How bad was Caligula?

So bad that Roger Ebert walked out of the theater 2 hours into its 170-minute length, feeling "disgusted and unspeakably depressed."
 
There was a similar incident that almost cost a flattering patrician his head. Caligula did not have a good history with pointless flatterers. A member of the upper classes tried his luck and was expounding on how godlike Caligula was. Caligula, ever the sarcastic rapscallion, told his audience he was just at that moment conversing with Diana, goddess of the moon. He casually asked the flatterer if he could see the goddess there beside him.

Now, the patrician, immediately realised this was a trap. If he said no, then he was denying Caligula's divinity, but if he said yes, then he was stating that he too was a god and essentially a rival to the Emperor. So, being a quick witted toady, he declared that because he was not a god, there was no way he could see Diana himself in comparison to the Emperor, who was.

Yeah you’re talking about good ol’ Lucius Vitellius. His family had just been promoted to the Senate though, and he was deep in Caligula’s confidence. Perhaps he could get away with it while others couldn’t.
 
With Hitler , Stalin and Mao, among others, last century I have no problems with assuming Caligula was completely nuts. He would hardly be the only completely insane ruler in history.
 
600 in the Republic, 900 by Caesar, 1000 by Augustus. The figures are from my undergraduate lecture course on the Roman Empire.

I was under the impression that the stuffing of the senate began under Sulla, who doubled it from 200-300 to the range of 600, where it remained until Caesar's reforms, which increased it to the vicinity of 1000. However, Augustus drastically increased the minimum wealth requirement for membership (along with assuming the powers of censor so as to limit its growth thereafter). Subsequent emperors, especially Tiberius, dismissed dozens of senators (and executed many more) through his ad hoc corruption courts, so I don't think its particularly likely that the senate was that large by the reign of Nero. The only point at which the senate may have increased in size between 27 BCE and 53 CE would have been the granting of citizenship to the Gallic elites under Claudius (whereafter a number of them became senators). I could be wrong, but I'd like to know where exactly those figures are from.

I’m talking about Goldsworthy’s biography of Augustus. Anyway, I’ll give you the references.

Just picked up a copy myself, looking forward to reading it

Alright, I got here late, and a lot of stuff has already been said, so I'll just get the following points out of the way:

1. Caligula's childhood: A lot of people seem to forget the context in which Caligula was raised. Caligula was only the *sixth* in line for the throne during the reign of Tiberius (after Agrippa Postumus, Germanicus, Drusus the Younger, Nero Caesar, and Drusus Caesar), and pretty much every single one of those in line before him was murdered (or at least died under suspicious circumstances). Also, his mother was murdered, so that didn't help I'm sure. And to top it all off, the man responsible for (or at least complicit in) at least some of these murders forced him to be an attendant of his on Capri wherein he bore witness to all manner of perversions in Tiberius' twilight years. And this all happened before Caligula was even in his mid-twenties. He may have been insane, or at the very least had a pretty sizable chip on his shoulder for all the political machinations in Rome, and a lot of the people he executed or tortured likely played some part in the deaths of his elder family members.

2. The role of Claudius: I think an underestimated piece of Caligula's awful reputation is the role that Claudius played in his subsequent reign. I've never seen any scholarship on this subject, so everything I'm saying here is purely conjectural. But Claudius was a lifelong historian and a more-than-capable politician, so it's not unthinkable that he knew on some level that perception was reality and that historical portrayals were a critical aspect of maintaining regime legitimacy. He likely took part in playing up the atrocities of Caligula in an effort to purge any lingering agents of his (or Tiberius') regime.
 
Yeah you’re talking about good ol’ Lucius Vitellius. His family had just been promoted to the Senate though, and he was deep in Caligula’s confidence. Perhaps he could get away with it while others couldn’t.

Thanks. Couldn't remember his name and can't find my books to look up the incident.
 
Caligula's sense of humor was very much like Peter Griffin of his day.
: Caligula was not killed in some grand conspiracy to overthrow tyranny. He was murdered by one of his Praetorian captains, who had a very high effeminate voice and a lisp. Caligula, who was rather rude and uncouth according to the histories, used to laugh uncontrollably every time his captain gave his daily report on palace security and when choosing a password Caligula always insisted on "Venus" or something vaguely feminine with an 's' in it to humiliate him.

Was he twisted? Definitely. Evil? No. He was unwise and blatant. The psychology of having to mask his feelings to survive growing up made him mistrust the people around him..when he retreated and got sick I believe he regurgitated on all his fears and loathing, until he said fuck it. He knew he could never be as good as his father Germanicus who was murdered. Or Caesar. The documentry I watched said just before his illness, he began to pace at night. And was brooding. Like many overthinkers do, he was highly intelligent but emotionally suffering from this awesome weight and power. So his style of trying to see 4 or 5 steps ahead like a game of chess always came to his getting murdered. I believe he made peace with it and threw all caution to the wind when he reemerged to rule after his long illness.
I'm new here, I'm so impressed by all of you and how well some of you study this stuff. I feel unqualified to comment much next to many in this group. But this was my own impression of the man. He was the victim of a smear campaign
 
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Caligula's sense of humor was very much like Peter Griffin of his day.
: Caligula was not killed in some grand conspiracy to overthrow tyranny. He was murdered by one of his Praetorian captains, who had a very high effeminate voice and a lisp. Caligula, who was rather rude and uncouth according to the histories, used to laugh uncontrollably every time his captain gave his daily report on palace security and when choosing a password Caligula always insisted on "Venus" or something vaguely feminine with an 's' in it to humiliate him.

Was he twisted? Definitely. Evil? No. He was unwise and blatant. The psychology of having to mask his feelings to survive growing up made him mistrust the people around him..when he retreated and got sick I believe he regurgitated on all his fears and loathing, until he said fuck it. He knew he could never be as good as his father Germanicus who was murdered. Or Caesar. The documentry I watched said just before his illness, he began to pace at night. And was brooding. Like many overthinkers do, he was highly intelligent but emotionally suffering from this awesome weight and power. So his style of trying to see 4 or 5 steps ahead like a game of chess always came to his getting murdered. I believe he made peace with it and threw all caution to the wind when he reemerged to rule after his long illness.
I'm new here, I'm so impressed by all of you and how well some of you study this stuff. I feel unqualified to comment much next to many in this group. But this was my own impression of the man. He was the victim of a smear campaign
That's a very interesting analysis and point of view!
 
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