Also on this day, in 39 CE, the Roman Senate bestowed the title of Princeps (first citizen) on Caligula, making him emperor of Rome.
Some of them would live to regret this.
He was born Gaius, the son of the famous general Germanicus and Augustus' daughter Agrippina. He traveled with his father's army while young, acquiring the nickname "Little Boot" which, when you say it in Latin, comes out Caligula.
For the first six months of his rule, Caligula was described as a moderate emperor, but then he began working to expand the unrestrained personal power of the Princeps. He seems to have gotten this reputation largely by spending money from the treasury to buy friends. When that money was exhausted, he began to accuse people of trumped up crimes and execute them solely for the purpose of seizing their estates. Suetonius, the gossip columnist of the ancient world, says that some senators were forced to attend Caligula by running alongside his chariot.
He staged an abortive attempt to conquer Brittania. This effort was derided by several ancient historians, with Suetonius claiming it was diverted into a war against Neptune. There are accounts of Gauls dressed up as Germanic tribesmen at his triumph and Roman troops ordered to collect seashells as "spoils of the sea".
In 40 CE, Caligula began implementing very controversial policies that introduced religion into his political role. He began appearing in public dressed as various gods and demigods such as Hercules, Mercury, Venus and Apollo. According to Cassius Dio, he began referring to himself as a god when meeting with politicians and he was referred to as "Jupiter" on occasion in public documents.
Philo of Alexandria and Seneca the Younger, contemporaries of Caligula, describe him as an insane emperor who was self-absorbed, was angry, killed on a whim, and indulged in too much spending and sex. He is accused of sleeping with other men's wives and bragging about it, killing for mere amusement, causing starvation, and wanting a statue of himself erected in the Temple of Jerusalem for his worship. Once, at some games at which he was presiding, he was said to have ordered his guards to throw an entire section of the audience into the arena during the intermission to be eaten by the wild beasts because there were no prisoners to be used and he was bored.
While repeating the earlier stories, the later sources of Suetonius and Cassius Dio provide additional tales of insanity. They accuse Caligula of incest with his sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Drusilla, and Livilla, and say he prostituted them to other men. They state he sent troops on illogical military exercises, turned the palace into a brothel, and, most famously, planned or promised to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul, and actually appointed him a priest.
The situation had escalated when, in 40 CE, Caligula announced to the Senate that he planned to leave Rome permanently and to move to Alexandria in Egypt, where he hoped to be worshiped as a living god. The prospect of Rome losing its emperor and thus its political power was the final straw for many. Such a move would have left both the Senate and the Praetorian Guard powerless to stop Caligula's repression and debauchery.
According to Josephus, these actions led to several failed conspiracies against Caligula. Eventually, officers within the Praetorian Guard led by Cassius Chaerea succeeded in murdering the emperor on 22 January, 41 CE. The plot is described as having been planned by three men, but many in the senate, army and equestrian order were said to have been informed of it and involved in it.
By the time Caligula's loyal Germanic guard responded, the Emperor was already dead. The Germanic guard, stricken with grief and rage, responded with a rampaging attack on the assassins, conspirators, innocent senators and bystanders alike.
The senate attempted to use Caligula's death as an opportunity to restore the Republic. Uncomfortable with lingering imperial support, the assassins sought out and killed Caligula's wife, Caesonia, and killed their young daughter, Julia Drusilla, by smashing her head against a wall. They were unable to reach Caligula's uncle, Claudius. After a soldier, Gratus, found Claudius hiding from the chaos behind a palace curtain, he was spirited out of the city by a sympathetic faction of the Praetorian Guard to their nearby camp.
Caligula had been emperor for almost 3 years. He was succeeded by the last surviving son of Augustus, Claudius. Claudius had spent his life as a scholar, a historian, but he turned out to be a pretty good emperor.
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