Caligula: Power, Cruelty, And The Making of Rome’s Most Infamous Emperor
- Daniel Holland
- 10 hours ago
- 7 min read
When people speak about Caligula, they usually reach first for the language of madness. He is remembered as the emperor who slept with his sisters, who wanted his horse made consul, who declared himself a living god, and who delighted in cruelty for its own sake. These stories are vivid, memorable, and endlessly repeated. They are also the product of a very small number of hostile sources, written by men who despised what Caligula represented and who benefited, directly or indirectly, from his violent removal.
That does not make Caligula innocent, nor does it require us to rehabilitate him. It does, however, demand a more careful examination of how power, fear, humiliation, and memory combined during his brief four year reign. When those elements are taken seriously, a more unsettling picture emerges. Caligula was not simply a deranged tyrant who inexplicably lost his mind. He was a traumatised young autocrat, shaped by extraordinary early experiences, who exercised absolute power with little restraint and even less concern for elite sensibilities. His depravity lay less in sexual scandal than in his deliberate exposure of Rome’s ruling class to fear, ridicule, and impotence.
A childhood lived in public and ended in catastrophe
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was born on 31st August, AD 12, in Antium. From the beginning, his life unfolded in full view of the Roman world. His father Germanicus was Rome’s most celebrated general, adored by soldiers and civilians alike and widely regarded as the natural successor to the emperor Tiberius. Caligula’s earliest memories were formed on military campaigns along the Rhine frontier, where his mother Agrippina the Elder dressed him in a miniature soldier’s uniform, complete with tiny boots. The troops, amused and charmed, nicknamed him Caligula, “little boot”.
This was not merely a family joke. It made the child a living symbol of loyalty to Germanicus and, by extension, to the Julian line descended from Augustus. For a Roman audience, the image was powerful. Caligula was not being groomed in private. He was being displayed.
That visibility ended abruptly in AD 19 when Germanicus died in Syria at the age of 33, convinced he had been poisoned. The suspicion that followed, whether justified or not, poisoned the political atmosphere in Rome. Agrippina openly accused powerful figures of responsibility and pressed the claims of her sons. Tiberius responded with caution, resentment, and eventually repression. Treason trials multiplied. Members of Caligula’s family were exiled, imprisoned, or left to die. By the time Caligula was a teenager, his father was dead, his mother was banished, and his brothers were destroyed by the state.
The boy who had once been paraded before cheering legions learned a new lesson. Survival depended on silence.
Capri and the education of fear
In AD 31, Caligula was sent to live with Tiberius on the island of Capri. Ancient writers would later portray Capri as a place of grotesque sexual excess, but its true significance lay elsewhere. Capri was a court governed by secrecy, surveillance, and sudden violence. Under Tiberius, accusations were currency, informers prospered, and a careless word could be fatal.
Caligula learned to observe, to flatter, and to conceal his emotions. Later writers described him as the perfect hypocrite, masking resentment behind obedience. That judgement may be unfair, but it captures the reality of his position. A protest would have meant death. Submission was the only rational strategy.
This experience shaped his later behaviour profoundly. When Caligula became emperor, he did not dismantle the system he had endured. He reversed it. The fear that had once been private became public. The silence that had protected him was imposed on others.
Accession and the brief moment of hope
Tiberius died on 16th March, AD 37. Caligula was 24 years old. His accession was carefully managed, widely welcomed, and emotionally charged. He was the son of Germanicus, the grandson of Agrippa, the great grandson of Augustus. Rome wanted to believe.
For several months, perhaps longer, Caligula ruled in a way that even hostile sources describe as generous and popular. He staged public games, recalled exiles, honoured his family, and symbolically destroyed the records of treason trials. Money flowed into the city. The mood lifted. Contemporary observers described these early months as a kind of golden age.
This phase matters because it demonstrates that Caligula was capable of restraint, calculation, and public engagement. Whatever followed was not inevitable.
Illness, isolation, and the consolidation of power
In the autumn of AD 37, Caligula fell seriously ill. The nature of the illness is unknown. Ancient writers treat it as a turning point, but their explanations are speculative and moralising. What can be said with confidence is that the political consequences were severe.
During and after his recovery, potential rivals were removed. Tiberius Gemellus, the grandson of Tiberius and joint heir under the former emperor’s will, was eliminated. The Praetorian prefect Macro, who had been instrumental in Caligula’s rise, was forced out and died soon after. Whether these actions were driven by paranoia or prudence, they left Caligula increasingly isolated.
From this point on, his reign becomes more openly confrontational, especially toward the Senate.
Cruelty as performance
Roman elite culture rested on dignity, status, and the fiction of shared governance. Augustus had preserved these appearances while quietly monopolising power. Caligula did not.
