Caligula

An Unexpected General

Lee Fratantuono

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781526711205
• eBook ISBN: 9781526711229
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

Gaius Caligula reigned for four short years from 37 to 41 CE before his infamous tenure came to a violent end. While much has been written about Caligulas notorious excesses and court life, relatively little of his military and foreign policy has been seriously studied.This is a military history of Rome during Caligulas reign. Caligula had been raised in a military camp (his nickname, Caligula, means Little Boot. His years as emperor came in the wake of the great consolidation of Tiberius gains in Germany and Pannonia, and in large part made possible the invasions of Gaul and Britain that were undertaken by his uncle and successor, Claudius. His expeditions in Gaul were part of a program of imitation of his storied predecessor, and crowning completion of what had been left undone in the relatively conservative military policy years of Augustus and Tiberius.Caligula: An Unexpected General offers a new appraisal of Caligula as a surprisingly competent military strategist, arguing that his achievements helped to secure Roman military power in Europe for a generation.

Chapter One

The Life of Caligula by Suetonius, Part I (Caligula the Princeps)

We would be much the poorer in our study of the emperor Caligula if we did not have access to the biography written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (‘Suetonius’).1 Born in c. AD 70, Suetonius is perhaps most famous today as the author of a set of a dozen imperial biographies known as the De Vita Caesarum or (as it is commonly known in English) ‘Lives of the Caesars’. The lives of the twelve Caesars were likely composed early in the second century AD; all of them survive intact, except for the opening chapters of the first (on Gaius Julius Caesar).2 If one wanted to name the principal primary source that survives from antiquity for the life and reign of Caligula, one might reasonably be tempted to cite Suetonius’ life – though, as we shall see, the biography must be used with even more of the caution and circumspection that ancient biography and historiography always demand.3 At the very least, Suetonius provides the only surviving complete narrative of the emperor’s life.4 It is a challenging source, not least for the lack of ready chronology and convenient timeline, and the relative lack of information about source material and source criticism. But together with surviving material from the monumental Roman history of Dio Cassius, it constitutes the major extant evidence for the short reign of the unforgettable Gaius.5 Indeed, of the Julio-Claudian emperors it is Caligula who has fared the worst in terms of ancient testaments to his life and reign.

We shall proceed first through the first twenty-one chapters of Suetonius’ life, chapters in which the biographer purports to describe Caligula the princeps as opposed to Caligula the monstrum.6 These chapters offer something of a survey of the accomplishments of Caligula as emperor that may be considered positive or at least neutral in import; there are shades of the monster to come, but on the whole these are calm and even happy remembrances of a brief period after the death of Tiberius. The early section of Suetonius’ life is as much impressionistic as anything else; it gives both highly specific details of the emperor’s biography, and general commentary and reflection on both his character and the times. It provides a résumé of accomplishments that on the whole might be considered not undistinguished, given the short tenure of Caligula’s reign.

The first six chapters of Suetonius’ life of Caligula, however, are devoted not to its subject, but to commentary on and praise of the future emperor’s father, the celebrated hero Germanicus. Born Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus in 15 or 16 BC, he was known as Julius Caesar Germanicus after his adoption by his uncle Tiberius in AD 4.7 Germanicus was the son of Tiberius’ brother Drusus the Elder, who had died in the summer of 9 BC.8

One might succumb easily enough to the impression that Suetonius deliberately opens his life of Caligula with an extended praise of Germanicus principally to heighten the contrast between the father and the son. The laudatory treatment of Caligula’s storied father sets the stage for the biographer’s treatment of the child who would be most famous (or infamous) – the emperor Caligula. Germanicus was married to Agrippina, the daughter of the emperor Augustus’ dear friend Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and his wife Julia (the daughter of Augustus). The surviving children of the union were the daughters Agrippina (the Younger), Drusilla and Livilla, and the sons Nero, Drusus and Gaius.

Suetonius reminds his readers that when Augustus died and the legions refused to accept Tiberius as his successor, it was Germanicus who compelled them to maintain their allegiance, even after he was offered their support in assuming power himself.` The narrative is clear: any future persecution of the family of Germanicus by Tiberius constituted a supreme act of ingratitude and simple bad manners. Germanicus would be dead at 34 of suspected poisoning while in the East; Tiberius was suspected of involvement in the whole affair.

