03 CALIGULA (28; r.37.03-41.01)
Germanicus’ son, 17Julius Caesar Augustus, was nicknamed ‘Caligula’ (little boots) by Germanicus’ troops from the miniature military dress, including armour and boots, that he wore as a child while on campaign with his father.
Supported by Naevius Cordus Macro (59; fl.31-38), prefect of the praetorians from 31 to 38, Caligula was proclaimed emperor in March. He adopted Tiberius Gemellus and made Claudius-I (64; fl.37-54), his uncle and also the nephew of Tiberius, his colleague in the consulship.
On his accession he rained honours on his mother and father, and gave his sisters 03Agrippina the Younger (44; fl.28-59), 06Julia Drusilla (16-38) and 07Julia Livilla (18-41) unprecedented privileges, rights and honours. Within a few weeks he suffered a serious illness, after which his actions became increasingly irrational though his later promise to elevate his horse Incitatus to the Senate was probably an insult directed at the senators.
He became paranoid and in 37/8 had his adopted son, Gemellus, and his father-in-law, 15Junius Silanus (c.63; fl.15-37), executed for allegedly plotting against him while he was ill. This was followed by the murder of Macro, the man who had made him emperor. In June 38 when Drusilla died, Caligula, torn with grief, deified his sister and named her husband, Aemilius (19) Lepidus (33; fl.37-39), as his successor.
In 39 Caligula turned on the Senate, accusing senators, reintroducing maiestas (treason) trials, ordering mass arrests and relieving provincial legates from their commands. 02Calvisius Sabinus, the governor of Pannonia, chose to take his own life rather than submit to a trial.
Caligula depleted the treasury and in the most extravagant of his many displays engineered a three-mile long causeway of boats, weighed with soil, across the Bay of Naples, stretching from Baiae to the neighbouring port of Puteoli. Clad in a gold cloak he then rode across it as a mock triumph.
In September he went to northern Italy, executed Lepidus, sent his other two sisters, sent Agrippina (3) and 07Julia Livilla into exile, and relieved and executed 57Cornelius Lentulus, general for the army of Upper Germania, evidently in the belief that there had been a plot against him.
His journey northwards was preliminary to a plan to invade Britain. He engaged in some minor incursions across the Rhine before moving a large force to the Channel coast. Although the invasion was aborted, he declared victory and returned to Rome in the spring.
In 40 Ptolemy, the ruler of Mauretania was summoned to Rome by Caligula, who promptly murdered him and annexed his kingdom. Opposition erupted immediately in Mauretania. After years of hard fighting, peace was finally reached during the reign of Caligula’s successor Claudius.
Caligula believed that the worship of himself as universal imperial divinity was a bond of unification for the numerous peoples of the Empire. But for monotheistic Jews such worship was not possible, and when in the winter of 39/40 the Greek population of Jamnia in Judaea erected an altar to the imperial cult, the resident Jews promptly tore it down, resulting in serious communal rioting
After consulting his advisors, Caligula decided to make not only the synagogues, but also the temple of Jerusalem itself, into shrines of the imperial court. Publius Petronius (2), the governor of Syria, was ordered to commission a gilt statue of Caligula as Jupiter and place it in the Jerusalem Temple. Petronius, fearing civil war if the order were carried out, delayed its implementation for nearly a year.
It seems that the one man from whom Caligula would take advice, Herod Agrippa-I of Judaea (54; r.41-44), arrived in Rome and persuaded him to offer to rescind the temple order in exchange for Jewish promises not to interfere with the imperial cult outside of Jerusalem. But the news of Caligula’s death arrived in Syria and Judaea before the offer could be made and there the matter rested.In January 41 Caligula was killed by praetorian officers acting in concert with senators wanting to restore the Republic to as it was prior to Augustus. As Caligula passed through a narrow corridor with his Germanic bodyguard, the centurion 07Cassius Chaerea struck the first, non-lethal blow and other soldiers following up stabbed him thirty more times. A few hours later the tribune Lupus fatally stabbed Caligula’s wife Milonia Caesonia then killed her daughter 08Julia Drusilla (39-41) by smashing her head against a wall.
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