Caligula

Gaius Caesar, remembered by his childhood nickname Caligula, was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 CE until he was murdered by officers of his own guard in January 41 CE. Later Roman writers made him the model of the mad, cruel tyrant. Because those accounts were written by hostile senators and courtiers, much of it decades or more than a century after his death, many modern historians treat the most lurid stories as rumour, exaggeration or political mockery rather than established fact.

Gaius was born at Antium, south of Rome, on 31 August 12 CE, son of the popular general Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, a granddaughter of Augustus; Mark Antony was among his great-grandfathers. As a small boy he travelled with his parents on campaign in Germania, dressed in a miniature soldier's uniform, and the troops nicknamed him Caligula, "little boot", after his army sandals. Germanicus died at Antioch in 19 CE, convinced he had been poisoned.

Back in Rome, his mother's open rivalry with the emperor Tiberius ruined the family. Agrippina and Caligula's eldest brother were exiled in 29 CE and died there, as did a second brother. In 31 CE Caligula was summoned to Tiberius's retreat on Capri, where, the sources say, he hid any resentment behind careful deference. Tiberius named him joint heir with his own young grandson, Tiberius Gemellus.

When Tiberius died in March 37 CE, the praetorian prefect Macro ensured that Caligula, then 24, was acclaimed at once, and the senate granted him all of an emperor's powers in one step. He doubled the bonuses left to the guard, recalled exiles, published the public accounts, gave lavish games and burned, or claimed to burn, Tiberius's treason files. Even writers hostile to him describe the first months as a time of great popularity.

Late in 37 CE Caligula fell gravely ill. After his recovery, Gemellus, Macro and the senator Silanus were forced to their deaths, and in 38 CE his beloved sister Drusilla died and was declared a goddess. Ancient writers saw this period as the turning point towards tyranny; some modern scholars doubt that the reign ever divided neatly into good and bad halves. By 39 CE his relations with the senate had broken down amid treason trials, and in Germany he executed the commander Gaetulicus for an alleged plot and accused his sisters Agrippina and Livilla of joining the plot.

Caligula spent heavily on games and building. He began two great aqueducts, the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, and a large racetrack, for which he shipped an Egyptian obelisk to Rome. Suetonius describes a two-mile bridge of boats across the bay at Baiae, which the emperor rode across. New taxes, confiscations and forced bequests followed, though his successor seems to have inherited a solvent treasury. Stories that he planned to make his horse Incitatus a consul may have begun as one of his jokes at the senate's expense.

In 40 CE Caligula annexed the client kingdom of Mauretania in north-west Africa and gathered an army for an invasion of Britain that never sailed. Clashes between Greeks and Jews in Alexandria worsened, and his order to set up his statue in the Temple at Jerusalem was delayed by the governor of Syria and eventually dropped. Ancient sources say he demanded worship as a living god; some modern historians read his behaviour as theatrical provocation rather than delusion.

On 24 January 41 CE the praetorian tribune Cassius Chaerea and fellow officers stabbed Caligula as he spoke with a troupe of young performers beneath the palace during games. His wife Caesonia and young daughter were also killed. While senators debated restoring the republic, the guard proclaimed his uncle Claudius emperor.

He ruled between our 1 BCE and 100 CE maps, which show the Roman Empire of his great-grandfather Augustus and its later extent. The neighbouring Parthian Empire appears on both. See also his great-grandfather Mark Antony and his nephew Nero.