Caligula was the third Roman emperor if you don’t count Julius Caesar as an emperor. He was born in 12 A.D. with the name Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, so it makes sense that today we know him as Caligula. His father was Germanicus, a very popular and successful general who got his name Germanicus, “Thrasher of the Germans”, by successfully conquering Germany. Caligula’s father spent so much time around military camps that he took Caligula with him often, and his mother Agrippina the Elder made him a miniature soldiers uniform, complete with armor and little military sandals. This became so iconic that the soldiers started calling him “Caligula” which means “little boots” in Latin. Because of this Caligula became the unofficial roman military mascot, meaning the majority of the army liked him. I believe Germanicus did this on purpose so that if Tiberius (the current emperor) tried to make someone else his heir, the army would side with Caligula in a civil war. Tiberius probably saw this, so in 19 A.D. Germanicus was killed by poisoning, and the man who was believed to have done the poisoning committed suicide just before official investigation started. Shortly after the death of beloved Germanicus, Tiberius forced Agrippina to flee the city, leaving her son to Tiberius. The emperor trained Caligula in being an emperor and named him his heir before his death in 37 A.D. After becoming emperor Caligula did many things such as stop treason trials and call back exiled Romans, among others. But in October of 37 A.D., just 7 months after becoming Emperor, he became seriously ill. He recovered physically, but all reports say his mental state rapidly deteriorated. It’s hard to say if these reports of his craziness and perversity as emperor really happened, or were stories made by his enemies who had very good propaganda. If he found out that in today’s world we call him Caligula, he’d be shocked to the bone. During his reign he did the best he could to get rid of his past as “little boots” and to be simply “Emperor Gaius”. If his enemies are so good we still call him by their propaganda, who knows if he really was a depraved and debauched emperor, or an emperor who simply made to many enemies. He is also remembered for his building projects, which were numerous. Most of them were temples dedicated to himself as a god and palaces for him to live in, though he is also famous for building two major aqueducts that supplied a large amount of water to the city of Rome. Another less well known building project was his two Nemi Ships, giant pleasure yachts that were 70 meters long and 25 meters wide, not found and pulled to the surface after sinking until 1944. Caligula died in 41 A.D. after being knifed to death by his own bodyguards. Caligula is remembered as a debauched emperor, though we have very little knowledge of what really happened during his reign, and the information we do have is probably propaganda.
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