More on Roman Emperor Caligula!

I suppose this post should be called "go back to original sources" because in the course of researching the seven or eight ancient accounts of his reign, I sure do get a different picture of him.

Most of the modern constructions of his reign must use a single definitive scholarly work written in the last century or so, as they all follow the same standard lines; Caligula emerged from illness and went crazy, with his mental illness manifested at first by humiliation of important people and culminating in his desire to be worshipped as a god.  It is this latter act that seems to be the justification for assassinating him, given standard accounts of his reign.

The problem is this modern research, portrayed through pop culture or documentaries, are wrong.  Flat, dead, completely wrong!

Omitted from most accounts of Caligula's 4 years as Emperor are the fact that the ancient sources all mention he restarted democratic elections.  Also omitted, that the ancient sources talk about how democracy was a bad thing.  Seriously, Suetonius, Cassius Dio, Philo write that putting elections once again "in the hands of many . . . aggrieved the sensible" or that wise men recognized that when more people vote "many intrigues result."  The ancient sources of his reign were against democratic elections!  We must recognize that the ancient sources do not share our cultural values, and as such, call their objectivity into question.

There are exactly two. . . TWO sources, Philo of Alexandria and Seneca, who were alive at the same time as Caligula.  The others write more than 60 years later, largely drawing on anecdotal accounts of the time period from people who had stories about the man.  People who likely were not alive during the period, and if they were, could only have been children at the time Caligula ruled Rome.

They had to draw on anecdotal stories because the official records present from all other imperial eras, consisting of official senate records, notes made by the college of pontiffs, etc, were destroyed by Caligula's successor, Emperor Claudius.  Suetonius notes this destruction in his account of Claudius's reign.  Why were the records destroyed, if Caligula was the madman and tyrant history has claimed he was?

If we use the ancient sources to create a rough timeline we can place specific events within them, relating one thing to another, referencing common details with known events, and get a better picture of Caligula.  A glaring example of how history is wrong: caligula ordered his statue placed in temples, prompting the claim he thought he was a god, but did so in the second year of his reign.  We know this because Philo of Alexandria tells us Caligula's governor in Alexandria was in the 5th year of a 6 year term as governor when Tiberius died and Caligula became Emperor.  A year later this governor stirred up unrest against the jewish population of Alexandria, and Philo was appointed to petition Caligula for a release from this oppression.  While he was in Rome, having made the trip during a "tempestous" season on the Mediterranean, Philo gets word that Caligula has ordered his statue put in the temple of Jerusalem.

We know from other ancient accounts that the emperor's man in Jerusalem dithered for another year about putting the statue up, and that when Caligula returns from spending a season with his troops just prior to his assassination, he told the governor of Judea to forget the idea of putting the statue up.  So we see that during the time that he was to have had the idea, just before being killed, and offering justification for it, he was telling people not to worry about putting his statue up anymore.

I've seen many "experts" perpetuate myths about the man.  The experts are wrong, and so clearly wrong that the only excuse for it is they are using the same scholarly source material, rather than consulting the ancient sources directly and thinking critically.