Caligula

by Aloys Winterling

  If Tacitus is to be believed, Agrippina was in fact scheming to hasten her sons’—and hence her own — rise to power. If so, she would have represented a real threat to the emperor. The problem cannot be reduced to the individuals involved, however, since it was structural in nature. A very high degree of skill was required — not just of the emperor in his political role, but also of the members of his family — to master the extremely complex relationships among them, which clearly involved mistrust and intrigue. In the end it is hardly surprising that most of them would prove unequal to the task. Caligula himself represented an exception in this respect, as time would show.

  The next victim was his eldest brother, Nero, who had become the leading candidate for the throne after the death of Drusus (II). A marriage had been arranged for Nero with his cousin Julia, who was Drusus’s daughter and thus a granddaughter of Tiberius. The household he thus acquired seems to have been instrumental in his downfall. “In spite of the modesty of his youth”—thus Tacitus characterizes the syndrome of inadequacy described above — Nero “too often forgot what the times demanded” (Tac. Ann. 4.59.3). Tacitus reports further that Nero’s freedmen and clients were hoping to gain influence themselves if he became emperor, so they urged him to show vigor and confidence. The people and the army were behind him, they said, and Sejanus, who was now exploiting the trust of the aging emperor, would not dare to make a move against him. The Praetorian prefect had covert informants placed in Nero’s house, however, and they carried any incautious remark elicited from Nero straight to Sejanus and the emperor. Nero was not even safe at night, for whether he was awake, or slept, or sighed, his wife, Julia, supposedly told her mother, Livilla, about it, and she passed the information on to her lover Sejanus. For his part Sejanus now fed the feelings of rivalry and envy in Nero’s brother Drusus (III), whom he won over and encouraged in his hopes for the throne. The time was ripe in the year 27, when Nero was twenty-one and Tiberius already settled on Capri: Agrippina and her eldest son were placed under arrest. Soldiers were assigned to guard them; to watch over all their activities and contacts, including the letters and visitors they received; and to report everything they said.

  These events, to which the fourteen-year-old Caligula was an immediate witness, meant that a new home had to be found for him and his two young sisters, Drusilla and Livilla. (Their sister Agrippina married shortly thereafter.) The three children moved into the house of their great-grandmother, Livia, the widow of Augustus who as grande dame kept up associations with many aristocrats and had a corresponding degree of influence.

  She is supposed to have intervened to prevent Agrippina and Nero from being placed on trial and condemned. She died two years later, at the age of eighty-six, and Caligula appeared in public on that occasion and delivered her funeral oration. Once again it was necessary for Germanicus’s children to seek a new home. In the year 29 Caligula and his sisters moved to the house of their grandmother Antonia Minor, the other grande dame in Rome during that era. Antonia was well connected not only in Rome, but also in the East. Through her father, Marcus Antonius, and his relationship with Cleopatra, she had ties to several rulers there, who functioned as “client kings” of Rome, and their families. Several princes were also living in Antonia’s house at the time and got to know Caligula; later on the relationship would stand them in good stead.

  Caligula’s stay in Antonia’s house was destined to last only two years. During this period — as Sejanus’s power was approaching its peak — the final downfall of his mother and eldest brother occurred. The emperor himself had written a letter accusing them of various crimes. Because of a gap in Tacitus’s Annals and the abbreviated accounts of Suetonius and Cassius Dio, their trial before the Senate cannot be reconstructed in detail. But if we do not know which senators aided Sejanus in instigating it, we do know its outcome: Nero was declared hostis, an enemy of the Roman polity, and banished to the island of Pontia; Agrippina was exiled to the island of Pandateria. The circumstances of Nero’s death on Pontia — probably in the year 30—remain unclear; he may have been starved to death or have killed himself, possibly driven to suicide because he believed he was about to be executed: Suetonius reports that an executioner was sent to Nero to show him the noose and hooks.

  In that same year Caligula’s brother Drusus (III), who stood next in succession to the throne, came under attack from Sejanus and his minions. Like Nero he was accused of conspiring against the emperor. For years agents had shadowed and eavesdropped on him as well, activities in which his wife, Aemilia Lepida, is said to have played an important role. Caligula, at that time seventeen or eighteen years old, witnessed how Drusus was thrown into a dungeon on the Palatine Hill, from which he would never emerge. Not much later he too was declared a hostis; in his trial the senator Lucius Cassius Longinus served as prosecutor, a role that earned him Sejanus’s goodwill.

  There is little reason to doubt what the sources say about how the members of Germanicus’s family were eliminated. In part the authors based their accounts on sessions of the Senate, for which minutes were available to them. The violent deaths of Caligula’s mother and brothers are thus firmly established. It is unclear, however, what was going through Tiberius’s mind in those years. Suetonius asserts in hindsight that Tiberius had planned to kill the members of Germanicus’s family from the start and simply used Sejanus to carry out his will. This claim attempts to explain the brutality of their deaths, but it is not very plausible. According to Cassius Dio, people had concluded Tiberius was mad, because he ultimately brought up the details of their deaths before the Senate, giving himself away completely. It must be assumed that the emperor had lost a sense of reality as he suffered constant fear for his own safety; the fear was actually heightened by his withdrawal from Rome and the influence, on Capri, exerted by his immediate environment, which Sejanus was controlling. In Rome fear must have been the dominant emotion in the Senate as well, for otherwise it is impossible to explain the senators’ reaction to the detailed reports about how Agrippina, Nero, and Drusus were spied upon: Although in fact they were appalled at the emperor’s behavior, as Tacitus reports, they pretended that what horrified them was the supposed enmity within the imperial family.

