A direct sequel video?
On this channel?
I thought it could never be done!
It’s finally time to tackle the one and only Caligula -- scourge of the Roman empire
and the guy who made a bunch of fun facts to tell kids about the all-powerful emperor
marching his army to the ocean to declare war on Neptune, pick up seashells, and declare
it a victory.
Only that story’s really exaggerated it was probably a routine scouting mission or
something like that, look I couldn’t get away without mentioning it but this isn’t
that kind of video I swear.
There’s plenty of crazy to go around.
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Gaius Julius Caesar is the proper birth name of the maligned emperor.
When he was a toddler he accompanied his father Germanicus on a campaign and all the soldiers
thought he was so cute in his little baby-sized marching boots they called him Caligula, which
is why 2,000 years later we remember one of the most infamous tyrants in history by a
name that translates to Bootsie.
If you’ve watched my last video, you’ll remember that the stability of the empire
was greatly augmented by the Roman tradition of adopting adult family members and that
there was a whole host of promising candidates in line to one day become Princeps.
And then they all died because it took Sejanus all of two minutes to discover the Praetorian
Guard was practically designed to steal power from the emperor.
So after Caligula’s dad dies mysteriously, and then his uncle dies mysteriously, his
grandpa kills his mom and both his brothers for the crime of having an attitude and he
puts Caligula under house arrest in case he gets any ideas.
Frankly I would be shocked if he didn’t have trouble taking responsibility for millions
of lives, but the people of Rome were hopeful.
They got the news Tiberius had died and the first thing they did was pull out their party
hats and margaritas, but of course they were just celebrating the new alive emperor and
definitely not the old dead one.
For Bootsie, it turned out to be less of a heroic triumph and more like a parade through
ten thousand grandmas going “Aw, our baby’s all grown up!
Who’s our little non-tyrannical superstar?”
For a few months he tried to live up to that reputation, he got rid of Tiberius’s treason
papers, brought some people back from exile, put on some public spectacles, really trying
to be the bigger man.
And then he got sick, real sick, like “Okay, what’re the odds he’s been poisoned and
I need to cozy up to his successor” sick.
And when he recovered, it seemed like he really connected with Tiberius for the first time,
because very soon he had a conversation with his advisors along the lines of “Caesar!
Uh - you’re walking again!
Good to see you!
Are you sure you’re feeling better?”
“Better than ever!
Now, who’s my current successor?”
“Your cousin sir, I was just speaking wi-” “Yes, someone grab my cousin, I want to
stab him before it gets dark, father-inlaw too, brother-in-law, I’ve got a list, actually.
Oh, on second thought maybe you shouldn’t see this”
Yeah he killed the Praetorian commander for talking with his cousin back when they thought
he was a goner.
He wasn’t totally done with the whole “good emperor” thing, like he still had a really
solid infrastructure plan, but he had this weird mix of reducing the power of the aristocracy
and making the government more democratic… while also increasing the power of the emperor
and executing civilians without trial.
But y’know, aqueducts, you win some you lose some.
Oh, but the empire was thrown into financial crisis, because in addition to governmental
reforms, public works, and spurious murder, his other plan to avoid being assassinated
was to hand politicians great heaping gobs of money, and tell them “Please don’t
kill me, I’ve been a very good boy this year”.
Oh!
And, on top of that, “I’m not a child anymore, legate.
The city is clearly in need of repair.
We must have new amphitheaters, tend to old bridges…. and I want a really big boat so
that I can put a palace on it and so that then we can go on the water but in our palace!”
Some of his works still survive, by the way, the boats of all things were buried for nearly
two millennia until they were dug up in 1930, and they didn’t survive two decades before
they burned down in World War Two.
But luckily, some guy decided that the central focus of St. Peter’s Square, one of the
most holy sites in christendom, should be an obelisk Caligula imported for his racetrack,
so if you’re ever in the Vatican… make sure you pay your respects to Bootsie.
