50 pages • 1 hour read
SuetoniusThe Twelve Caesars
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 121A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
CaligulaChapter Summaries & Analyses
Sections 1-10 Summary
Caligula was the son of Augustus’s granddaughter, Agrippina the Elder, and Germanicus, Tiberius’s nephew. Germanicus was extremely popular and had such a promising career as a general that Augustus made Tiberius adopt him as his son with the intention that Germanicus would succeed Tiberius in time. Suetonius explains how Caligula became known as “Caligula” rather than his birth name Gaius. The name is a diminutive form of caliga, which were soldiers’ boots—as a child, Gaius wore a miniature version of a soldier’s uniform. As he grew older and his mother and brothers were imprisoned and killed, Tiberius had Caligula live with him on Capri, where Caligula had to avoid being tricked into making treasonous comments against Tiberius.
Sections 11-12 Summary
Suetonius claims that Caligula had a vicious and decadent personality from the start. Allegedly Tiberius would remark “that he was rearing a viper for the Roman people” (Section 11). Caligula married Junia Claudilla. After she died in childbirth, Caligula had an affair with Ennia Naevia, the praetorian prefect Macro’s wife. With their support, he may have, according to one rumor, poisoned Tiberius and smothered him with a pillow.
Sections 13-21 Summary
Caligula became emperor to great public acclaim, and the Senate ignored the provision in Tiberius’s will that named Gemellus co-emperor. He won public support by loosening censorship, giving more autonomy to the magistrates, reducing taxes, and restoring elections, among other things. He also instituted public games, which Tiberius had ignored.
Sections 22-56 Summary
Suetonius writes, “The story so far has been of Caligula the emperor, the rest must be of Caligula the monster” (Section 22). Suetonius calls attention to Caligula’s paranoia and cruelty, which resulted in various members of the Senate being tortured and killed. Suetonius also alleges that Caligula had incestuous relationships with all of his sisters, and he required his soldiers to swear by the emperor and his sisters, especially his most beloved sister, Drusilla. Caligula claimed he was a living god who must be worshipped, though Suetonius describes him as someone “who had so little respect for the gods” (Section 51).
Sections 57-60 Summary
After numerous omens, Caligula, his wife Caesonia, and their daughter Julia Drusilla were killed in a conspiracy led by Cassius Chaerea, a member of the praetorian guard.
“Caligula” Analysis
For centuries historians have accepted the portrayal of Caligula (12 CE-41 CE) given by Suetonius and other ancient sources. However, modern historians have questioned the accuracy of these claims about Caligula. Was he really a madman who believed that he was a god and carried out numerous atrocities against his own people? Recently, historians have not been so sure.
Like “Tiberius,” “Caligula” is a fairly stock presentation of a tyrant in the Roman mold. Caligula had little ability to curb his sexual desires or violent impulses. Again, Suetonius implies that Caligula’s behavior was innate to his character. Although he does describe Caligula’s difficult youth, specifically having to see his family persecuted and killed and then living with the man responsible for their deaths, Suetonius does not link these experiences to the development of Caligula’s personality, as modern readers might expect. Instead, Suetonius emphasizes that Caligula displayed his negative traits early in childhood.
Still, Suetonius’s account of Caligula’s reign may contain hints to a more accurate and less dramatic assessment of Caligula’s life. His actions against the Senate and the uplifting of his sisters, which inspired rumors of incest, could very well have been an attempt to model the imperial family after a monarchy, in which all members of the royal family, both women and men, receive extensive honors. In the context of wider ancient history, in which Egypt monarchs claimed to be divine, Caligula’s claims to godhood might have been a performance to exalt his own political position. In fact, it could even be seen as a logical extension of the posthumous deification of Julius Caesar and Augustus. It is possible that, rather than being a completely irrational ruler, Caligula was trying to shift the imperial office away from Augustus’s ostensibly republican model toward a model inspired by other ancient monarchies. The fact that Suetonius describes Caligula’s pretensions to godhood alongside his lack of respect for the gods could be read as a hint of Caligula’s true political goal.
