Caligula: A Biography (6 page)

A new phase of life began for Caligula, but one that was no less dangerous than before. From now on he had to live close to Tiberius, the man responsible for sending his mother into exile, imprisoning his brother Nero, and killing Drusus. The emperor’s attitude toward Caligula must have been ambivalent at best. Without doubt the people closest to the emperor were hostile toward Caligula, and most of them had played more or less leading roles in the proceedings against the other members of his family. For them the prospect of Caligula’s accession to the throne must have looked ominous. One man in this circle, Aulus Avillius Flaccus by name, is described as enjoying the confidence of both the emperor and Macro; beginning in the year 32 he would become governor of Egypt, one of the highest positions available to a knight. He and several other men envisioned an alternative solution to the succession: Tiberius had a biological grandson, Tiberius Gemellus, from the marriage of his son Drusus (II). The boy, also on Capri at the time, was only twelve
years old in the year 31, but because the emperor was showing no signs of infirmity, Gemellus presented a realistic and considerably better option for the future to Flaccus and his associates. Under such circumstances Caligula’s own fate must have looked uncertain, and it is reasonable to assume that his actions were dominated by one motive—to survive. His position would remain precarious for six more years, until his actual elevation to the throne in the year 37 put a temporary halt to the threats.

At first the situation on Capri must have been overshadowed by events in Rome, where as a result of Sejanus’s downfall the trials and executions for treason were reaching a peak among the aristocracy. The death of Sejanus had no positive effects at all on Caligula’s family, however. His brother Drusus (III) starved to death in his prison on the Palatine in the year 33, reportedly after trying to eat the hay used as stuffing in his mattress. The circumstances of his death became known because Tiberius wanted to justify his treatment of Drusus to the Senate and therefore ordered the reports of the spies in Drusus’s household and of his prison guards to be read aloud. It emerged from the accounts that Augustus’s great-grandson had been beaten by slaves after begging for food and attempting to leave his cell, and that at the end, although weakened to the point of apathy, he had uttered dreadful curses against Tiberius. Agrippina died that same year, a suicide according to the official version, although people suspected that she too had been starved. How did Caligula react to the deaths of his mother and second brother and Tiberius’s responsibility for them?

Tacitus reports: Caligula’s “monstrous character was masked by a hypocritical modesty: Not a word escaped him at the sentencing of his mother or the destruction of his brothers; whatever the mood assumed for the day by Tiberius, the attitude of
his grandson was the same, and his words not greatly different” (
Ann
. 6.20.1). Suetonius’s account is similar: “Although at Capri every kind of wile was resorted to by those who tried to lure him or force him to utter complaints, he never gave them any satisfaction, ignoring the ruin of his kindred as if nothing at all had happened, passing over his own ill treatment with an incredible pretense of indifference, and so obsequious toward his grandfather and his household that it was well said of him that no one had ever been a better slave or a worse master” (Suet.
Cal
. 10.2).

Here it is necessary to distinguish between factual information and moral value judgments in the accounts written after Caligula’s death. Above all it is essential to be clear about the character of these judgments. Tacitus, in no uncertain terms, condemned the fearful hypocrisy and submissiveness displayed toward the emperor by even the highest-ranking and most powerful members of the aristocracy. And we know that Caligula’s mother and brothers had been brought down by their own incautious comments about Tiberius, passed on by spies placed in their households. Yet despite this state of affairs Tacitus demands from the nineteen-year-old Caligula a forthrightness and sincerity that would have been extremely foolish and would certainly have cost him his life.

If we leave aside the double moral standard, what remains is this: In contrast to his mother, his brothers, and other members of the imperial family in the preceding years, and in spite of the emperor’s unpredictability and the open hostility of people around him, Caligula managed to maintain his position. The price he paid for this was to control his own feelings and to play a part in front of Tiberius. He possessed an advantage, however. Philo of Alexandria, who, as the leader of a Jewish delegation, met Caligula twice, described it. Although Philo mostly heaped abuse on
Caligula in hate-filled tirades, in this passage, inconsistently with his usual antipathy, he reports that Caligula “was skilled in discerning a man’s secret wishes and feelings from his open countenance” (Phil.
Leg
. 263).

