Day: March 18, 2017

Around the year 14 or 15, the youngest son of the Roman war hero Germanicus found himself growing up around the Legions. As a boy of just two or three, little Gaius Caesar accompanied his father on campaigns in the north of Germania. Centurions were amused to see him dressed in miniature soldier’s uniform, including the boots, the “Caligae”, and the segmented Roman armor – the “lorica segmentata”.

Soldiers of the Legions called him “Little Boots”, “Caligula” in Latin, after the little soldier’s boots the boy liked to wear in camp. He’s said to have hated the nickname, but it stuck.

On this day in the year 37, the Roman Senate annulled the will of the Emperor Tiberius, proclaiming 24 year old Caligula, Emperor. After years of purges and treason trials, Caligula’s ascension to the throne was seen as a welcome breath of fresh air. His first two years were relatively peaceful and prosperous.

The obelisk at the at St. Peter’s Square was originally erected in Alexandria, in 30-28BC.  Caligula had it brought to Rome and erected in the year 40, where it stands to this day.  The “Piazza San Pietro Obelisk” is the only such obelisk to have survived from Roman times.

Caligula suffered a protracted and severe illness in 39, hovering between life and death for over a month. It may or may not have had anything to do with his subsequent behavior, but the man who emerged from that illness was widely believed to be insane.

Caligula performed a spectacular stunt by ordering a temporary floating bridge to be built, using ships as pontoons, stretching for over two miles from the resort of Baiae to the neighboring port of Puteoli. Though he could not swim, he rode his favorite horse, Incitatus, across the bridge, wearing the breastplate of Alexander the Great. The act was in defiance of a prediction by Tiberius’ soothsayer Thrasyllus of Mendes, that Caligula had “no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae”.

In case you’re wondering, Incitatus was the same horse which Caligula appointed as priest, and planned to make a Consul of Rome, the top official of the Roman government.

Caligula’s eccentricities became terrifying and erratic. He regularly made senators run alongside his chariot.  He’d order executions on a whim. Caligula once had an entire crowd section at the Roman Games thrown into the arena, to be eaten alive by wild animals. He said he was bored.

Caligula began to appear in public, dressed as various gods and demigods:  Hercules, Mercury, Venus and Apollo.  He’d refer to himself as a god when meeting with politicians. He built temples for the worship of himself, where the heads of statues were replaced by his own likeness.

Later stories of wanton hedonism, cruelty, and sexual depravity are probably exaggerated, but none seem to be without a grain of truth. Caligula was murdered by his own Praetorian guard in the year 41, after fewer than five years in power.

Most historians dismiss the floating bridge story as a myth, since no archaeological evidence has ever surfaced.  Caligula’s two “pleasure barges”, extracted from the bottom of Lake Nemi in the 1920s and 30s, are a different story.   Measuring 230′ and 240′ respectively, their lavish furnishings included marble décor, mosaic floors, statuary and gilded copper roofs.  One wreck carried a lead pipe, bearing the inscription “Property of Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus”.  Allied bombing resulted in a fire in 1944, in which both of these archaeological treasures, were lost.