But financial crisis, the financial crisis, so when it became apparent that Caligula was
running out of money to build mega-yachts and dress up as Alexander the great, he came
up with some very creative methods of raising money.
First of all he tried raising taxes, then he started auctioning the lives of gladiators,
and sometimes y’know he would just kill some rich guy and take all his money.
The Caligula administration had a very similar strategy when it came to diplomacy, he invited
the king of Mauretania to dinner, executed him, and said “Mine now”.
Then he decided to be a god.
Now deification in ancient Rome was a thing, it was a pretty new thing, because up until
Julius Caesar they’d only done it with Romulus, but hey Augustus did it and we don’t make
fun of him for it.
However, there was a distinction between a divus, or divine man, and a deus, or an Olympian.
One is a ceremonial, honorific thing you get after you die if you’re the kind of person
whose influence will be felt around the world for thousands of years, and one is Caligula
signing off as Jupiter on public documents and carving off the heads of sacred statues
around town to replace them with his face.
The Senate is not happy.
The last straw comes when Caligula decides he wants to move to Egypt to be worshipped
as the new sun god.
Now, they could deal with the whole godhood thing.
They could deal with rumors of the emperor throwing the audience into the colosseum pit
to fight wild animals, They could deal with rumors of Caligula running his horse for the
most powerful post in the Senate and inviting dignitaries to dinner on behalf of the horse’s
campaign.
The real problem was that Caligula brought back elections.
And he let new people into the upper castes, and now he was going to leave Rome and stop
talking to the senate so what was even the point of being a senator anymore?
Luckily, the army felt the same way, since “You’re bringing the Praetorian Guard
with you to Egypt right?”
[flashback to Sejanus] “Uhhhhhonestly I’d feel safer without you guys”.
The Senate and the Army agree it’s time for him to die.
A man named Cassius Chaerea leads a group of Senators to kill Caligula and restore the
Republic, so no one could put down the Senate ever again.
According to Suetonius he was also motivated by Caligula calling him mean nicknames like
Venus, which…
I dunno, I think I’d rather be compared to a literal goddess than go by Bootsie for
the rest of my life.
Bootsie is addressing a troupe of actors when Chaerea walks up and stabs him.
To the conspirators this was the empire come full circle, another Cassius killing another
Gaius Julius Caesar, but instead of “Et tu, Brute?”
I have to imagine Caligula’s death was more like “OW!
Okay, honestly I’m not surprised.
Gah!
Oh hey Marcus, how’re the kids -- Agh!
Hey where’s Junius?”
“Oh he couldn’t make it, but he wanted to give you this”
After this, his extra special super personal guards that are somehow different from the
Praetorian Guard show up, but Caligula is long dead and it’s hard to see who the killers
are, so reportedly they decide the next best option is to go on a rampage swinging their
swords at anything that moves and killing several bystanders.
Now you might’ve noticed I said the Senate wanted to bring back the Republic, but after
they kill Caligula, it turns out the military actually likes the empire system.
And they have all the swords.
But they don’t have a leader anymore, so Chaerea acts first.
Chaerea: “Gentlemen.
You can’t have an empire without an emperor.
Half the royal family is dead thanks to Sejanus, so if we capture the other half --”
Crowd: “Oooh!
/ Eeesh / Yikes”
Uncomfortable Praetorian: “Fellas I have to say, our daughters really do seem to be
gettin the short end of the proverbial stick”
Caligula’s wife and daughter were, in fact, the only other casualties, because somebody
in the army found Claudius first and the Praetorian Guard made him the new emperor and he was
a good ruler so he fixed everything and Rome never had to worry about familial murder or
Praetorian kingmaking, or senatorial conspiracies, or unstable young men with problematic relationships
to their primary caregiver living a life of reckless indulgence and desperately clinging
to power through a deluge of extrajudicial killings for almost fifteen years.