  It took no great skill for Romans to figure out who was next in line, and accounts exist of several attempts to eliminate Caligula, too. Later, after the fall of Sejanus, several senators were prosecuted for attempting crimes of this kind. Sextius Paconianus was alleged to have helped the Praetorian prefect to organize an intrigue against Caligula. Cotta Messalinus and a close confidant of Tiberius named Sextus Vistilius were accused of having spread rumors about his dissolute morals. (Allegations of sexual misconduct had also played a role in the case against Nero.) Everything suggested then that Caligula would soon be placed on trial as well, but things took an unexpected turn.

  CAPRI AND THE PATH TO THE THRONE

  Toward the end of the year 30, that is to say before the dramatic downfall of Sejanus the following October, described above, Tiberius summoned the eighteen-year-old Caligula to Capri. Only now was he granted the toga virilis, the formal sign identifying him as an adult. The man’s toga suggested that the emperor was considering him as a possible successor. But what were the aging emperor’s real intentions for him? Evidence suggests that at first Caligula had a different role to play. The purpose of the young man’s presence on Capri was to make the emperor safer: In effect his status closely resembled that of a hostage.

  Several events at this time indicate that in dynastic terms the prestige of Germanicus’s sons remained high or had even risen because people felt pity for them. When the Senate took action against Agrippina and Nero, a rebellious crowd had surrounded the Curia, where the senators were in session, carrying pictures of both and demanding that they be spared. And during the planning for the overthrow of Sejanus, Macro had instructions that if the action failed, he was to fetch Drusus from his dungeon and present him to the people. The idea was that if the need ar
ose they might be able to exploit Drusus’s popularity in order to shift power back to their side. Finally, it is also reported that the mood in Rome turned against Sejanus and the prefect gave up his plans for a coup the moment that Caligula was summoned to Capri and appeared to be gaining in favor with the emperor. Taking into his household the remaining son of Germanicus, on whom no suspicion had as yet been cast, was a clever tactical move on Tiberius’s part — or on the part of his new strongman, Macro. Caligula’s popularity could help to stabilize the emperor’s own position, and bringing him to Capri would deprive others of the opportunity to make him their instrument.

  A new phase of life began for Caligula, but one that was no less dangerous than before. From now on he had to live close to Tiberius, the man responsible for sending his mother into exile, imprisoning his brother Nero, and killing Drusus. The emperor’s attitude toward Caligula must have been ambivalent at best. Without doubt the people closest to the emperor were hostile toward Caligula, and most of them had played more or less leading roles in the proceedings against the other members of his family. For them the prospect of Caligula’s accession to the throne must have looked ominous. One man in this circle, Aulus Avillius Flaccus by name, is described as enjoying the confidence of both the emperor and Macro; beginning in the year 32 he would become governor of Egypt, one of the highest positions available to a knight. He and several other men envisioned an alternative solution to the succession: Tiberius had a biological grandson, Tiberius Gemellus, from the marriage of his son Drusus (II). The boy, also on Capri at the time, was only twelve years old in the year 31, but because the emperor was showing no signs of infirmity, Gemellus presented a realistic and considerably better option for the future to Flaccus and his associates. Under such circumstances Caligula’s own fate must have looked uncertain, and it is reasonable to assume that his actions were dominated by one motive — to survive. His position would remain precarious for six more years, until his actual elevation to the throne in the year 37 put a temporary halt to the threats.

  At first the situation on Capri must have been overshadowed by events in Rome, where as a result of Sejanus’s downfall the trials and executions for treason were reaching a peak among the aristocracy. The death of Sejanus had no positive effects at all on Caligula’s family, however. His brother Drusus (III) starved to death in his prison on the Palatine in the year 33, reportedly after trying to eat the hay used as stuffing in his mattress. The circumstances of his death became known because Tiberius wanted to justify his treatment of Drusus to the Senate and therefore ordered the reports of the spies in Drusus’s household and of his prison guards to be read aloud. It emerged from the accounts that Augustus’s great-grandson had been beaten by slaves after begging for food and attempting to leave his cell, and that at the end, although weakened to the point of apathy, he had uttered dreadful curses against Tiberius. Agrippina died that same year, a suicide according to the official version, although people suspected that she too had been starved. How did Caligula react to the deaths of his mother and second brother and Tiberius’s responsibility for them?

