The Early Roman Empire and the Principate - The Julio-Claudian Dynasty, Part One
Ch 2. Tiberius and Caligula
- Succession
You might think that the death of Augustus would present a problem to the Roman Empire. Augustus carefully pretended that the Republic still existed and mattered, but he wielded almost absolute power. With his death, what happened to that power? Augustus avoided another round of civil wars by having his titles and unofficial prestige transferred to his step-son and heir, Tiberius Claudius Nero, known to us as Emperor Tiberius (reigned, 14-37 AD). Tiberius inherited Augustus’ wealth and offices, becoming princeps also. The groundwork for a hereditary dynasty was in place, but the fiction that the princeps wasn’t a king or emperor could be maintained for a while longer.
The extended family of Augustus ruled in this manner, with a formally announced heir who was carefully groomed for power for many years, until 69 AD. Collectively, these rulers are known as the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, because of their family connection to the Julii family of Caesar, and the Claudian branch that intermarried with them. The new few posts in this series will introduce each of the Julio-Claudian emperors. You can find out quite a bit more of them, by reading Suetonius’ Lives of the Twelve Caesars, as well as the Annals of Tacitus.
- Tiberius
Tiberius (reigned 14-37 AD) succeeded Augustus, and largely kept up the pretense of republican rule with “guidance” from the princeps. Tiberius had a strong military career (before and after becoming emperor) and won several campaigns in Germany and the East. He was probably a good administrator and leader, though most of the sources we have for his reign are biased by pro-senatorial class leanings. We do know that he avoided major wars with other nations, strengthened the military and diplomatic relations with other countries, and even left a large surplus in the official treasury. Tiberius comes across to us as a serious, even somber figure. He was not particularly cheerful, and may not have actually enjoyed running the empire. Toward the end of his reign he rather bizarrely decided to take a perpetual vacation to the island of Capri, near Naples. There, he lived on a lavish resort in secluded semi-retirement, before being almost forced to come back to Rome and help the Senate run the government. He may have genuinely just wanted to retire in peace, but we’ll never know. Scandalous stories about his private life on Capri were numerous, but it’s hard to know if the rumors were more than malicious gossip.
Tiberius was well-trained for the job by Augustus, but his own lack of enthusiasm for governing meant that he didn’t particularly pay attention to training his own successor. This would have dramatically bad consequences.
- Caligula
Caligula (37-41 AD) was the son of a nephew of Augustus Caesar, not Tiberius’ own son. He was formally adopted and made Tiberius’ heir before his death. Caligula was not actually his name. His father was the famous general named Germanicus (himself a member of the complicated and extended Julio-Claudian family), who often took his family with him on campaign in Germany. Germanicus was very fond of his son, and gave him a little soldier’s outfit when he was just a toddler. His father’s soldiers liked to call the young princeling “Caligula,” which is a diminutive of the word for “Little Boots.”
Caligula did not have the preparation and training that Tiberius did, but when he came to power as a young man, he was initially popular. He forgave many of Tiberius’ political enemies, and recalled them from exile. He also gave out lavish bonuses and gifts to soldiers, officials, and the people of Rome. But as time when on, it became apparent that Caligula liked to party, too much. Still, he seemed to be generally a good-natured and likeable fellow for the first six months of his reign, until he was overtaken with a severe illness. The near-death experience seemed to terrify him, and might have driven him partially mad. When he recovered, he was a changed person; no longer happy and lavish with gifts, but mercurial, quick-tempered, and suspicious.
Caligula’s insanity became a thing of legend, and his reign is still a byword for madness, decadence, cruelty, and tyranny. He threw opulent parties for himself, and paid little attention to the affairs of government. He was chronically suspicious of almost everyone, and repeatedly accused people of treason and had them executed without any evidence. This penchant for violence soon became sheer cruelty. More than once he had party-goers arrested and executed horribly on the spot, just because it amused him. In the meantime, he also grew to think of himself as a great artist and poet, and even an actor and gladiator. He would sing along with actors at the theater, and even try to correct their gestures. One time, he summoned several high-ranking senators to his house in the middle of the night. The terrified senators feared they were going to be accused of some crime, but when they were brought before Caligula, the mad princeps proceeded to burst out onto a stage accompanied by “a din of clogs and flutes” (according to Suetonius). He danced several numbers for the senators, and then simply dashed off.
(Seutonius ends that paragraph on Caligula’s bizarre opinion of himself as an artist, with a short orphan of a sentence without any context or elaboration. “And yet varied as were his accomplishments, the man could not swim.”)
Caligula’s greatest hits, include the following. Supposedly, before he became emperor, he was told by an astrologer that he had no more chance of becoming princeps than he did of riding across the gulf of Baiae. After actually becoming emperor, he had a bridge of ships dragged across the gulf, which were then entirely covered with earth, and he proceeded to ride across the earthen road for two days in a chariot, dressed like Alexander the Great. But his most memorable act was his enthusiasm for his favorite racehorse, which was named Incitatus. Caligula had his soldiers patrol the streets near the horse’s stall the day before a race, so the horse could rest properly. Then, he had a marble stall built for the horse, complete with purple blankets and a manger of ivory. To top it all off, Suetonius says that that he supposedly “planned to make him consul.” Him, meaning the horse. Historians today doubt that Caligula was seriously so deranged as to make the horse consul. Some suggest that it was actually a carefully planned insult to the Senate, to suggest that they were so worthless that an animal could do their job.
These stories about Caligula are so spectacular, that they may not all be entirely true. Caligula certainly clashed heavily with the Senate, who deeply resented his lording his position over them, and his seeming disrespect for their office. Some of these stories may be embellished a bit for the sake of slandering his name once he was dead. Certainly, there is a long tradition amongst classical historians of assigning madness to tyrants. The notion is very Platonic; that an absolute ruler is ruled by no one but his own passions, and that this lack of control (and hubris) ultimately drive him mad.
It should of course be noted that Caligula’s tyranny probably extended mostly to the Roman aristocracy and senate itself. For the average Roman, or peasant farmer or merchant living all over the Empire, life probably got on quite normally. Ancient tyrants could build themselves up as living gods, and have anyone near them cruelly tortured and murdered on the slightest whim, and yet in other ways they had far less immediate power over the general populace than 20th century totalitarian regimes. Even popularly-elected modern governments with complete legitimacy know far more about any individual citizen, and have a much broader array of coercive powers on everyday behavior.
Whatever his real state of mind, Caligula was certainly unpopular enough that he finally invited a coup. In 41 AD, after only a few short years ruling, a Senatorial conspiracy along with the Praetorian bodyguard rushed the palace and killed Caligula and all his family. While the soldiers were ransacking the place and looking for every last family member, one soldier noticed a strange set of feet sticking out from beneath a curtain, which was quivering and shaking. Tearing back the drapes, the soldier found harmless old Claudius. Claudius was Caligula’s uncle, and had been constantly teased and tormented by the rest of the family, because he appeared to be stupid and seemed to stutter. He walked with a limp, and would reportedly foam at the mouth and twitch his head when he became too excited. But, rather than kill Claudius, the Praetorian guard soldiers promptly bowed down before the cowering old man, and proclaimed him Emperor.
