Caligula and Incest
At age 24, he was handed absolute power. He obliterated standards and norms in his violent push for control. Murder? Check. Incest? Maybe. The brutal exercise of political power? Definitely. In the annals of infamous emperors, few come close to Caligula, whose reign as the Roman Empire’s third emperor made him a member of a small club of the world’s most hated and remembered rulers.
Caligula was born in Antium on 31 August AD 12, the third of six surviving children of Germanicus and his wife and second cousin, Agrippina the Elder. Germanicus was a grandson of Mark Antony, and Agrippina was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder, making her the granddaughter of Augustus.
The future emperor Claudius was Caligula's paternal uncle. Caligula had two older brothers, Nero and Drusus, and three younger sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla.
At the age of two or three, he accompanied his father, Germanicus, on campaigns in the north of Germania. He wore a miniature soldier's outfit devised by his mother to please the troops, including army boots (caligae) and armour.
The soldiers nicknamed him Caligula ('little boot'). Winterling believes he would have enjoyed the attention of the soldiers, to whom he was something of a mascot, though he later grew to dislike the nickname.
Of the few surviving sources about Caligula and his four-year reign, most were written by members of the nobility and senate, long after the events they purport to describe.
They portray Caligula as a noble and moderate emperor during the first six months of his rule, but increasingly self-indulgent, cruel, sadistic, extravagant and sexually perverted thereafter, an insane tyrant who demanded and received worship as a living god, and planned to make his horse a consul.
Most modern commentaries seek to explain Caligula's position, personality and historical context. Many of the allegations against him are dismissed as misunderstandings, exaggeration, mockery or malicious fantasy.
🧩Caligula, Sex with his Mother
In the city of Rome, Caligula completed the temple of Augustus and the theatre of Pompey, began an amphitheatre beside the Saepta and enlarged the imperial palace.
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be not rough one to the other