Instead, he exposed the emptiness of senatorial authority through humiliation. Senators were mocked, compelled to flatter, or forced into degrading performances of loyalty. Sudden reversals of favour kept them off balance. Fear was no longer hidden in legal proceedings. It was theatrical.
Many of the anecdotes that later writers present as evidence of madness make more sense when read as deliberate insults. The story that Caligula planned to make his horse Incitatus a consul is a prime example. No ancient source states that this happened. It is reported as a threat or intention. Read literally, it is absurd. Read politically, it is devastating. If the consulship had become meaningless, then why not give it to a horse?
The joke was aimed not at the office but at the men who held it.
Sex, scandal, and political weaponry
Ancient accusations about Caligula’s sexual behaviour dominate his reputation, but they require careful handling. Roman writers routinely used sexual slander to signal moral and political failure. Claims of incest, excess, or perversion were shorthand for unfitness to rule.
Caligula’s devotion to his sister Drusilla is undeniable. He granted her extraordinary honours and deified her after her death in AD 38. The leap from devotion to incest, however, rests largely on later gossip. Contemporary critics such as Philo and Seneca do not emphasise it, even when they condemn Caligula elsewhere.
What is better supported is Caligula’s use of sexual insult as a tool of domination. The Praetorian tribune Cassius Chaerea, one of his eventual assassins, was repeatedly humiliated with obscene jokes and watchwords. These insults were public, persistent, and personal. They turned laughter into coercion.
This detail matters because it links Caligula’s behaviour directly to his death. Humiliation creates enemies.
The army and the limits of tolerance
Although Caligula lavished money and honours on the military, his relationship with the army was fragile. He lacked personal battlefield experience and relied heavily on inherited prestige. His appearance on the Rhine frontier in AD 39 to 40 was likely intended to reinforce his legitimacy, not to fight a major war.
The execution of the popular legate Gaetulicus, whether justified or not, sent a clear message. Loyalty was conditional. Popularity could be fatal. For professional soldiers, this was dangerous ground. The army could tolerate eccentricity. It could not tolerate unpredictability at the top.
Money, offence, and elite resentment
Ancient writers accused Caligula of bankrupting the empire. The evidence does not support this. When Claudius succeeded him, the treasury functioned and large projects continued.
The real offence lay in how Caligula spent money and who benefited. He rewarded performers, freedmen, and favourites openly. He blurred the line between personal and public wealth in ways that offended senatorial expectations. Later taxes removed exemptions long enjoyed by elites.
This was not financial chaos. It was social provocation.
Religion and the politics of divinity
Nothing has contributed more to Caligula’s reputation for insanity than claims that he demanded worship as a living god. In reality, imperial cult already existed across the empire, especially in the Greek East. Living rulers were honoured, sometimes extravagantly.
The crisis came when Caligula pushed these honours into contexts where compromise had previously prevailed. The order to install his statue in the Temple at Jerusalem was not a theological delusion but a political demand for submission. For Jews, it was blasphemy. For Rome, it was a test of authority.
Negotiation and delay prevented catastrophe. The statue was never installed. The episode shows not a man detached from reality, but one unwilling to accept limits on imperial honour.
Popularity, memory, and the failure of the Senate
Despite elite hatred, Caligula retained popular support in Rome. His assassination did not spark public celebration. The Senate briefly attempted to restore the Republic but failed. The Praetorian Guard moved swiftly to install Claudius.
History was written by senators. Their memory of Caligula became dominant. The crowd’s voice did not survive.
Assassination and narrative control
On 24th January, AD 41, Caligula was murdered by members of the Praetorian Guard. His wife Caesonia and their young daughter were killed soon after. The act was brutal and extralegal.
To justify regicide, the conspirators and their allies needed a monster. Caligula became that monster in writing. His excesses were magnified, his motives simplified, and his reign reduced to pathology.
Claudius punished some assassins but refused a full condemnation of his predecessor. Statues were altered, inscriptions removed selectively, and the legend was allowed to grow.
Was Caligula mad?
There is no reliable evidence that Caligula was considered legally insane by Roman standards. The truly insane were not held responsible for their actions. Caligula was.
What emerges instead is a traumatised young ruler, shaped by fear and absolute power, who used cruelty, humour, and spectacle to dominate those he despised. Later writers transformed this into madness because it served political and moral ends.
Caligula’s real failure was not insanity. It was misunderstanding the performance of power. Augustus concealed authority beneath restraint. Tiberius ruled through distance. Caligula displayed power openly and forced others to acknowledge it.
Rome could tolerate cruelty. It could tolerate excess. It could not tolerate the loss of dignified illusion.
For that, Caligula had to be remembered not as dangerous, but as mad.
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