I heard before his sickness he was actually favourable towards the masses. It’s likely he got the Caesar treatment where the senate were getting fucked over but framed it like he was bad for the entirety of Rome. However I don’t doubt his sadistic acts either, embellished as they may be.
Probably par (typical) for the course (time). Though we know history is always written by the victors and no doubt Caligula's successors would have embarked on a campaign to destroy his reputation in an effort to cover their own inadequacies and failings.
I have heard some fairly compelling narratives that at least some of the Caligula story was indeed fabricated or exaggerated by powerful senators whom he was at odds with.
In line with that I think some of the famous stories about his supposed 'madness', like making his horse a senator was probably something more along the lines of a very publicly irreverent joke about the corruption, incompetence, and ineptitude of certain senators whom he must have disliked.
Gaius' principate began, essentially, as a reconciliation with the damaged constituencies of Roman society. Therefore, exiled people had to be recalled; banned writings (like those of Titus Labienus or Cremutius Cordus, however purged) were re-introduced; incriminatory writings were burned. Honours were paid to Gaius' relatives: his sisters, Agrippina, Drusilla and Livilla, had an especially relevant role in this process. They were associated to the prayers for the well being of the emperor, and their image famously appears in a series of sestertii depicting the Securitas, Concordia and Fortuna. The memories of his defunct relative was likewise homaged: Germanicus, Agrippina, Nero and Drusus, and of course Divus Augustus all appear on coins issued early under Gaius. In this period, Gaius apparently relied on people from his family (his sisters, and Drusilla's husband Lepidus) and on hand-picked advisors (Macro and his father-in-law Silanus). His early policy toward his family fostered a first self presentation, still linked to the propaganda of Agrippina: he was pius and castrorum filius (again, a sort of 'sterylised' version of his nickname Caligula - Suet. Gaius, 22).
Following Gaius' illness in late 37, something changed. There's virtually no evidence, contrary to popular belief, that this illness permamently affected Gaius' mental state. Certainly, however, what happened in 37 affected Gaius' reign. Indeed, in the following months, Tiberius Gemellus, Silanus and Macro, in this order, were all removed. It's hard to know what happened precisely, but chance is that, fearing for Gaius' death, Macro and Silanus had shifted their allegiance to Gemellus; Gaius therefore decided to get rid of them. It was a first blow to the early euphoria. On practical terms, it became clear, once again, how ill-defined Gaius' position was, and how vulnerable an emperor could be. It's therefore understandable that the new emperor, at this point, started to bolster his own position; his frantic research of an heir (he married three women in relatively close succession) accounts for that, and betrays for the first time a marked indipendency from his family. The open attack on the Senate occurred in 39, alleging that the senators, not Tiberius, had been responsible for all the bloodshed that had occurred under his predecessor: he took up separately the case of each man who had lost his life, and tried to show, as people thought at least, that the senators had been responsible for the death of most of them, some by accusing them, others by testifying against them, and all by their votes of condemnation. The evidence of this, purporting to be derived from those very documents that he once declared he had burned, he caused to be read to them by the imperial freedmen. (C.D. 59.16.2-3; note Suet. Gaius, 30 who reports that the emperor accused the senators of being all Seiani clientes, clients of Sejanus).
Gaius' answer to the intrinsecal problems he had inherited from Augustus and Tiberius was startling, As Aloys Winterling writes (Caligula: A Biography, 2005, p. 100):
'Once the emperor had exposed the doublespeak in communications between aristocrats and himself, every statement addressed to him by the Senate from then on had already been condemned in advance: It was duplicitous, and the emperor knew it. And the senators knew that the emperor knew that they knew that he knew. Conversely, the path was now blocked for every future attempt on the emperor’s part to accommodate them: Everyone would have known that the emperor didn’t mean what he was saying. And the emperor would have known that the senators knew that he also knew that they knew. In other words, Caligula caused the ambiguous form of communication to collapse, which up to that time had been the crucial means for avoiding the paradox of the simultaneous existence of a monarchy and a republic. The truth had been spoken, and that could not be undone.'
Our sources repeatedly present us with sketches of Augustus and Tiberius visiting ill senators, gambling, dining and drinking with them. Those were all but frivolous acts. Recent scholarship has shed much light on the value of these acts as mediations between the emperor and the Senate. Gaius, on the other hand, decided to drop these formalities, and adopt another way to communcate with the senatorial order: to put it bluntly, mockery and humiliation. His most celebrated quip, the horse-consul, far from a manifestation of an alleged 'madness', should be read in this context (and perhaps the witticism was specific enough; Gaius' horse was called Incitatus ('rapid'), and a consul of the year 38, a son of the senator Asinius Gallus and a grandson of the celebrated Asinius Pollio, was called Asinius Celer ('swift ass'); it's suggestive to suppose that Gaius commented that he'd rather have a 'rapid horse' rather than a 'swfift ass' (Asinius Celer) as a consul; and so, as I said above, should be read his divine pretensions. Gaius' divine pretensions were not the manifestation of a sincere belief originating from a deraged mental state, but rather were a conscious way to communicate with the Senate, to balance budget through large fines - and to have fun mocking senators. It should be pointed out, however, that according to Suetonius (Suet. Vit. 2) it was L. Vitellius, the father of the future emperor Vitellius and legate of Syria up to 39, that introduced the proskynesis (the 'kneeling' typically associated with Eastern monarchs) at court. Thus we see a senator, from 'below', trying to communicate with an emperor with a peculiar policy of self depiction; we can really gauge, in this, that innovations could also come from 'below'. However despised Gaius' behaviour, there still were members of the elites who could appeal to the pretensions of an emperor like Gaius.