The degree of danger posed by the situation on Capri is demonstrated vividly by two episodes. One involves Julius Agrippa, a grandson of Herod the Great who had grown up in the house of Antonia Minor in Rome. In the year 36 he received permission to visit Tiberius. He was asked to accompany Gemellus, the emperor’s grandson, on his excursions, but instead began spending time with Caligula, whose favor he hoped to win. When they had become better acquainted and were out for a drive one day, Agrippa expressed the wish that Tiberius would make way for Caligula on the throne as soon as possible, since the young man was so much worthier of it. The driver of the carriage, a freedman of Agrippa’s, overheard the remark, and when he was accused of stealing some clothing a little later, he reported it to the emperor, citing Agrippa’s exact words: “I hope that the day will at length arrive when this old man will leave the scene and appoint you ruler of the world. For his grandson Tiberius would by no means stand in our way, since you would put him to death. The world would then know bliss, and I above all” (Jos.
Ant
. 18.187). Tiberius believed the man, and the prince, despite his purple robes, was arrested on the spot and led away in chains. For Caligula, who had not allowed himself to be drawn out even in a very private setting, the episode had no repercussions.

Another instance of the dangers of Capri involved Tiberius’s favorite companions, for, according to reports, he most enjoyed the society of Greek philosophers, grammarians, poets, and astrologers. At meals he would carry on learned conversations with them, raising questions that had occurred to him in his
daily reading. As could be expected, given that he was not simply another scholar but the emperor of Rome, there was naturally great competition for his favor. Gaining it could mean fame and riches, but the pursuit was also dangerous, as the companions vying for it used every means at their disposal. Suetonius writes that the grammarian Seleucus inquired of the emperor’s servants what their master was reading, so that with advance preparation he could dazzle Tiberius with his knowledge. Unfortunately, he seems to have overdone it. The emperor, already weary of the opportunistic behavior of aristocrats in Rome, detested it even more in his inner circle on Capri, so when his suspicions were aroused he looked into the matter. Seleucus was banned from his daily company and later forced to commit suicide.

Caligula apparently had more success when he took part in the learned discussions on Capri. We are told that he had a profound knowledge of the works with which educated men of the day were expected to be familiar. Josephus writes that “he was, moreover, a first-rate orator, deeply versed in the Greek and Latin languages. He knew how to reply impromptu to speeches that others had composed after long preparation, and to show himself instantly more persuasive than anyone else, even where the greatest matters were debated. All this resulted from a natural aptitude for such things and from his adding to that aptitude the practice of taking elaborate pains to strengthen it.” There is no question that he had enjoyed a good education from his earliest years. As was customary in aristocratic families, Caligula probably received instruction from tutors, who were usually Greek slaves or freedmen. He may have been influenced by the reported interest of his father, Germanicus, in scholarship and literature, or perhaps his interest was spurred by his journeys as
a child to the centers of ancient learning in Greece and Egypt. It appears that he also made use of his time on Capri to further his studies. According to Josephus again: “Being the grandson of the brother of Tiberius . . . he was under a great compulsion to apply himself to education, because Tiberius himself also had conspicuously succeeded in attaining the highest place in it. Gaius followed him in his attachment to such noble pursuits, yielding to the injunctions of a man who was both his kinsman and his commander-in-chief” (Jos.
Ant
. 19.208–9).

No accounts of the later period of Caligula’s rule mention a particular interest in learning. It is thus probably no mistake to assume that in this respect, too, he skillfully adapted his behavior on Capri to the prevailing circumstances and showed an interest in the subjects Tiberius preferred, especially since he was clearly endowed with the requisite intellectual gifts. And he did improve his relationship with the emperor, which was no doubt quite strained to begin with because of the general political atmosphere and the particular family constellation. At least their relationship appears to have grown better during Caligula’s first two years on Capri. Although Tiberius did not display any particular friendship to his great-nephew and potential successor, neither was he openly hostile.

