Caligula: A Biography (24 page)

In the writings of the Jewish authors Philo and Josephus, the allegation of
mania
is directly connected to Caligula’s demand that he be venerated as divine. Here, too, the word is used in a derogatory sense to reflect what Jews regarded as blasphemy on the emperor’s part and the threats to the Jewish people that had arisen from this. As we have seen, the emperor himself shows no signs of psychopathology in the descriptions of either author; on the contrary, Philo recognizes his particular psychological skill in seeing through the motives of his interlocutors, while Josephus credits him with superior rhetorical abilities.

Pliny the Elder, who refers to Caligula’s
insania
, uses the word in the context of the emperor’s construction projects in Rome and goes on to note in the same sentence that his “insanity” was surpassed by Marcus Scaurus, Sulla’s stepson, whose houses were even more luxurious and extravagant. Tacitus refers to the “troubled brain” (
turbata mens
) of the emperor but goes on to say that “it did not affect his power of speech” (Tac.
Ann
. 13.3.2). Tacitus is also intent on pronouncing a moral verdict against the emperor, as appears in the other passages where he mentions Caligula. He repeatedly uses such terms as “capriciousness,” “malice,” “dissimulation,” “cunning,” and “irascibility.” It is thus not surprising that Caligula is by no means the only emperor who was called “insane.” The same description was applied to Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero.

Who came up with the idea that Caligula was truly mentally ill? Among the extant works by ancient authors it is Suetonius who raises the claim first. The emperor, he writes, was in poor health both physically and mentally. He suffered from epilepsy as a child and later from sudden attacks of fainting as well. Sudden fits of anxiety, severe insomnia, and confused images in dreams plagued him. Suetonius reports further that Caligula was aware of his own mental illness and reflected on possibilities for “clearing his brain” (
de purgando cerebro
). Thus it was almost a century before the term of abuse was reified and the Roman aristocracy that had suffered under Caligula received this dubious restitution of its honor. And the diagnostician was not a senator but a former imperial secretary from the equestrian order, who pursued antiquarian studies and studded his biographies of the emperors with anecdotes. He explains Caligula’s condition by adding the comment: “It is thought that his wife Caesonia gave him a drug intended for a love potion, which however had the effect of driving him mad” (Suet.
Cal
. 50.2).

It remains an open question how much Suetonius added to the invention of the mad emperor and how much he borrowed from earlier documents (containing expressions of fresh hatred that historians like Tacitus did not consider worth passing on). What we do know is that his biography of Caligula decisively influenced the way the emperor was perceived from then on. Suetonius composed it at a time when, after more than a century of bloody conflicts between emperors and aristocracy, peace and a spirit of accommodation defined their relations. Rulers from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius (
A.D
. 96–180) displayed aristocratic modesty, and the senatorial aristocracy seems to have learned to live with imperial rule, which had taken on a form they could
endure. In these circumstances the memory of an emperor who had tried to establish an undisguised monarchy, who had humiliated aristocrats and given them a taste of what imperial power really meant, must have been very annoying. It was much more pleasant to declare that if an emperor strove to create a monarchy he was a mentally diseased tyrant, who rightly and necessarily came to a dreadful end. Suetonius’s contemporaries in the second century saw precisely this intention in his biography of Caligula; this is demonstrated by the fate of a Roman in the time of the emperor Commodus, which bears a certain resemblance to the experience of Ludwig Quidde nearly two thousand years later. When the son of Marcus Aurelius came to the throne at the age of nineteen and was confronted right at the start of his reign with a conspiracy among the leaders of the senatorial aristocracy, the existing accommodation came to an abrupt end. Force and undisguised autarchy once again shaped the age. Commodus, it is reported, had someone thrown to wild beasts to be devoured because the man had read Suetonius’s
Life of Gaius Caligula
.