  Tacitus reports: Caligula’s “monstrous character was masked by a hypocritical modesty: Not a word escaped him at the sentencing of his mother or the destruction of his brothers; whatever the mood assumed for the day by Tiberius, the attitude of his grandson was the same, and his words not greatly different” (Ann. 6.20.1). Suetonius’s account is similar: “Although at Capri every kind of wile was resorted to by those who tried to lure him or force him to utter complaints, he never gave them any satisfaction, ignoring the ruin of his kindred as if nothing at all had happened, passing over his own ill treatment with an incredible pretense of indifference, and so obsequious toward his grandfather and his household that it was well said of him that no one had ever been a better slave or a worse master” (Suet. Cal. 10.2).

  Here it is necessary to distinguish between factual information and moral value judgments in the accounts written after Caligula’s death. Above all it is essential to be clear about the character of these judgments. Tacitus, in no uncertain terms, condemned the fearful hypocrisy and submissiveness displayed toward the emperor by even the highest-ranking and most powerful members of the aristocracy. And we know that Caligula’s mother and brothers had been brought down by their own incautious comments about Tiberius, passed on by spies placed in their households. Yet despite this state of affairs Tacitus demands from the nineteen-year-old Caligula a forthrightness and sincerity that would have been extremely foolish and would certainly have cost him his life.

  If we leave aside the double moral standard, what remains is this: In contrast to his mother, his brothers, and other members of the imperial family in the preceding years, and in spite of the emperor’s unpredictability and the open hostility of people around him, Caligula managed to maintain his position. The price he paid for this was to control his own feelings and to play a part in front of Tiberius. He possessed an advantage, however. Philo of Alexandria, who, as the leader of a Jewish delegation, met Caligula twice, described it. Although Philo mostly heaped abuse on Caligula in hate-filled tirades, in this passage, inconsistently with his usual antipathy, he reports that Caligula “was skilled in discerning a man’s secret wishes and feelings from his open countenance” (Phil. Leg. 263).

  The degree of danger posed by the situation on Capri is demonstrated vividly by two episodes. One involves Julius Agrippa, a grandson of Herod the Great who had grown up in the house of Antonia Minor in Rome. In the year 36 he received permission to visit Tiberius. He was asked to accompany Gemellus, the emperor’s grandson, on his excursions, but instead began spending time with Caligula, whose favor he hoped to win. When they had become better acquainted and were out for a drive one day, Agrippa expressed the wish that Tiberius would make way for Caligula on the throne as soon as possible, since the young man was so much worthier of it. The driver of the carriage, a freedman of Agrippa’s, overheard the remark, and when he was accused of stealing some clothing a little later, he reported it to the emperor, citing Agrippa’s exact words: “I hope that the day will at length arrive when this old man will leave the scene and appoint you ruler of the world. For his grandson Tiberius would by no means stand in our way, since you would put him to death. The world would then know bliss, and I above all” (Jos. Ant. 18.187). Tiberius believed the man, and the prince, despite his purple robes, was arrested on the spot and led away in chains. For Caligula, who had not allowed himself to be drawn out even in a very private setting, the episode had no repercussions.

  Another instance of the dangers of Capri involved Tiberius’s favorite companions, for, according to reports, he most enjoyed the society of Greek philosophers, grammarians, poets, and astrologers. At meals he would carry on learned conversations with them, raising questions that had occurred to him in his daily reading. As could be expected, given that he was not simply another scholar but the emperor of Rome, there was naturally great competition for his favor. Gaining it could mean fame and riches, but the pursuit was also dangerous, as the companions vying for it used every means at their disposal. Suetonius writes that the grammarian Seleucus inquired of the emperor’s servants what their master was reading, so that with advance preparation he could dazzle Tiberius with his knowledge. Unfortunately, he seems to have overdone it. The emperor, already weary of the opportunistic behavior of aristocrats in Rome, detested it even more in his inner circle on Capri, so when his suspicions were aroused he looked into the matter. Seleucus was banned from his daily company and later forced to commit suicide.

  Caligula apparently had more success when he took part in the learned discussions on Capri. We are told that he had a profound knowledge of the works with which educated men of the day were expected to be familiar. Josephus writes that “he was, moreover, a first-rate orator, deeply versed in the Greek and Latin languages. He knew how to reply impromptu to speeches that others had composed after long preparation, and to show himself instantly more persuasive than an
yone else, even where the greatest matters were debated. All this resulted from a natural aptitude for such things and from his adding to that aptitude the practice of taking elaborate pains to strengthen it.” There is no question that he had enjoyed a good education from his earliest years. As was customary in aristocratic families, Caligula probably received instruction from tutors, who were usually Greek slaves or freedmen. He may have been influenced by the reported interest of his father, Germanicus, in scholarship and literature, or perhaps his interest was spurred by his journeys as a child to the centers of ancient learning in Greece and Egypt. It appears that he also made use of his time on Capri to further his studies. According to Josephus again: “Being the grandson of the brother of Tiberius… he was under a great compulsion to apply himself to education, because Tiberius himself also had conspicuously succeeded in attaining the highest place in it. Gaius followed him in his attachment to such noble pursuits, yielding to the injunctions of a man who was both his kinsman and his commander-in-chief” (Jos. Ant. 19.208–9).