Life Of The Caesars

My guest today is Anthony Poulton-Smith - Freelance Journalist, Author of 78 books, and many more articles, ghostwriter, speaker and etymologist. Chair of Tamworth Literary Festival, Tamworth History Group. He spoke to me recently about the Latin roots of some of my favourite words. You know what I'm talking about.

Caligula got back to Rome around May 40 but stayed outside of the city until he could celebrate his ovation on his 28th birthday, 31 August. In the meantime he met with delegations from various parts of the world, including Philo's delegation from Alexandria, and Herod Antipas and his wife, Herodias, from Judaea. Conspiracies against him are everywhere.

Ray recently interviewed Lindsay Powell about Caligula. I asked Ray for show notes. This is what he gave me. "We talked of keeping the sources in context, considering the times they lived it and agenda. He went deep. Then his analysis of the events in the German border and the coast of Britain. And his apparent fickleness, which in a ruler, effects everyone but also how people like Suetonius probably used that." See? That's what I have to work with.

Many historians claim that Caligula’s demand to be treated as a living god is a sure sign of madness. And yet - JESUS claimed the same thing and nobody calls HIM insane. Why does he get special treatment? On this episode, we drill down into the evidence for the claim about Caligula.

Caligula plans his invasion of Britain. It would have been the first time any Roman solider had been there since Julius Caesar. What motivated his plans? Was he even serious? It's often portrayed as a stupid stunt. But we discover there may be more to it. How did it fit into his German campaign and the conspiracies against him? And how does it factor into Claudius' later invasion?

Sometime around the year 40, Caligula executed Ptolemy, the king of Africa Proconsularis and Roman ally. It's usually portrayed as evidence of his insanity and greed - but perhaps there is an alternative explanation.

Caligula suspects a grand conspiracy against his person and the sword falls on a variety of people - including the commander in Gaul, his two surviving sisters and his best friend / lover, Lepidus.

Caligula built a 3-mile long bridge over the Bay of Naples. Why? So he could ride over it to prove someone wrong. Then he marries his third and last wife, Caesonia. Then he fires two consuls for not celebrating his birthday and starts a general purge of governors who are called back to Rome and, in some cases, charged with majestas. There's conspiracy in the air.

In 39 CE, Caligula walked into the Senate and tore them all a new one. The gloves came off. The nice guy act was over. He criticized them for enabling Sejanus' persecution of his family and for criticizing Tiberius when in fact they urged him on. Then he reinstated majestas. The Senate responded by thanking him and singing his praises.

When Caligula's favorite sister, Drusilla, suddenly died in 38 CE, he couldn't cope. He made her a god, to be worshipped as Panthea, the “All-Goddess,” or “all-embracing deity”, Divae Drusillae Sorori Caius Augusti Germanici. One senator declared under oath that he had witnessed how Drusilla rose to heaven. And now Caligula needed to find a new successor.

From his sickbed he named his favorite sister, Drusilla, to inherit the imperial “property and the throne”. But when he recovered, he decided to rid himself of some enemies, real or imagined, including Gemellus, Macro and Silanus, his former father-in-law.

Caligula's absolute favourite thing in the world, apart from spending money, is screwing. And seriously, who can blame him. It's good to be the king. And, like Ray, he was happy to be a power bottom. He liked horse racing, and was fond of poisoning other team's horses and riders. He liked actors, and was fond of beating people up who interrupted performances in the theatre. I wish we could do that to people who write moronic iTunes reviews. And then, a few months after he became Emperor, Caligula fell seriously ill. It would be the turning point of his reign.

The Nemi ships were two pleasure barges, one larger than the other, built under Caligula at Lake Nemi. Although there were several attempts to recover them from the 15th century onwards, it wasn't until 1929 that Mussolini ordered the whole of Lake Nemi would be drained and they were recovered and housed in a museum. And then the Americans decided to drop bombs on them, and they were destroyed, lost forever.

According to Suetonius, Caligula was quite proud of his "adiatrepsia" - shamelessness. He lived in habitual incest with all his sisters and was especially fond of Drusilla. He made her divorce her first husband and marry his friend and lover Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. In 37 he interrupted the wedding of Livia Orestilla so he could marry her himself - and then kicked her to the curb 24 hours later. Then he made Lollia Paulina divorce her husband and marry him - but he tired of her in six months. Then he married Caesonia, "a woman of reckless extravagance and wantonness". Six months into his rule, Caligula fell seriously ill. While he was sick in bed, Macro and Silanus apparently prepared for the worst. They started the wheels in motion for Gemellus to be declared the successor.

How does a 24 year old kid, who's never even been on a battlefield, let alone lead an army to victory, get declared "imperator"? How would you handle it if you were granted ius arbitriumque omnium rerum (‘power and authority over all things’) and declared princeps legibus solutus (a princeps not bound by the laws)? Would you be able to handle it? We know we wouldn't. Who would we have killed? Find out on this episode.

One of the other first things Caligula did when he took power was to release Herod Agrippa from jail - King Herod from the New Testament. The grandson of Herod the Great. Which all gives me an excuse to talk about The Maccabean Revolt and a short history on Judaean politics from 169 BCE to Caligula.

By all accounts, Caligula was extremely popular with the people, as his father, Germanicus, had been. Suetonius reports that Caligula was “the emperor most earnestly desired”. When he entered Rome, the celebrations are said to have gone on for almost three months, and more than 160,000 animals were sacrificed—and eaten.

We all think we know something of the story of Caligula. We have a picture of him as a destructive monster, an insane sadist. But truth is rarely that simple. Let's take a look at the sources and their individual biases. And let's keep in mind that Caligula was Rome's first true emperor.

We continue and finish our live commentary on the 1979 epic film, CALIGULA. Picking up where we left off last week, Caligula is fisting the married couple and he doesn't even remove his ring. A dark and stormy night leads to night terrors, a super hot threesome between Caligula, his sister and Helen Mirren, a gratuitous but welcome sultry Italian lesbian scene, spinning plates, a Helen Mirren does Madonna dance scene, some torture, a horse in a bed, death, crazy, an orgy on a fake ship, and we close with brains being bashed out on the stairs. It's one helluva film.

We continue our live commentary on the 1979 epic film, CALIGULA. Picking up where we left off last week, still in Tiberius' sex palace on Capria, with a lady holding a writhing legless lizard that she is apparently about to place inside her woo-hoo. Around the 18 minute mark of the film. This episode sees the death of Tiberius, the arrest of Macro, a bukake scene, Helen Mirren dancing and doing it doggy style, a possibly historically-inaccurate giant head mower, and Caligula providing a young couple with a wedding present to remember.