Jan 24 2009
Caligula
Caligula, (12 - 41) was the third Roman emperor. He got his nickname, which means “little boots”, when he was a boy. His father, Germanicus, was Rome’s most beloved general and little Caligula became the mascot of his legions, because he used to accompany his father in his campaigns, dressed in full, tiny, military armour.
In 37, Caligula succeeded Tiberius as emperor, not without power struggles and much blood shed. He was hailed by the senate and people of Rome as “our baby” and “our star.” Little did they know how he would turn out. During the first two years of his reign, Caligula seems to have been a beneign and comparatively wise monarch. But in 38 he fell seriously ill. The exact nature of his illness is not known, only that he made a full recovery after a near-death experience.
This experience seems to have changed his personality. Although he still promoted some reforms like taxes, necessary construction and restoring the practice of democratic elections, he was certainly borderline insane. He is described as willful and cruel and his random killings of each and everyone he considered an enemy or threat, without decent trials or on trumped up charges, got out of hand. So did his sexual exploits and excesses.
He went to the extreme of considering himself a God and ordered worhsip of his person. The peak of his insanity was reached when he, allegedly, made his horse a consul and priest. Economic crisis and a devastating famine which he did not much to relieve, brought his popularity to an all times low. Finally, his Praetorian Guard conspired to assessinate him and, like Julius Caesar, he was stabbed to death by thirty thrusts of a dagger.
His murder however was cause for another wave of bloodshed in the already blood drenched history of ancient Rome.
