At first, the ruler’s aspiration to make his own power palpable affects not so much the broad masses of the people as the higher social classes, noble families, and high officials. The initial, weak beginnings are all kinds of acts of inconsiderateness (47) – and yet only weak beginnings, for with cynical delight such rulers soon seek to quash everything that can claim independent importance next to them. In Caligula, too, we can observe how he persecuted every distinction and especially every merit with his hatred (48), how he systematically sought to undercut every good reputation through disdain and mockery, how he strove to humiliate men of high position, forcing them to appear as gladiators (49) (whereby his delight at the shedding of blood naturally came into play as well), having them run behind his wagon, or serve at his table (50), or offering his foot for them to kiss (51) – the kissing of the hand was undoubtedly no longer regarded as a humiliation, but rather as an honor! He studiously mocked the ancient traditions of noble families (52) and drew on people from the lowest classes to make up his entourage. It was said that coachmen, gladiators, actors, and all manner of traveling folk were his everyday company (53), while appointed men were pushed aside (another trait one encounters often enough in the history of pathological rulers).
In official political life, Caligula surely behaved similarly with respect to the civil administration and the military.
On this issue, in particular, it is especially regrettable that the account of Tacitus that has come down to us breaks off with Caligula’s assumption of power. He would have surely recounted, with inimitable skill, what kind of harmful effect this character trait had on the entire administration of the state. Almost everything left to us by lesser writers merely conveys the external characteristics of madness: how, in the end, Caligula allegedly intended to bestow the consulship on a horse (54). The stages that led to this pinnacle of childish mockery is something we have to recreate deductively. It is not difficult, though, to imagine how the disdain of all expertise and of every authority that rested on expert training developed into this from barely perceptible beginnings.
We happen to know of only two specific manifestations that belong here. In practice, Caligula sought to entirely eliminate the science of jurisprudence, and to abolish the legal profession (55). Although this hostility to lawyers may contain a healthy kernel, namely that the existence of a professional jurisprudence conflicts with the nature of the living law, under the conditions of Roman life at the time, this thought is once again genuinely Caesarean. The other occurrence concerns the military. It would appear that a number of gladiators were, abruptly and on a mere whim, appointed officers of his personal guard (56).
(47) Among other things, it was said of Caligula that he disregarded in the extreme the well-known “civility of kings” and left large masses of people waiting without any consideration. Dio Cassius 59.13.
(48) Dio Cassius 59.27: [ . . . ] – See Suetonius 35.
(49) Dio Cassius 59.10.
(50) Suetonius 26.
(51) Dio Cassius 59.27. Seneca, De beneficiis II, 12.
(52) Suetonius 35.
(53) Dio Cassius 59.5.
(54) Dio Cassius 59.14. Suetonius 55.
(55) Suetonius 34.
(56) Suetonius 55.
print version
return to list
previous document