Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus

I woke up this morning to hear Adam Spencer on the radio asking if anyone knew by what name Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus is better known. I pitied the poor fool who rang up to answer "Augustus, the first emperor of Rome" but the next caller was spot on with "Caligula".

He was asking the question in response to this article about the apparent discovery of the emperor Caligula's tomb. The article explains how he was given the name Caligula - as a kid he used to accompany his dad (confusingly known as Germanicus) out to the battlefield, dressed up in a mini-soldier's uniform, including boots. The boots were known as caligae - caligula is a diminutive form meaning 'little boot(s)'. Interestingly the statue of Caligula which led to the discovery of the tomb is wearing a pair of these boots. The learned Rogue Classicum has more on the news, but is cautious (to put it mildly) about the authenticity of the discovery.

The article in the Sydney Morning Herald also trots out all the usual stuff about Caligula, as in this sentence:

After reportedly sleeping with his sisters, killing for pleasure and seeking to appoint his horse a consul during his rule from AD37 to 41, Caligula was described by contemporaries as insane.

The article is decent enough to say that he only 'reportedly' slept with his sisters, but is pretty vague on who Caligula's 'contempories' might be. I'm not much of an expert on any aspect of Roman history, but the biographies of the emperors are generally not straightforward, and a lot of the most sensational stories often have to be taken with a fairly large grain of salt. In Caligula's case, the major sources of information about his life come from Suetonius and Cassius Dio, who are writing about 80 and 180 years respectively after his death. Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the various sources and their reliability.

Of course, none of the sources portray Caligula as a saint, but he wasn't necessarily as insane and perverted as he's often made out to be, and in fact he seems to have been responsible for some genuine achievements during his reign.

Till Birnam wood do come to Dunsinane...

With Australian politics in the news a bit lately, I thought I’d join in the action. Back when she was merely deputy PM, Julia Gillard famously said regarding her own leadership aspirations:

"There's more chance of me becoming the full-forward for the Dogs than there is any chance of a change in the Labor Party."

This kind of statement should always be taken with a grain of salt, and (if you ask me) belongs in the same category as ‘the leader has my full support’, which, at least in NSW politics, indicates that the knives are out, and a leadership change is imminent.

According to Suetonius, the Roman Emperor Caligula (aka Gaius) was once told a similar thing by the emperor Tiberius' astrologer – that he had as much chance of becoming emperor as riding a horse across the Gulf of Baiae. So, when in due course Caligula did become emperor in 37 AD, he apparently constructed a huge temporary floating bridge out of ships, spanning the two miles from Puteoli to Baiae, and rode his horse across it.

Caesar and the Pirates

Since I mentioned pirates in my last post, I thought I'd continue the theme with a story told by Suetonius (among others) about Julius Caesar's encounter with pirates as a young man.

huc dum hibernis iam mensibus traicit, circa Pharmacussam insulam a praedonibus captus est mansitque apud eos non sine summa indignatione prope quadraginta dies cum uno medico et cubicularis duobus. nam comites servosque ceteros initio statim ad expediendas pecunias, quibus redimeretur, dimiserat. numeratis deinde quinquaginta talentis expositus in litore non distulit quin e vestigio classe deducta persequeretur abeuntis ac redactos in potestatem supplicio, quod saepe illis minatus inter iocum fuerat, adficeret... Sed et in ulciscendo natura lenissimus piratas, a quibus captus est, cum in dicionem redegisset, quoniam suffixurum se cruci ante iuraverat, iugulari prius iussit, deinde suffigi.

While crossing to Rhodes, after the winter season had already begun, he was taken by pirates near the island of Pharmacussa and remained in their custody for nearly forty days in a state of intense vexation, attended only by a single physician and two body-servants; for he had immediatley sent off his travelling companions and the rest of his attendants, to raise money for his ransom. Once he was set on shore on payment of fifty talents, he did not delay then and there to launch a fleet and pursue the departing pirates, and the moment they were in his power to inflict on them the punishment which he had often threatened when joking with them... Even in avenging wrongs he was by nature most merciful, and when he got hold of the pirates who had captured him, he had them crucified, since he had sworn beforehand that he would do so, but ordered that their throats be cut first.

(Suetonius, Divus Iulius 4, 74)

The ransom of fifty talents mentioned by Suetonius was originally, according to Plutarch, set at twenty:

To begin with, then, when the pirates demanded twenty talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not knowing who their captive was, and of his own accord agreed to give them fifty.

Plutarch also elaborates on the threats and jokes mentioned by Suetonius:

For eight and thirty days, as if the men were not his watchers, but his royal body-guard, he shared in their sports and exercises with great unconcern. He also wrote poems and sundry speeches which he read aloud to them, and those who did not admire these he would call to their faces illiterate Barbarians, and often laughingly threatened to hang them all. The pirates were delighted at this, and attributed his boldness of speech to a certain simplicity and boyish mirth. But after his ransom had come from Miletus and he had paid it and was set free, he immediately manned vessels and put to sea from the harbour of Miletus against the robbers. He caught them, too... and crucified them all, just as he had often warned them on the island that he would do, when they thought he was joking.

(Plutarch, Life of Caesar 2)

Related Post

• Beware the Ides of March

mors Augusti

Yesterday marked (if my calculations are correct) 1,993 years since the death of Rome's first Emperor, Augustus Caesar. Augustus wasn’t his really his proper name- he was born Gaius Octavius, but when he was adopted by Julius Caesar he changed his name (according to Roman custom) to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, from where his other well known name – Octavian – comes.

The name Augustus itself is more of a title than a name- it means something like ‘sacred’ or ‘majestic’, and was granted to him by the Roman senate after his victory over Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Here's how the Roman biographer and historian Suetonius described his death:

Supremo die identidem exquirens an iam de se tumultus foris esset, petito speculo, capillum sibi comi ac malas labantes corrigi praecepit, et admissos amicos percontatus [est] ecquid iis videretur mimum vitae commode transegisse... Omnibus deinde dimissis, dum advenientes ab urbe de Drusi filia aegra interrogat, repente in osculis Liviae et in hac voce defecit: "Livia, nostri coniugii memor vive, ac vale!" sortitus exitum facilem et qualem semper optaverat...

On his last day, he would ask now and then if there was any disturbance in the forum on his account, and calling for a mirror, he ordered his hair to be combed, and his hollow cheeks to be adjusted and he enquired of his friends, who were there, if he seemed to them to have performed life's play well enough... Then, having dismissed them all, while he was questioning some who had just arrived from the city, about Drusus's sick daughter, he suddenly died, amidst the kisses of Livia, and with this cry: "Livia! Live with the memory of our marriage; and now, farewell!" having been granted an easy death, and of such a kind as he had always wished for.

[Suetonius, Divus Augustus 99]