Suetonius notes that two of Agrippina’s children died in infancy, while another – a son – died just as he was ‘beginning to become a boy’ (Latin puerascens – a very rare word). This son was the subject of a Cupid statue that Livia is said to have dedicated in the temple of the Capitoline Venus; Augustus, for his part, is said to have had a statue of the boy that he would kiss whenever he entered the room.9 It is thought that this mysterious boy must have been born in AD 11, only to die sometime in the year of his brother Caligula’s birth – a haunting case, at any rate, of how one could imagine what might have been had this older brother of the future monster survived.

From Suetonius, we learn that Gaius was born on the thirty-first day of August, AD 12, the son of a consul. Suetonius is certain of the date; he notes that the surviving sources give conflicting testimony as to the birthplace – he settles on Antium, the modern Anzio in Latium.10 Caligula’s real name at birth was Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus.11

Suetonius engages in careful historical source criticism for the question of Caligula’s birthplace, noting that Gnaeus Lentulus Gaetulicus put it at Tibur, and Pliny the Younger among the Treviri in Germania (cf. modern Trier). He also cites the evidence of a letter of Augustus to Agrippina that speaks of Caligula being sent from Rome to Germany when he was not yet 2. Antium is the site that Suetonius settles on for the natal place of the future emperor, noting that once he was in the imperial purple, he even thought of transferring the capital to Antium, and that he always preferred the locale to any other for retreat and rejuvenation.12

Gaius was born a little less than two years, then, before the death of Augustus in AD 14. His eventual successor – his uncle Claudius, Germanicus’ brother – was born in 10 BC. Rome’s first four emperors were thus all alive between AD 12-14 – a remarkable circumstance. All were members of the so-called Julio-Claudian dynasty, which could fairly be called the first ruling family of the Roman Empire.

It is beyond the scope of this study of Caligula to examine the vast problem of the transition from a Roman Republic to an Empire – but suffice to say that a major problem of the Age of Augustus was the question of who would succeed the great saviour of Rome in his capacity as princeps, or ‘first citizen’. By AD 12, it was clear that the successor would be Tiberius. Less certain was what would happen in the event of Tiberius’ death (and we do well to remember that he was born in 43 BC and was thus already somewhat advanced in age by the standards of the times). Germanicus was an obvious enough candidate, especially given his immense popularity and skilled competence in military affairs. Augustus had had enormous difficulties in securing a reliable succession plan; his decision to compel Tiberius to adopt Germanicus was seen as a sign of great trust and confidence in the young man. If late Augustan, early Tiberian Rome had a celebrity, is was Germanicus. It is not difficult to imagine that Germanicus’ popularity engendered a serious resentment and jealousy in Tiberius. Indeed, perhaps Germanicus was too popular for his own good.

For Gaius’ noble father would die under mysterious circumstances in Syria in October of AD 19, when his son was but 7 years of age.13 He died near Antioch, convinced to his dying breath that the emperor’s friend, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, had poisoned him. Piso had certainly been appointed governor in Syria as a means of controlling Germanicus; two men of more opposite temperament likely could not be found. Piso would be prosecuted for maiestas, or treason, if not the death of Germanicus, though he committed suicide before the end of his trial, to the end declaring both his lack of culpability for the death and his loyalty to Tiberius.14

If anything, the early life of Gaius was inextricably associated with the soldiers his father commanded. To that childhood (indeed infancy) association with the common soldiery Gaius owed the nickname by which he is today best known: Caligula. The caliga was a half-boot that was worn by Roman soldiers; the name ‘Caligula’ is the diminutive of caliga and thus means ‘Little Boot’ or bootikin.15 We may well assume that Agrippina dressed her infant in a miniature army outfit; the child was the virtual mascot and certain darling of his father’s troops.16 Indeed, we are told by Suetonius that after the death of Augustus, when the soldiers in Germany were contemplating mutinous revolt, it was the mere sight of baby Caligula which calmed them. The infant had been spirited off from camp to save him from any threat of harm from the rebellious soldiers; the mere thought that anyone would think that they could harm the little boy was enough to quell the disturbance and reduce them to contrition and repentance.17

