She grew up under the influence of three notable and powerful women, her mother, Agrippina the Elder; her paternal grandmother, Antonia Minor; and her great-grandmother, Livia Drusilla /Julia Augusta, wife of Augustus. Following Drusillas death on June 10, AD 38, who was quite close to Caligula, her husband, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, along with Agrippina and Livilla made an unsuccessful attempt to murder Caligula in AD 39 in pursuit of making Lepidus the new Emperor. The plot became famous as the Plot of the Three Daggers. He writes, in Rolfes translation: To leave no kind of plunder untried, he opened a brothel in his palace, setting apart a number of rooms and furnishing them to suit the grandeur of the place, where matrons and freeborn youths should stand exposed. Gaius, by sharp contrast, was an extremely common praenomen and the name Germanicus is far more closely associated with Caligulas father than with the man himself. He writes in On Anger 3.18, as translated by Aubrey Stewart: Why do I pry into ancient history? Even if the story is true, there are still a couple different ways we can interpret it that dont entail Caligula being completely bonkers. ABOVE: The Banquet of Cleopatra, painted in 1653 by the Flemish painter Jacob Jordaens. At its core, the Caligula is best known to the general public as an insane, sexually depraved emperor who thought he was a living god, murdered a little boy for coughing too much, had sex with all three of his sisters, murdered his sister who was pregnant with his child and ate the fetus, turned his palace into a brothel, drank expensive pearls dissolved in vinegar, made his horse a senator, and waged war against Neptune to collect seashells as loot.. It is probably true that Caligula was something of a sadist. She had two younger sisters - Julia Livilla and Julia Drusilla. Although Agrippina was successful in dominating her son and the empire in the first few months of Neros ascension, he later took over control in his hands, which led to a power struggle with his mother. Furthermore, even if Caligula really did do these things, this wouldnt necessarily make him insane, since a person does not have to be insane to be a pimp. The film was famously chaotic during production since it's directors and producers clashed constantly. As long as you are reviewing literature about Caligula, you might want to check out Camuss play. In order for him to survive longer than that, he would have to either wake up every week or so before falling back into the coma or somehow still be able to swallow food and water while in the coma. A detailed family tree of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty from the Princeton University website. Despite all this, most of what we see in I, Claudius and Caligula is made up. It is entirely possible that this whole account about Caligula planning to make his horse a consul is fabricated. Indeed, Suetonius does give a rational explanation for why Caligula supposedly openly his brothel; according to Suetonius he did it because he was desperate for money to fund his outlandish lifestyle. Primary evidence too supports the indisputable influence and privileges of Caligula's sisters. The cooks here prepare tasty sticky toffee pudding, cream caramel and panna cotta. Figure 1: Agrippina on the left pictured as divine goddess Securitas and her sisters, Juilia and Drusilla pictured as Concordia and Fortuna. With Malcolm McDowell, Teresa Ann Savoy, Guido Mannari, John Gielgud. Its notoriety, however, only contributed to Caligulas reputation for depravity and insanity. Probably the most famous story about Caligula is the one about how he supposedly made his horse Incitatus a senator. Although prostitution was legal in the Roman Empire, prostitutes and pimps alike were widely looked down upon as lower-class scum. Suetonius describes the entire alleged plot in just one sentence in his Life of Caligula, chapter 24: The rest of his sisters [i.e. His uncle Claudius regards this whole situation as a disgrace, so Caligula forces him to collect money at the door. I am an aspiring historian mainly interested in ancient Greek cultural and social history. [1], Some areas of his lineage are unclear. Upon ascending to the throne, Caligula took the official name Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. In fairness, though, most of the most famous stories Ive investigated in this article actually are in the sources. In search of a new heir to solidify his place as Emperor, Caligula begins affairs with his three sisters in order to have a Philon asserts in his Embassy to Gaius, chapter thirteen, that Caligula gave in to madness and frenzy and that he was utterly insane. Seneca exclaims with regard to Caligula in his On Anger 1.20, How great was his madness! Suetonius claims in his Life of Caligula, chapter fifty, He was sound neither of body nor mind.. Create your own unique website with customizable templates. We see his ambition, his scheming, his perversion and decadence, his brutality and his lunacy. Sallie and Jo are both Library Assistants who have recently been made redundant. ABOVE: Screenshot of Caligula waking up from his implausible three-month-long coma in the Netflix series Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad Emperor. Caligula and the Three Daggers: A World Premiere & Benefit ! The first interpretation is that Caligula really did shower attention on his horse and talk about making him consul, but it was all an elaborate mockery of the Senate. Basically all we really know about the supposed plot is that Agrippina, Julia Livilla, and Aemilius Lepidus were accused of adultery and conspiracy, Lepidus was executed, and the emperors sisters were sent into exile. Since Gaius wore little versions of these boots, the soldiers nicknamed him Caligula, which is a diminutive form of the word caliga. Well start out with the fact that his real name was not Caligula, nor was he generally known by the name Caligula while he was emperor. Agrippina was given the bones of Lepidus in an urn, and she carried them to Rome. Its a fitting name. Their inclusion in the public oath of alliance incontrovertibly displayed their importance in his reign, with members of the Roman public being required to pledge, I will not value my life or that of my children less highly than I do the safety of the Emperor and his sister. (Betty 2012, Rutter 2013) Among other things they were also granted the rites of the Vestigal Virgins, which