2 – Caligula
Julius Caesar was a hard act to follow, but his successor, Octavian, later known as Augustus, did more than a decent job of it. He turned a state ravaged by internal conflict into a monolithic political system, with himself as a military dictator, and did much to create the Roman Empire as we know it today.
He created extensive road systems, a complex structure of taxation, a standing army that was loyal to Rome and not individual Governors, expanded the borders of the Empire hugely and introduced what would be known as Pax Romana – peace under Rome – that endured for more than 200 years. His empire spread from Germany in the north to Egypt in the south, from Spain in the west to Palestine and Syria in the East, encompassing almost 70 million people.
When Augustus passed away after over 40 years in charge, he was replaced by his step-son, Tiberius, who ruled for a further two decades, before passing the torch onto his grand-nephew, Caligula, whom he had treated like a grandson and groomed to take over. Tiberius had been a largely competent ruler – at least for the first decade – and had left the Roman state in rude financial health, with a broadly peaceful situation at the edges of the Empire and a relatively settled political scene in Rome. Caligula, it seemed, was hell-bent on doing as much as possible to destroy all this.
He began well enough. He attempted to curry favor with the military by doling out pay increases and with the public by announcing a huge repertoire of games to be held. It was all change, however, when he contracted an illness – or was, as rumor had it, poisoned. Caligula began to become very suspicious and paranoid, seeing enemies everywhere and fearing that they were out to take his throne. The money that he had paid to the military became seen as a bribe to keep them from turning on him, particularly the Praetorian Guard that protected him every day, while public reforms were seen as having been carried out to keep the mod from his door.
Soon, all these outgoings began to tot up and the huge treasury that Tiberius had built up was all but exhausted. With cash running low, Caligula began accusing rich Romans of crimes against him so that their estates might be taken as forfeit, and when that didn’t work, he tried to tax the public to fund the deficit. He continued to fund huge building projects around Rome, glorifying himself through vanity projects.
His personal life was also widely reported and scorned. Caligula was known as a womanizer and a cruel man who would kill his enemies and was accused of everything from insanity to incest. At one point, he even threw a section of the audience at the gladiatorial games to the wild animals for sport because there were no prisoners to be found. He was even accused of making his favorite horse into a Consul.
After a while, the tyranny of Caligula had to be stopped. A conspiracy of Praetorian Guardsmen and politicians rose and killed the Emperor, immediately replacing him with his uncle, Claudius. He would be far from the only Roman emperor to be killed by the Praetorian Guard – being killed by them was really the culmination of the career of being Roman Emperor – but it was still far better than being publicly shamed and humiliated in front of your own people. For an example of that, we must cycle forwards in time over a thousand and a half years, and scoot from Rome to London, where we will meet another out-of-touch tyrant: King Charles I.