The tradition developed that Caligula was virtually (if not actually) born ‘in camp’ with the army. The story about the rebellion of the soldiers and the flight of Agrippina and Caligula is told by the great Roman historian Tacitus in his Annales, or annals of imperial Rome.18 Tacitus states plainly that Caligula was born in castris, or ‘in camp’; this tradition was also recalled in verses of ‘poetry’ (not to say doggerel) that Suetonius preserves that refer to the fitting birth of the future emperor in the camp of the army.19 Of the first three emperors of Rome, Caligula certainly had the most ‘military’ upbringing, given both the nature of the times and his father’s career. He travelled with his family to Syria for his father’s ill-fated appointment there; by the time he was 7, he had seen more of the Roman world than either of his predecessors at the same age. It is not the purpose of the present work to offer a psychological study of the future emperor – but there can be little doubt that the dramatic circumstances occasioned by Germanicus’ life made a formative impression on him.

After the death of his father, Suetonius records that the young Caligula lived first with his mother Agrippina and then, after her exile, with his great-grandmother Livia, the widow of Augustus.20 Livia was destined to live until 28 September AD 29, a long fifteen years after the death of her great husband, and an annoying, uncomfortably protracted tenure into the reign of her son Tiberius. Suetonius notes that Caligula gave the funeral oration for Livia; he was then but 17 years old, and not yet of age. This is a decade that in some sense could be called a lost one in the short life of Gaius; we know precious little about what happened to him between the autumns of AD 19-29, formative years of his life to be sure. After Livia’s death, he was assigned to the care of his grandmother Antonia Minor, the younger daughter of Mark Antony; he remained with her until he was summoned by the emperor to his more or less permanent retreat at Capreae, likely sometime after late AD 30.21 Antonia would play a significant role in ensuring the safety of the young Caligula in dangerous times (especially given the rise of Tiberius’ disreputable associate Sejanus). Less certain is whether she lived to regret any efforts expended on his behalf.

For the first ten chapters of Suetonius’ life of Caligula, though, there is no hint of the reputation of the ‘monster’ for which the emperor would later be notorious. This changes in the eleventh chapter, when the biographer indicates that even then (that is, at a young age) there were signs of depravity. Caligula is charged with being an eager witness to torture and execution. He is accused of gluttony and adultery (the latter while disguised in a wig and a long robe).22 He was fond of the theatrical world of dancing and singing – activities that were held in suspicion by upper-class Romans, and in which Suetonius says that Tiberius permitted Caligula to indulge, in the hope that they would mollify his savage, cruel nature.23 It would appear likely, however, that Tiberius had no real hope that Caligula could be rehabilitated; Suetonius credits the old emperor with the quip that he was nurturing a viper for the Roman people, and a Phaëthon for the world.

Phäethon in classical mythology was the son of the Sun, a solar child whose doom was guaranteed when he visited his father to demand some token of his paternity. Given the chance to have any wish he craved, he desired to drive the chariot of the sun for but one day – a wish that spelled fiery ruin for the world, and, eventually, Phaëthon’s own death when Jupiter ended the disastrous ride with a timely thunderbolt.24

In Tiberius’ sentiments, we may see something of a desire to improve his own reputation by a deterior comparison with what would follow him. If Tiberius worried about being hated and about his pos...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Chapter One: The Life of Caligula by Suetonius, Part I (Caligula the Princeps)
• Chapter Two: The Life of Caligula by Suetonius, Part II (Caligula the Monstrum)
• Chapter Three: The Evidence of Dio Cassius for the Life and Reign of Caligula
• Chapter Four: Tacitus on Caligula
• Chapter Five: Josephus on Caligula
• Chapter Six: The Evidence of Philo’s De Legatione ad Gaium
• Chapter Seven: The Evidence of Philo’s In Flaccum
• Chapter Eight: The Evidence of Seneca the Younger
• Chapter Nine: The Evidence of Pliny the Elder
• Chapter Ten: The Evidence of the Fragmentary Roman Historians and Additional Sources
• Chapter Eleven: Towards a Reconstruction of the Caligulan Reign
• Chapter Twelve: Assessing the Foreign Policy of the Princeps
• Conclusions
• Endnotes
• Bibliography and Further Reading
• Plate section