permitted them to travel in the carpentum, originally reserved for priests only, as well as a reserved seat of honour for the public games. Did Gore Vidal disown the film because Bob Guccione and Tinto Brass added explicit sex and gore to the film. There is very little evidence to support the idea that Claudius had anything to do with Caligulas assassination. Still, if I must produce my authority, apply to the man who saw Drusilla going heavenward; he will say he saw Claudius limping along in the same direction. For since the day when he took oath in the Senate that he had seen Drusilla going up to heaven and in return for such good news nobody believed him, he has declared in so many words that hell not testify about anything, not even if he should see a man murdered in the middle of the Forum. Also, since many honours had been voted earlier to his sisters manifestly on his act, he forbade the awarding of other distinctions to any of his relatives.. Fascinating stories from each day of the year about the people and events that have shaped the culture and history of Italy. Making the Distant Past Relevant to the Present Day. He describes how this was seen as shocking and sacrilegious. A huge thank you to Bragan Thomas, the Provincetown Library, the Provincetown Theater, and all the fantastic actors who brought the staged reading of CALIGULA and the THREE DAGGERS to life! Hello! I named my tuxedo cat with white socks Caligula. ABOVE: Screenshot from the Netflix series Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad Emperor of Caligula being seduced by his sister Agrippina. When a soldier presents the emperor with Gemelluss severed head, he declares, Ive cured his cough.. He took the name Germanicus from his father, a popular general who had won many great victories in Germania and posthumously been awarded the title Germanicus. In I, Claudius, episode nine (Zeus, by Jove!), Caligula is portrayed as impregnating Drusilla. Caligula was murdered on January 24, AD 41 by his own Praetorian Guard on the Palatine in a conspiracy involving senators, officers of the Praetorian Guard and courtiers. Reportedly, Caligula sold her furniture, jewellery, slaves, and freedmen, reducing her to nothing. bronze Hellenistic Greek statue of a nude king or general, bearing a scepter Thus, it seems that everything Suetonius says about Caligulas relationship with his sisters is confirmed by earlier sourcesexcept for his claim that Caligula was having sex with them. With free WiFi and free private parking, it offers a seasonal menu with local produce in the wooden-beamed restaurant. It is possible that Caligula may have simply been trying to do the same thing that the Ptolemies had done before him. ABOVE: Proclaiming Claudius Emperor, painted in 1867 by the Dutch painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Putting all of these stories aside, the contemporary sources do unambiguously claim that Caligula was insane. [4] Cassius Dio and Suetonius both suggest that the emperor and his brother-in-law were lovers. Thus, in the series, Claudius is not only portrayed as the real mastermind behind Caligulas murder, but as being present at the scene of the crime itself. In March 1981, a censored, R rated release to cinemas was made by Roadshow. Agrippina: The most powerful woman in Rome. The ruins of the Palace of Augustus on the Palatine Hill, The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the. (Hbert 2011, Hickman 2010) The definitive opinion is given by modern professor of Ancient History, R. Mellor (2005), who suggests, Agrippina was sleeping her way to the pinnacle of power. (Ginsburg 2009, Freisenbruch 2012) This would be the first of many debaucherous acts Agrippina would take part in to maintain her power. For centuries before Caligula, Hellenistic Greek rulers in the eastern Mediterranean had claimed that they were divine. (As I discuss in this article from January 2020, Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of this dynasty, was the product of literally centuries of incest.) Gaius Caesar, nicknamed Caligula or "Little Boot," succeeded Tiberius as Roman emperor in 37 A.D., and adopted the name Gaius Caesar Germanicus. ABOVE: Screenshot from the I, Claudius episode Zeus, By Jove! of Caligula (played by John Hurt), dressed as Zeus, coming out of the room with blood all over his lips after eating Drusillas fetus. The idea behind it may have been that, because they had made him feel foolish on his campaign, he would make them feel foolish as well. Now that we know where some of the misconceptions about Caligula come from, lets talk about what those misconceptions are. Not only Paulina, Agrippina had many others executed who she regarded as a potential threat to her and Neros position. Roadshow Home Video subsequently released the same film version to video in September 1984. Caligula] fell sick, but instead of dying himself he caused the death of Tiberius [i.e. Doing historiography is especially difficult when it comes to Caligula, since he began to be mythologized while he was alive and this mythologization has only proliferated over the course of the past two thousand years since his death. The doctor who is caring for him tells Macro, the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, that he is probably going to die. Lepidus was executed and Caligula's sisters were exiled. Leave a reply A huge thank you to Bragan Thomas, the Provincetown Library, the Provincetown Theater, and Some sources of popular misconceptions about Caligula. They even draw explicit comparisons to the murder of Julius Caesar. There are no earlier sources that explicitly claim Caligula had sex with his sisters, but there is some earlier evidence that scholars have interpreted as possibly supporting Suetoniuss account of Caligulas incest. Honestly, a name like Little Boots is probably better suited for a housecat than a sadistic tyrant. Eventually, she was successful in convincing Claudius to make Nero his successor depriving Britannicus succession to the throne. Philon does not record Caligula as having regularly called himself Zeus and his sister Drusilla Juno, nor does he record him as having dressed up as Zeus, nor does he record him as having renovated the imperial palace to make it look more like Mount Olympos. Suetonius does, however, claim that Caligula lavished an unusual amount of attention on Incitatus and that he was alleged to have talked about making him a consul. 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