Caligula

Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, known by the childhood nickname Caligula, embodied the union of the Julian and Claudian lines: his father Germanicus was a Claudian adopted into the Julian house by Tiberius, while his mother, Agrippina the Elder, was Augustus's granddaughter. The nickname, meaning "little boot," came from the miniature soldier's footwear he wore as a child in his father's camps on the Rhine.

His youth was precarious. Germanicus died in AD 19, and during the later years of Tiberius's reign his mother and two elder brothers perished amid the political purges associated with the prefect Sejanus. Caligula himself survived, living from 31 on Capri under Tiberius's direct observation. When Tiberius died in March 37, the Senate conferred the imperial powers on the twenty-four-year-old, who enjoyed enormous initial popularity as the son of the widely mourned Germanicus.

The first months of the reign brought tax remissions, recalls of exiles and public games. A serious illness in late 37 is often treated as a turning point, after which relations with the Senate deteriorated sharply, treason trials resumed, and the emperor's spending and self-presentation grew more autocratic. Securely attested acts include the beginning of two aqueducts, an abortive military demonstration on the Channel coast, and demands for honors that strained the conventions of the principate.

The lurid material that dominates his reputation, including allegations of incest, gratuitous cruelty and the plan to make his horse a consul, derives chiefly from Suetonius and Cassius Dio, writing generations later from hostile senatorial tradition; the contemporary account of Tacitus for these years is lost. Modern scholarship treats much of it as anecdote and caricature rather than established fact, while accepting that the reign ended in genuine political breakdown.

In January 41 Caligula was assassinated in a conspiracy led by officers of the Praetorian Guard, together with his wife and infant daughter. The guard then proclaimed his uncle Claudius, a Claudian by blood and brother of Germanicus, ensuring that the intertwined dynasty survived the murder of its third emperor.