Commodus was murdered, too, and the message of Suetonius’s biography of Caligula lent his portrait plausibility in the following centuries. In an abbreviated late-fourth-century history of the emperors the section on Caligula describes his cruelty, incest, and declaration of his own divinity, and then continues: “Perhaps it would have been more fitting not to preserve this for posterity. It is useful to know all the actions of the emperors, however, so that the bad ones among them may avoid similar deeds, if only out of fear for their reputation in future generations” (
Epitome de Caesaribus
3.6). The writer of this passage was unaware that the kind of monarchy envisioned by Caligula had more than a little similarity to the imperial rule of his own day: From the reigns of
Diocletian (284–305) and Constantine (324–37), emperors appeared in jewel-studded robes and were venerated in a complicated ceremony requiring aristocrats to prostrate themselves and kiss the hem of the imperial purple robe. And the emperors had also deserted Rome, leaving behind the senatorial society there and establishing a new center of rule in Constantinople.

That was a long way in the future, however, along a path that led from the peace of the second century to the turmoil of the third. But how did matters proceed in Rome in the year 41? How did Claudius conduct himself, who—similarly as had Caligula—suddenly became Roman emperor after years spent in subjection and danger? His first actions corresponded quite closely to those of his hated nephew four years earlier, and he dealt with his deceased predecessor in very much the same way that Caligula had dealt with Tiberius. Once again the aim was to make a break with the past. While he was still in the Praetorian Guard’s barracks Claudius promised the senators that he would share power with them. He declared that trials for
maiestas
would not be permitted in the future and summoned the people whom Caligula had banned back to Rome. Most of the measures Caligula had introduced in the previous year were rescinded;
proskynēsis
before the emperor and sacrifices to him were prohibited. Members of the old noble families were allowed to wear their special honorific insignia, but once again the successor was able to prevent a
damnatio memoriae
, the elimination of all reminders of his predecessor from the public sphere. Only Caligula’s portraits were removed from the city, and later the Senate was allowed to decide to melt down coins on which the murdered emperor was depicted. Amnesty was declared for everything that had been said or done in the hours between the end of the old reign and the establishment
of the new one. The aristocratic circle around the emperor continued to consist largely of the same men as under Caligula: In the following years Marcus Vinicius, Valerius Asiaticus, and Passienus Crispus received the honor of a second consulate, while Lucius Vitellius achieved even a third one.

The reader will not be surprised that all that on this occasion also availed nothing. Within less than a year the first conspiracy against Claudius was mounted, and it resembled the great conspiracy of mid-39. This time the central figures were Annius Vinicianus in Rome and the governor of Dalmatia, Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus. Once more members of the senatorial aristocracy participated in large numbers. The uprising failed because the troops refused to take up arms in a civil war. The new emperor, who was fifty at the time of his ascent to the throne, had learned a thing or two, however. Every visitor had to undergo a body search before being admitted into his presence. When the emperor paid ailing, bed-ridden senators the honor of a visit, the rooms of the house were thoroughly inspected first, and every blanket and pillow was carefully examined. The importance of freedmen as trusted figures in the emperor’s entourage continued to grow. A second attempt was made to conquer Britain, this time with success. But none of that helped either. Unlike in Caligula’s time, a number of years later a conspiracy within the family succeeded, with Agrippina again at the center of it. Claudius, having recalled her from banishment and later brought her to the palace as his wife, died after Agrippina served him a dish of poisoned mushrooms so that her son Nero could become emperor.

And what was the reaction of the aristocracy to Claudius’s demise? Seneca, who had been accustomed to expressing his gratitude for the emperor’s “divine hand,” wrote a biting satire on
him almost before the body was cold, and expressed what everyone was thinking. If Caligula, who had dared aspire to founding a monarchy in plain view in Rome, was condemned posthumously as a “madman,” then Claudius, who had tried to spare the aristocracy, was known after his death as a “fool.”

“Mad emperors are an embarrassment to serious historians,” as the ancient historian Catherine Edwards once aptly observed (
Classical Review
41 [1991]: 407). On the other hand they hold a special fascination for a broader public with an interest in history, as can clearly be seen from the success of popular biographies, historical novels, or spectacular films. The present biography of Caligula takes this as its point of departure and has two aims. The brief life of this emperor is narrated in a form that preserves the tension and drama of events as they unfolded and that is meant to be accessible to general readers. At the same time an attempt has been made to solve the historical problem this emperor presents with a new interpretation.

The narrative approach chosen has required the exclusion of two elements: Competing hypotheses of modern scholars, to which this book owes a great deal, are discussed only in a few exceptions, and there is no systematic presentation of my own theory of politics, society, and patron-client relationships in the early Roman Empire, on which the interpretation is based. Instead the endnotes
list citations from ancient sources important for my own line of argument, and central scholarly works are collected in the bibliography. Both are intended to enable the public (both with and without previous knowledge of the field) to look up references and pursue further reading.

