Caligula, not so bad actually

He only reigned for four years, between 37 and 41, and was cut to pieces by the Praetorian Guard when he was 29. His successor, his uncle the Emperor Claudius, tried to erase his memory by melting coins, beheading statues, reversing his laws.

But it is clear that he did not succeed.

If there is a name that resonates today since Roman antiquity, as a synonym of depravity, but also of the fascination for power, that is Caligula, a nickname by which he hated to be known, which made reference to legionary sandals that he wore as a child.

His name was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus and he was the third Roman emperor.

The Australian historian and writer Stephen Dando-Collins just published

Caligula.

The Mad Emperor of Rome

(La Esfera de los Libros, translated by Gonzalo Quesada), a detailed biography that tries to demystify some of the legends of endless evil that circulate around the emperor.

His conclusion is that some are false, such as that he turned his palace into a brothel in which he forced noblewomen to prostitute themselves or that he slept with his three sisters;

but many others are true, especially the heinous cruelties and capricious murders attributed to him.

However, that did not differentiate him from the rest of the Roman emperors, even from what are much better known as Marcus Aurelius, responsible for the worst persecutions of Christians.

"Having researched and written about Caligula in various other books over the past decades, I knew what the most reliable and informative historical sources were," explains Dando-Collins (Launceston, Tasmania, age 70), author of numerous essays, including a valuable and informative account of the fire of Rome in the time of Nero,

Burning Rome

(Peninsula), quite demystifying.

“Unfortunately, to this day, some historians and biographers have approached Caligula with a fixed and contemptuous view of the young emperor as 'crazy' and 'bad' since his birth.

I set out to present a much more three-dimensional view of Caligula.

His relatives were murdered, and he lived under the threat of suffering the same fate for years.

To complicate matters, he was forced to live with his pedophile great-uncle Tiberius.

Readers have expressed some sympathy for Caligula, once they realized his terrified childhood, and because he probably suffered from bipolar disorder starting in his 20s. "

• Return to the abode of Nero

• Compulsive killer

• "Trump, like Caligula, bases his regime on the fun of humiliation"

He never made his favorite horse consul, though he did threaten to do so to humiliate the Senate, and Dando-Collins also does not believe he killed his pregnant sister Drusilla, ripping the baby from her womb while she was still alive.

They do attribute atrocities to him committed in a time of bloodthirsty tyrants.

For example, when he came to power, he publicly burned all the complaints that had come against his family in the time of Tiberius, an act that the people applauded.

In fact, he hid them to use them a few months later, murder everyone who appeared in them and keep their possessions.

His humor was capricious and sadistic, he was a megalomaniac with a huge ego, always open to praise and allergic to criticism and anyone who was close to him could risk his life.

But then again, there was not much difference to most of the earlier and later emperors either.

A phrase attributed to him reflects his way of governing: "Let them hate me, as long as they fear me."

The fascination for Caligula has also been reflected in archeology.

The New York Times

reported this week that, if the pandemic allows it, the Nymphaeum Museum in Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele in Rome will open to the public in spring, which recovers objects related to the emperor, as well as the few remains of his favorite private park , the Gardens of Lamiano.

Precisely, on the occasion of this publication, the great Latinist, Cambridge professor and author of books such as

SPQR

, Mary Beard, who directed a documentary on Caligula in 2013 that can be seen on Filmin, entered the debate through the social network Twitter: “There is a very strong correlation between Roman emperors who are monsters and those who are killed.

It is a subject of the book that I am writing.

It does not mean that Caligula was a charm (that mistake is made often).

It means that his posthumous reputation tells you nothing. "

Some great authors of antiquity, Suetonius, Tacitus, Dio Cassius, Seneca, Flavius ​​Josephus or Philo of Alexandria, wrote about Caligula, some as witnesses to the events and others from hearsay, years or decades later.

Especially Suetonius and Tacitus, who established their convenient bad reputation when the Antonine dynasty already reigned in Rome.

No contemporary work has had as much influence on our view of the Julio-Claudians, and Caligula's sadism, as

Robert Graves's

Yo, Claudio

, and the BBC television series based on this novel.

Despite being written by Gore Vidal, the 1979 film directed by Tinto Brass and produced by the

Penthouse

editor

turned him into a character in soft porn and did not help the historical rigor much.

Dando-Collins tries to navigate in the midst of this confusing variety of sources and legends to build, also using the latest archaeological discoveries, a complex character, a murderer, no doubt, but also a victim: his family was mercilessly persecuted by Tiberius - in this In any case, there is no debate among historians about the cruel, degenerate, repulsive, and lethal character of the second Roman emperor - who was jealous of his father, the successful and very popular General Germanicus, and Caligula spent his entire childhood fearing for his life and subjected to all kinds of sexual abuse.

"Even Suetonius tells us that at the age of 14 Caligula showed an 'exemplary' and 'obedient' behavior, since he tried throughout his childhood and adolescence to avoid being killed like his parents and older brothers for being a threat to the emperor," he says. Dando-Collins.

And Caligula was not a fan of sex.

He was forced by his grandfather Tiberio to do homosexual threesomes as a teenager, but there is no record that he has participated in orgies at any time in his life.

Nor do claims that he had sex with his sisters stand up to scrutiny.

He ordered the wives of several senators to have sex with him, to humiliate their husbands.

But once he got married, he was faithful to his wife, whom he seems to have loved very much. "

In the end, the fascination for Caligula hides the irresistible attraction for evil, but also for power.

As Mary Beard says in her documentary: “In Caligula's story, all the elements of tyranny as we currently conceive it come together for the first time.

And that is perhaps why he left such a deep mark on our world.

For two thousand years it has forced us to reflect on power and its abuses ”.

Caligula and Trump

The third Roman emperor has always been in fashion, but in the last four years it has been especially topical due to the presence in the White House of a megalomaniac, egotistical, capricious and, as we have seen after the assault on the Capitol, dangerous.

So many authors have compared Donald Trump to Caligula - historian Tom Holland, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, journalist Michael Wolf - that Dando-Collins dedicates the last chapter of his book to the matter.

“It was the number of commentators around the world who compared Donald Trump to Caligula that, in part, inspired me to embark on this biography.

Some of the comparisons hold up, some do not.

I also suggested that, like Caligula, Trump would only last four years in office before some close people turned against him, as has turned out to be the case. "