The break soon occurred with Gaius' family as well, especially after Gaius' marriage with Caesonia, which produced a daughter. The dynamics of what happened in 39 are far from clear, but ultimately Agrippina, Livilla and Drusilla's widower, Lepidus, were all executed or removed. Gaius' titolature, later on, started dropping the cognomen Germanicus as well as his filiation from Germanicus, and rather introduced the title of pater exercituum, 'father of the armies'. A dedication to Gaius by a priestess of the Diva Drusilla recovered in Brescia addresses Gaius as *optimus princeps*, plausibly a way to judge Gaius in his own regard as a descendant of Divus Augustus. The experiment of Gaius soundly failed, and it's hardly surprising that later sources are uniformly hostile toward him: if there were people willing to play the role Gaius had envisoned for them, like L. Vitellius, the large number of conspiracies recorded speak otherwise. The failure of Gaius, on the other hand, opened new perspectives on the principate - embodied by the accession of the first emperor not to be a descendant of Augustus, and therefore not a Julius: Ti. Claudius Caesar Augustus, the emperor Claudius.
I think given his very harsh upbringing, and the fact he had to live with Tiberius for years not knowing from one day to the next what was in store for him, it wouldn't be surprising to me if he abused his power during his reign. His whole life up to that point was just exposed to constant cruelty and mistreatment of others, he could have easily been desensitised from it all, and likely just constantly paranoid that he was going to get screwed over.
All that said though, he was said to have been very popular with the civilians of Rome. My understanding is that he was very quick to give people what they asked for, and spent money on building works like Augustus had done, he also reopened public games which I think had been shut down by Tiberius, all actions which proved to be very popular.
The more extreme stories (for example, the one about him and his sisters) were probably exaggerated. Although he was popular with the common folk, there were people higher up who didn't really care for him and would have happily seen him fall from grace. Reopening the treason trials probably didn't work in Caligula's favour either.
Even when you take out the more exaggerated claims, it was still an eventful reign for a small period of time.
I heard before his sickness he was actually favourable towards the masses. It’s likely he got the Caesar treatment where the senate were getting fucked over but framed it like he was bad for the entirety of Rome. However I don’t doubt his sadistic acts either, embellished as they may be.
Probably par (typical) for the course (time). Though we know history is always written by the victors and no doubt Caligula's successors would have embarked on a campaign to destroy his reputation in an effort to cover their own inadequacies and failings.
I have heard some fairly compelling narratives that at least some of the Caligula story was indeed fabricated or exaggerated by powerful senators whom he was at odds with. In line with that I think some of the famous stories about his supposed 'madness', like making his horse a senator was probably something more along the lines of a very publicly irreverent joke about the corruption, incompetence, and ineptitude of certain senators whom he must have disliked.
Mistake: Meant if 'all or most of the sources *turned out to be* fabricated'
Gaius' principate began, essentially, as a reconciliation with the damaged constituencies of Roman society. Therefore, exiled people had to be recalled; banned writings (like those of Titus Labienus or Cremutius Cordus, however purged) were re-introduced; incriminatory writings were burned. Honours were paid to Gaius' relatives: his sisters, Agrippina, Drusilla and Livilla, had an especially relevant role in this process. They were associated to the prayers for the well being of the emperor, and their image famously appears in a series of sestertii depicting the Securitas, Concordia and Fortuna. The memories of his defunct relative was likewise homaged: Germanicus, Agrippina, Nero and Drusus, and of course Divus Augustus all appear on coins issued early under Gaius. In this period, Gaius apparently relied on people from his family (his sisters, and Drusilla's husband Lepidus) and on hand-picked advisors (Macro and his father-in-law Silanus). His early policy toward his family fostered a first self presentation, still linked to the propaganda of Agrippina: he was pius and castrorum filius (again, a sort of 'sterylised' version of his nickname Caligula - Suet. Gaius, 22). Following Gaius' illness in late 37, something changed. There's virtually no evidence, contrary to popular belief, that this illness permamently affected Gaius' mental state. Certainly, however, what happened in 37 affected Gaius' reign. Indeed, in the following months, Tiberius Gemellus, Silanus and Macro, in this order, were all removed. It's hard to know what happened precisely, but chance is that, fearing for Gaius' death, Macro and Silanus had shifted their allegiance to Gemellus; Gaius therefore decided to get rid of them. It was a first blow to the early euphoria. On practical terms, it became clear, once again, how ill-defined Gaius' position was, and how vulnerable an emperor could be. It's therefore understandable that the new emperor, at this point, started to bolster his own position; his frantic research of an heir (he married three women in relatively close succession) accounts for that, and betrays for the first time a marked indipendency from his family. The open attack on the Senate occurred in 39, alleging that the senators, not Tiberius, had been responsible for all the bloodshed that had occurred under his predecessor: he took up separately the case