorial combat can be explained by the bloodthirsty penchant of the emperor. He did not just lift the restrictions that since Augustan times had limited the number of fights in each performance. According to some authors, it also introduced new forms of struggle that were both cruel and sophisticated. For example, he forced many citizens to become gladiators and fight alone or in battle formation. He pitted exhausted wild beasts against wounded or elderly fighters, or even fathers with malformations. He himself probably liked to participate in the fights. It is said that he trained one day with a mirmilion armed with a wooden sword, while he himself carried a real weapon. When his adversary fell to the ground, Caligula pierced his chest then began to run on the sand, waving his hand, like the victorious gladiators at the end of the fights. It is also said that his anger prompted him to pour poison into the wound of a mirmilion who had defeated his favorite gladiator and had only come out of the fight slightly injured. V. G.