In the year 33, that is, in the same period when his mother and remaining brother met their deaths, Caligula was appointed quaestor, the lowest honorary political office, which carried with it automatic membership in the Senate. He was only twenty, under the usual minimum age for the quaestorship. At the same time he was given permission to be a candidate for other offices, five years before reaching the required age. This was a privilege traditionally granted to princes of the imperial family and could thus be interpreted as a positive signal for his position. And
finally Tiberius had arranged for Caligula to marry Junia Claudilla (or Claudia) during a visit to Antium. She was the daughter of Marcus Junius Silanus, a former consul who had gained attention by introducing servile and flattering resolutions in the Senate. He was considered one of Tiberius’s closest associates and received the right to cast his vote first. This was an extraordinary honor that gave him the highest standing in the Roman aristocracy. In political terms such an honor was not without its dangers, as shown by the emperor’s behavior in the Senate described above. Nevertheless Silanus was clearly able to use his standing skillfully.

Caligula’s marriage would last only a short time, and it is impossible to determine how much it meant to him. Nor can anything positive be deduced from it about Tiberius’s plans for the succession. Each of Caligula’s brothers had been married to a cousin (Nero to Julia, a granddaughter of Tiberius, and Drusus to Aemilia Lepida, a great-granddaughter of Augustus) and thereby gained the prestige conferred by an additional connection with the ruling family. No further young ladies of appropriate background were available, but the idea that one of these might take Caligula as a second husband seems not to have been considered. Julia was perhaps excluded because her testimony had contributed to Nero’s downfall. Aemilia Lepida might have been a candidate, for her participation in the fall of Drusus (III) was not discussed until years later, but both women remarried aristocrats unconnected to the imperial family. Caligula’s wife, Junia Claudilla, could boast of no comparable ancestry. Nor did the marriages of his sisters, which were certainly based on the emperor’s plans, reveal any particular favor. Only Agrippina the Younger married Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, a grandson of Marcus Antonius and Octavia, Augustus’s sister. The later
emperor Nero was the offspring of this marriage. Drusilla was married to Lucius Cassius Longinus, descended from an old aristocratic family, while Livilla’s husband, Marcus Vincius, came from a less illustrious background. Tiberius’s marriage policy with regard to the children of Germanicus and Agrippina can thus be summed up as follows: None of the marriages he arranged had the slightest effect on the possibility that his own grandson, Tiberius Gemellus, might become emperor.

Caligula’s future remained uncertain, since no doubt he stood in the way of Tiberius’s biological grandson, because of both his own descent and his popularity in Rome. During his stay on Capri he was further awarded two religious offices that were a customary part of a Roman senator’s career, but they also permit no conclusions about the emperor’s plans for him. Finally, in the year 35, Tiberius drew up a will, whose contents can be described as most definitely leaving both options open. Caligula and Gemellus received equal shares of his inheritance, in a decision that was no decision at all. Even at that point, however, the conclusion that emerged two years later upon Tiberius’s death must have been evident. The imperial office was not divisible, yet according to the will the vast imperial assets would have had to be divided, even though by this time they constituted a central part of the emperor’s authority and had taken on a character that in the modern sense of the word was public and no longer private. If it is not to be read as documentary evidence that Tiberius was incapable of making up his mind—in which case the emperor could have dispensed with it entirely—then the message it conveyed was clear: The question of the succession was to remain open.

In addition to Caligula’s indifference to the fate of his family and his successful opportunism in dealings with the emperor
and his circle, Suetonius reports that during his time on Capri the later emperor was already unable to conceal his brutal and depraved character. Caligula “was a most eager witness of the tortures and executions of those who suffered punishment, reveling at night in gluttony and adultery, disguised in a wig and a long robe, passionately devoted besides to the theatrical arts of dancing and singing, in which Tiberius very willingly indulged him, in the hope that through these his savage nature might be softened. This last was so clearly evident to the shrewd old man that he used to say now and then that to allow Gaius to live would prove the ruin of himself and of all men” (Suet.
Cal
. 11).