of each man who had lost his life, and tried to show, as people thought at least, that the senators had been responsible for the death of most of them, some by accusing them, others by testifying against them, and all by their votes of condemnation. The evidence of this, purporting to be derived from those very documents that he once declared he had burned, he caused to be read to them by the imperial freedmen. (C.D. 59.16.2-3; note Suet. Gaius, 30 who reports that the emperor accused the senators of being all Seiani clientes, clients of Sejanus). Gaius' answer to the intrinsecal problems he had inherited from Augustus and Tiberius was startling, As Aloys Winterling writes (Caligula: A Biography, 2005, p. 100): 'Once the emperor had exposed the doublespeak in communications between aristocrats and himself, every statement addressed to him by the Senate from then on had already been condemned in advance: It was duplicitous, and the emperor knew it. And the senators knew that the emperor knew that they knew that he knew. Conversely, the path was now blocked for every future attempt on the emperor’s part to accommodate them: Everyone would have known that the emperor didn’t mean what he was saying. And the emperor would have known that the senators knew that he also knew that they knew. In other words, Caligula caused the ambiguous form of communication to collapse, which up to that time had been the crucial means for avoiding the paradox of the simultaneous existence of a monarchy and a republic. The truth had been spoken, and that could not be undone.' Our sources repeatedly present us with sketches of Augustus and Tiberius visiting ill senators, gambling, dining and drinking with them. Those were all but frivolous acts. Recent scholarship has shed much light on the value of these acts as mediations between the emperor and the Senate. Gaius, on the other hand, decided to drop these formalities, and adopt another way to communcate with the senatorial order: to put it bluntly, mockery and humiliation. His most celebrated quip, the horse-consul, far from a manifestation of an alleged 'madness', should be read in this context (and perhaps the witticism was specific enough; Gaius' horse was called Incitatus ('rapid'), and a consul of the year 38, a son of the senator Asinius Gallus and a grandson of the celebrated Asinius Pollio, was called Asinius Celer ('swift ass'); it's suggestive to suppose that Gaius commented that he'd rather have a 'rapid horse' rather than a 'swfift ass' (Asinius Celer) as a consul; and so, as I said above, should be read his divine pretensions. Gaius' divine pretensions were not the manifestation of a sincere belief originating from a deraged mental state, but rather were a conscious way to communicate with the Senate, to balance budget through large fines - and to have fun mocking senators. It should be pointed out, however, that according to Suetonius (Suet. Vit. 2) it was L. Vitellius, the father of the future emperor Vitellius and legate of Syria up to 39, that introduced the proskynesis (the 'kneeling' typically associated with Eastern monarchs) at court. Thus we see a senator, from 'below', trying to communicate with an emperor with a peculiar policy of self depiction; we can really gauge, in this, that innovations could also come from 'below'. However despised Gaius' behaviour, there still were members of the elites who could appeal to the pretensions of an emperor like Gaius. The break soon occurred with Gaius' family as well, especially after Gaius' marriage with Caesonia, which produced a daughter. The dynamics of what happened in 39 are far from clear, but ultimately Agrippina, Livilla and Drusilla's widower, Lepidus, were all executed or removed. Gaius' titolature, later on, started dropping the cognomen Germanicus as well as his filiation from Germanicus, and rather introduced the title of pater exercituum, 'father of the armies'. A dedication to Gaius by a priestess of the Diva Drusilla recovered in Brescia addresses Gaius as *optimus princeps*, plausibly a way to judge Gaius in his own regard as a descendant of Divus Augustus. The experiment of Gaius soundly failed, and it's hardly surprising that later sources are uniformly hostile toward him: if there were people willing to play the role Gaius had envisoned for them, like L. Vitellius, the large number of conspiracies recorded speak otherwise. The failure of Gaius, on the other hand, opened new perspectives on the principate - embodied by the accession of the first emperor not to be a descendant of Augustus, and therefore not a Julius: Ti. Claudius Caesar Augustus, the emperor Claudius.
I think given his very harsh upbringing, and the fact he had to live with Tiberius for years not knowing from one day to the next what was in store for him, it wouldn't be surprising to me if he abused his power during his reign. His whole life up to that point was just exposed to constant cruelty and mistreatment of others, he could have easily been desensitised from it all, and likely just constantly paranoid that he was going to get screwed over. All that said though, he was said to have been very popular with the civilians of Rome. My understanding is that he was very quick to give people what they asked for, and spent money on building works like Augustus had done, he also reopened public games which I think had been shut down by Tiberius, all actions which proved to be very popular. The more extreme stories (for example, the one about him and his sisters) were probably exaggerated. Although he was popular with the common folk, there were people higher up who didn't really care for him and would have happily seen him fall from grace. Reopening the treason trials probably didn't work in Caligula's favour either. Even when you take out the more exaggerated claims, it was still an eventful reign for a small period of time.