Caligula: The Imperator who had beef with the sea

DATE OF HAPPENING: 8/31/0012-0041 CE (Roman Emperor 37-41 CE)

On the last day of August, 12 CE, A little boy named Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus was born in Antium (Anzio). He was born into the ruling Julio-Claudian dynasty, in which Augustus and Tiberius were both part of. Agrippina, Caesar Germanicus's mom, frequently dressed the young boy in uniform and as a result the name "Caligula", or "Little Boots", was bestowed upon him. Augustus died in 14 CE and Tiberius succeeded Augustus as the next Roman Emperor. While Tiberius was emperor, he did not really name a successor. Germanicus, Caligula's father and Tiberius's adopted son (formerly his nephew) was supposed to be heir, but somehow Germanicus hurt Tiberius's fee-fees, so Tiberius kept Germanicus out of Rome for a good duration. In 19 CE, Germanicus (not Caligula, but his father) died by unknown circumstances. Whoops! Tiberius also tried to groom his two sons, Nero and Drusus, to be his next-in-lines as emperors, but both of them passed away by 33 CE. Four years later, Tiberius died.

Wow! Congratulations Caligula, you're now the leader of one of, if not the most, powerful civilizations of your time. Knowing this, Caligula did the insane move of... freeing political prisoners. Then, the next crazy thing he did was... establish some cool and popular chariot races and other games. Yeah, the crazy shit happens later, for now Caligula is an alright guy. Caligula, during this time, was also respectful to the Senate and adopted his cousin, Tiberius Gemellus (whom I will call "Little Tibby" to avoid confusion) as his adopted son and heir. Caligula also recalled political exiles of which the previous emperors banished.

But then, tragedy strikes. He suffered from an illness a couple months after his initial first day as Imperator and, apparently, affected his mind. From here on out, most accounts of Caligula are very biased against him, but this story from here on out kind of has to rely on them, cause they're really the only sources on Caligula. Caligula soon started to become a despot, thinking he was a god and started to order altars to himself all throughout the empire. He became the opposite of himself during his first few months: He was cruel and crazy. He murdered many people, including his own adopted son, Little Tibby. Because people with cute nicknames don't last very long. He insulted the Senate, and wasted money. He revived treason trials to confiscate convicted people's property. He also decided to communicate with the Dii Consentes, the Roman pantheon. How? Well, he built a bridge which crossed between his palace and nearby temples. The high priest position was vacant, so Caligula decided to pick the most able and meritable to this position, which was of course his favorite horse. Then, Caligula decided to do some conquering, and, according to the historian Suetonius, decided to conquer the very thing which bordered Rome the most: the Sea. The English Channel, in fact. Caligula did this by ordering his soldiers to pick up seashells as "spoilers of victory". Caligula also order a lighthouse to be constructed near the channel in Northern France (Gaul). Another historian, Cassius Dio, goes further to say that Caligula sailed out in a trireme before returning to Gaul, sounding a horn, and ordering his men to collect seashells to display them back in Rome in a "Triumph" (victory parade). Caligula then returned to Rome but became paranoid about possible assassination attempts. Eventually. in 41 CE, the Senate and Praetorian Guard had enough with Caligula's madness, and promptly assassinated him, fulfilling his fears.

Now, most Roman historians had portrayed Caligula as mad and insane, most likely because of that illness he contracted. But, let's try and see if we can give Caligula at least a little bit of leeway here. Some of his predecessors, Julius Caesar and Tiberius, had scored victories and integrated Gaul and Germania into the Imperium, respectively. Also, Caligula's father, Germanicus, as also highly respected as a leader of both the Roman people and the legions. Caligula was young when he became Imperator, yet despite most people his age already having decent military experience at his age, Caligula grew up sheltered. As a result, he was increasingly paranoid about a possibly mutiny for his lack of expertise. This is why he wanted to take Britain. Now, whether he actually landed in Britain or not is unknown, but what is known is that Britain was very much unknown to the Romans; it housed the Druids and had some fearsome leaders, such as Boudicca. Also, legionaries once mutinied against even Germanicus. So, a mutiny against Caligula was definitely possible. Maybe this explains his whole declaration of war on the sea: It could either be a sarcastic remark upon the whole of the Roman Army ("You want your victory? Have it upon Neptune by picking up his shells!") or maybe he really was mad enough that, in order to "surpass" his predecessors, he declared war on Neptune, something which no civilization has ever done before. By picking up seashells. His successor, Claudius, would actually conquer Britain in the 0040s.

All in all, I do believe Caligula did turn mad somehow, probably cause of that illness. But he also did have the burden of keeping up with his predecessors while also having little to no military experience himself whatsoever, and that may also possibly have messed up his psyche. To put it even more bluntly, Caligula was a crazy dude who did some crazy things. He may have possibly been one of the worst emperors of his time, considering his short reign and, well, details. At least Nero appeared to be liked by the Roman commoners.