-Caligula was now , so how was he doing?
-There are a ton of fucked up rumors and stories about Caligula, and we don't know exactly what's true and what isn't, but...let's dish!
-He allegedly was banging his sisters- Julia Livilla, Agrippina, and Drusilla. Is this true?
-Maybe. They were probably closer than usual due to the insanity they went through as a family. He also had four (!) wives over the course of his short life:
-Junia Claudilla- dies while giving birth to a child that also didn't survive :(
-Livia Orestilla (AKA Cornelia Orestilla; her exact name is unclear)- married to Caligula for one day (!).
-Lollia Paulina- married to Caligula for 6 months; they divorced because she was allegedly infertile.
-Milonia Caesonia- married Caligula and the two actually seemed to be really into each other! They stayed married until they were both executed in 41 AD.
-Caligula was allegedly especially into Drusilla, whom he always had host his dinner parties (even though this was typically the role of the man's wife).
-He also had the legionaries include her name when they swore their oaths of fealty to the princeps.
-One theory is that if this was true, then perhaps Caligula was living the fantasy of the "sister-wife" which is commonly found in mythologies (which would make kind of sense since Caligula inevitably ended up thinking he was a god).
-Anyway, Drusilla died in 38 AD of illness, which really fucked up Caligula.
-He had her canonized as an official Roman goddess.
-It was after this that Caligula really became unhinged.
-He started making senators do humiliating and goofy tasks, and if they if they didn't do these things they'd be further humiliated (or just executed!).
-He would also invite senators to his parties and then fuck their wives. Afterwards he would come back and discuss in detail what exactly they had done.
-His second wife (see above) was actually stolen on her wedding night from the senator Gaius Calpurnius Piso, who will be important later on in the narrative.
-Caligula also made a good-looking dude fight as a gladiator because he had made Caligula jealous. Surprisingly, the good-looking dude actually survived, so Caligula just had him executed!
-He would also sometimes want a particular estate, so he would confiscate it as government property and have the owner and his family executed.
-He would force parents to watch the executions of their kids.
-Caligula also delighted in having the executions be long, drawn-out, and feature lots of torture and cruelty.
-He somehow spent the entire savings Augustus and Tiberius had amassed in two years, bankrupting the empire and getting into massive debt.
-It's important to note that Caligula, did, however, do some good things too!
-He expanded the aqueduct system, improved Rome's grain supply importation system, and finished the Temple of Divus Augustus.
-Mainly, however, he just spent a shitload of money on himself.
-He also claimed that he was going to have his horse made consul because he said it was smarter than the rest of the Senate!
-By 39 AD, it was obvious that the Senate hated Caligula and had begun to plot to get rid of him.
-Caligula knew this, so he announced that treason investigations were now to be resumed! However, this just proved that the senators were correct, of course.
-Meanwhile, Caligula declared that he was a god and began dressing up as Roman gods and shit. He also ordered that his statue be placed in every temple throughout the empire!
-This, of course, caused a significant amount of trouble in Judea because the Jewish temples were also required to have a statue of Caligula inside. Forcing these temples to have a statue of Caligula inside obviously caused riots throughout the province.
-The puppet king of Judea at the time, Herod Agrippa (who had been raised in Rome), was luckily able to temporarily calm shit down by convincing Caligula not to go through with this order in Judea. Ultimately, however, he failed, and a statue of Caligula was indeed installed in at least one of the major temples in Jerusalem, which was then converted to become a temple to Caligula (how the Hebrews then reacted to this exactly is unclear).
-Caligula also decided that it was time for some military campaigns! He then attempted to conquer Germania.
-This wasn't a serious attempt, however. He even staged combat situations in which he himself fought so that he could claim that he had fought bravely in battle.
-This "invasion" seems to have been interrupted when at the same time it was revealed that there was indeed a legit conspiracy against Caligula involving his two remaining sisters and Drusilla's widower, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (a possible great-grandson of Augustus).
-In response to this, Caligula had Lepidus executed and his sisters exiled.
-40 AD- Caligula turned his attention to invading Britannia, the mysterious island on the edge of the world that Julius Caesar had failed to conquer...
-According to legend, Caligula had the troops pick up all of the seashells on the beach in Gaul and then had them bring them back to Rome as "spoils of war". He then held a dual-triumph in Rome because of his "victories" in Germania and Britannia.
-After this, Caligula went back to Rome and married Milonia Caesonia,who gave birth to his daughter, Julia Drusilla.
-Caesonia was also apparently really nutty, cold-hearted, and decadent.
-41 AD- a conspiracy to assassinate Caligula (led by the Praetorian Cassius Chaerea, who had often been humiliated by Caligula) finally succeeded.
-Caligula was stabbed to death (unclear as to where exactly this went down) by Chaerea and some other dudes. After this, Caesonia and Julia Drusilla were both executed as well.
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