Page 20 - All About History - Issue 38-16

Dictators

5 shocking facts about…

CALIGULA

INFAMOUS EMPEROR OF ROME
ROMAN EMPIRE, 12 CE 41 CE

He thought he was a god
01 Caligula knew how to push people’s buttons, but in
the last year of his reign, he arguably went too far. He appeared
in public dressed as one of the Roman deities and ordered his
subjects to address him as such. He was even referred to as
‘Jupiter’ on official documents. When he announced that he was
leaving Rome for Egypt to be worshipped as a god, the senate
had him killed.
At rst, they loved him
02 Perhaps he was simply settling in or positioning his
political pieces, but for the first six months of his reign, Caligula
eased the punitive imperial tax system, gave the Roman military
bonuses and put on gladiatorial games for the people, endearing
himself to all. Then he fell drastically ill – possibly as a result of
being poisoned – and when he recovered, people around him
started dying. It was downhill from there.

He was generous to a fault
03 n 38 CE, Caligula went on a spending spree, buying
I
himself some friends (presumably to replace the ones he had
killed) with public funds by abolishing several taxes and providing
generous support for Roman citizens in need. It drained the
treasury so much that in 39 CE, Rome experienced a financial
crisis. Caligula blamed everyone but himself, and the rich Romans
that had been implicated by the emperor started dying, after
which he simply confiscated their estates.

His pleasure barges were legendary
04 Caligula’s two barges had long been known to reside
at the bottom of Lake Nemi. So in 1929, another despot, the
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, ordered the lake drained and the
ships recovered. In their day, they would have been outrageously
opulent, with marble statues, mosaic floors, heating and even
bejewelled poop decks. Unfortunately, they were destroyed by
bombing in 1944.
He dressed as a woman
05 When Caligula recovered from his brush with death in
37 CE, he suffered from intense headaches. He would walk his
palace at night wearing silk gowns and women’s clothes, rather
than his masculine togas. It’s by no means the most outrageous
or depraved of the rumoured acts that have come to define this
leader but, during this formative time, it could have been an
indication of a sick mind, warped by his terrible illness.

© Alamy

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