I had the first opportunities to discuss my hypotheses on Caligula with students in two seminars at the universities of Munich and Bielefeld, and then in the context of talks delivered at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen and at the universities of Basel, Bielefeld, Freiburg im Breisgau, Greifswald, and Münster. I have profited from comments and suggestions. Tanja Schaufuß, Katharina Stüdemann, Fabian Goldbeck, Bert Hildebrand, Jan Meister, and Dirk Schnurbusch were of great help to me in preparing the manuscript.

The very positive reactions to the book from both critics and the public, and the translations into Italian, Spanish, and Dutch have confirmed my belief that serious historical scholarship with a theoretical foundation certainly goes well together with a dramatic narration of events. I am very pleased that the University of California Press is now publishing an English edition that has been revised and slightly expanded.

Aloys Winterling
Berlin, March 2011

Caligula as a monster:
Suetonius,
Gaius Caligula
, 22.1;
extravagance:
ibid., 37;
sex life:
ibid., 24.36, 41.1;
cruelty:
ibid., 27;
the consuls:
ibid., 26.3;
veneration as a god:
ibid., 22.2–4;
his horse:
ibid., 55.3;
Alexandria:
ibid., 49.2.
Caligula’s insanity:
Seneca,
On Anger
(
De Ira
), 1.20.9, 3.19.3, 3.21.5; Philo,
The Embassy to Gaius
, 76, 93; Pliny,
Natural History
, 36.113; Josephus,
Jewish Antiquities
, 18.277, 19.1, 19.193; Tacitus,
Annals
, 13.3.2; Suetonius,
Gaius Caligula
, 50.2, 51.1; Dio,
Roman History
, 59.26.5;
modern scholarship
:
Quidde, “Caligula,” 67; Ferrill,
Caligula
, 165; Yavetz, “Caligula,” 105.
Tacitus on Agrippina:
Annals
, 14.2; cf. Josephus,
Jewish Antiquities
, 19.204.
Suetonius on the conspiracy of
A.D
. 39:
Claudius
, 9, and
Vespasian
, 2.3; Celsus,
De Medicina
, 3.18–22; Siegel,
Galen on Psychology
, 163; Flashar,
Melancholie
, 130–31.
Insanity in the law: on homicide:
Justinian,
Digest
, 1.18.13.1, 1.18.14, 29.5.3.11, 48.8.12.
Violations of the
lex maiestatis:
Justinian,
Digest
, 48.4.7.3;
Codex Justinianus
, 9.7.1.
Libel:
Justinian,
Digest
, 9.2.5.2, 47.10.3.1.
Mad rulers of later times:
Middlefort,
Mad Princes
.

Dates of Caligula’s life and reign:
Kienast,
Kaisertabelle
, 85–86.
Contemporaries’ opinion of Augustus:
Tacitus,
Annals
, 1.9–10.
Introduction of the monarchy through the restoration of the Republic:
Meier, “C. Caesar Divi filius.”

Mommsen,
Staatsrecht
2.1143.
The Julio-Claudian dynasty:
Cf. Kienast,
Kaisertabelle
, 61–100; Meise,
Julisch-claudische Dynastie
.

Popularity of Germanicus:
Suetonius,
Gaius Caligula
, 3–6.
The nickname and situation in the legionaries’ camp:
Seneca,
On the Firmness of the Wise Man
(
De Constantia Sapientis
), 18.4; Tacitus,
Annals
, 1.41–44, 1.69.4; Suetonius,
Gaius Caligula
, 9; Dio,
Roman History
, 57.5.6–7; cf. the
Life of Commodus
(10.2) in the
Historia Augusta
.
The journeys to Greece and the East:
Tacitus,
Annals
, 2.53–61, 2.69–72; Suetonius,
Gaius Caligula
, 10.1, and
Tiberius
, 52.2–3.
The city of Assos:
Smallwood,
Documents
, no. 33, p. 29, ll. 15–17.
Germanicus’s funeral procession:
Tacitus,
Annals
, 2.75.1, 3.1–5.