person, extreme assurance and, on the other hand, excessive timorousness." Caligula was
"full of threats" against "the barbarians," but at the same time prone to precipitous retreats
and flights of panic. Caligula worked on his "body language" by "practicing all kinds of
terrible and fearsome expressions before a mirror."
Caligula built an extension of his palace to connect with the Temple of Castor and Pollux,
and often went there to exhibit himself as an object of public worship, delighting in being
hailed as "Jupiter Latiaris" by the populace. Later Caligula would officially open temples
in his own name. Caligula was brutal in his intimidation of the senate, whose members he
subjected to open humiliations and covert attacks; many senators were "secretly put to
death." "He often inveighed against all the Senators alike." "He treated the other orders
with like insolence and cruelty." Suetonius recites whole catalogues of "special instances
of his innate brutality" towards persons of all walks of life. He enjoyed inflicting torture,
and revelled in liquidating political opponents or those who had insulted or snubbed him
in some way. He had a taste for capital executions as the perfect backdrop for parties and
banquets. Caligula also did everything he could to sully and denigrate the memory of the
great men of past epochs, so that their fame could not eclipse his own: "He assailed
mankind of almost every epoch with no less envy and malice than insolence and cruelty.
He threw down the statues of famous men...," and tried to destroy all the texts of Homer.
Caligula "respected neither his own chastity nor that of any one else." He was reckless in
his extravagance, and soon emptied out the imperial treasury of all the funds that old
Tiberius had squirreled away there. After that, Caligula tried to replenish his coffers
through a system of spies, false accusations, property seizures, and public auctions. He
also "levied new and unheard- of taxes," to the point that "no class of commodities was
exempt from some kind of tax or other." Caligula taxed all foodstuffs, took a fortieth of
the award in any lawsuit, an eighth of the daily wages of the porters, and demanded that
the prostitutes pay him a daily fee equal to the average price charged to each individual
customer. It is rumored that this part of Caligula's career is under study by those planning
George Bush's second term. Caligula also opened a brothel in his palace as an additional
source of income, which may prefigure today's White House staff. Among Caligula's
more singular hobbies Suetonius includes his love of rolling and wallowing in piles of
gold coins.
Caligula kept his wife, Caesonia (described by Suetonius as "neither beautiful nor
young") with him until the very end. But his greatest devotion was to his horse, whom he
made consul of the Roman state. Ultimately Caligula fell victim to a conspiracy of the
Praetorian Guard, led by the tribune Gaius Chaerea, a man whom Caligula had taken
special delight in humiliating. [fn 13]
The authors of the present study are convinced that these references to the depravity of
the Roman Emperors, and to the records of that depravity provided by such authors as
Tacitus and Suetonius, are directly germane to our present task of following the career of
a member of the senatorial class of the Anglo-American elite through the various stages
of his formation, apprenticeship, intrigues, and ultimate ascent to imperial power. The
Roman Imperial model is germane because the American ruling elite of today is far