A.D. 14 Octavian died, and his stepson Tiberius succeeded him as emperor; Tiberius succeeded his nephew Germanicus as his son, representing the proclamation of the heir to the throne. Tiberius' reign was unpopular with the people, so it was widely hoped that Germanicus would be able to assume the position of emperor without difficulty. However, Germanicus fell ill and died in 19 A.D. The people then projected their sentiments onto Germanicus' three sons. During the latter part of Tiberius' reign, court struggles arose, with the exile of Agrippina the Great, and the deaths of her sons, Nero and Drususus, in exile and imprisonment, respectively, while Caligula, at the age of nineteen, was summoned to the island of Capri to accompany the pretender Tiberius and to watch over him from close quarters.
While with Tiberius, Caligula was obedient to his nominal "grandfather," Tiberius, and never spoke of the misfortunes forced upon his loved ones; he coped with his own mistreatment in an astonishing disguise. The Roman writer Suetonius once said sarcastically, "Never was there a better slave, or a worse master".
Tiberius passed away in 37 AD at the age of 79. At this time, only Caligula and Tiberius' one minor grandson, Tiberius the Younger, remained among the close male members of the royal family. Thus, he ascended the throne in the expectation of the majority of the provincials and soldiers, while the citizens of Rome remembered his father and sympathized with his almost extinct family. When he sailed from Misenum to Rome, the people set up altars to welcome him along the way.
While Tiberius' will named Caligula and Tiberius the Younger as his ****ing heirs. But the Roman Senate was unanimous in granting all the privileges of first citizenship to Caligula alone and exclusively. Amidst the joy of the people, the former emperor was buried, the ashes of his mother and brothers were brought back to Rome, his sister Agrippina the Younger was recalled, and all those who had been exiled in the past were pardoned. He gave the title of "Augusta" to his grandmother Antonia, and succeeded Tiberius the Younger as his son. He also burned the documents of the former dynasty in public, showing that he was open-minded and unwilling to listen to informers.
He scrutinized the lists of knights carefully, but not harshly, and showed leniency to those who had committed minor transgressions. He abolished the auction tax on goods within Italy itself. He also intended to restore the Assembly of the People, returning to it the power of **** and period to elect state officials. Twice he generously distributed 300 sestertius to each citizen, and twice he organized sumptuous feasts for the families of the senators and the knightly rank. Caligula himself showed that he encouraged all good examples.
He completed several public ****ing projects in Rome, including the Temple of Augustus and the Theater of Pompey. In Syracuse, he repaired the walls and numerous temples that had been destroyed by age. He frequently organized jousting tournaments, carriage races, and various stage performances, and gained the general affection of the people.
In Philo's work Legatio ad Gaium, it is mentioned that Caligula was taken seriously ill in October, 37 years. Soon after recovering from his illness, he broke with the senatorial class and embarked on a series of retrograde policies and brutal rule. The death of Caligula's closest sister, Drusilla, further changed his temperament. In ancient Rome, rulers were worshiped as gods only after their deaths, but Caligula ordered the statues of the gods that had been brought from Greece to be replaced by his own head, and demanded that people pay homage to his own statue as they passed by; he made himself a god and told the people that he was often invited by the gods to live in the heavens.
Caligula ordered the poisoning of Tiberius the Younger and forced his father-in-law Silanus to cut himself. He often took a fancy to the wife or mistress of a senatorial councilor at banquets and brought her back to his house, abandoning her later. He also executed Marcello, who had helped him to the throne, and exiled his sister Agrippina the Younger. And he often took occasion to humiliate, or to torture or abuse in a cruel manner the senators, and to deprive many of the noblest families of Rome of their ancient marks of nobility. He frequently and publicly reviled all the senators. He produced copies of previously destroyed informers and accused them of all the shameful acts of past treachery.
On the spur of the moment he suddenly conceived the idea of conquering Germania. So he immediately assembled legions and auxiliary corps from all parts of the country, levied taxes throughout the provinces, and raised supplies of all kinds of munitions on an unprecedented scale. With the exception of the surrender to him of one of the kings of southern Britain, he dismissed the idea of marching before a real war had been fought. He also recalled the mutiny of the Teutonic legions at the beginning of Tiberius's reign, when the army had attacked his father and himself as a young man, and wanted to retaliate with the brutal practice of "eleven killings" of the legions; Caligula stopped when the soldiers learned of this and intended to revolt, but this undoubtedly deprived him of the support of the army. But this undoubtedly made Caligula lose the support of the army. But he was able to brag about his exploits and return to Rome in a "small triumph".
Caligula's many measures of extravagance drained the 2.7 billion sestertius that had been amassed by Tiberius within a year. Caligula then came up with various ways to enrich himself. He abolished the law that Roman citizenship could be passed on to future generations, and restricted the people of the provinces and freed slaves to giving citizenship only to the "second generation", in order to increase the number of taxpayers. He required people to name the emperor as one of the legatees in their wills, otherwise the wills were invalid. He also acquiesced in all kinds of false accusations and confiscated the property of the accused by court judgment. Caligula put the furnishings of the palaces of Augustus and Tiberius up for auction, and sent out captains of the Praetorian Guard to collect taxes on all merchandise transactions, even porters and prostitutes (retroactively). The announcement of these measures caused Caligula to lose the hearts and minds of the people in general.
Kaligula's insanity and depredations provoked a number of assassination attempts. Cassius Karea, the captain of the Emperor's guards, had been verbally insulted by Caligula on an earlier occasion - Karea had been wounded in battle as a young man and had lost the use of his genitals. Caligula's sarcastic use of the word "Priapus" had caused him to hold a grudge, and at noon on January 24, 41, as Caligula was walking through the palace galleries on his way to lunch, Karea and another captain, Cornelius Sabinus, came forward and combined their efforts to assassinate Caligula and kill his wife, Cassannia, and his young daughter, Eugenius, as well as his wife and daughter, Eugenia. Nia along with his young daughter Yulia Drusilla.
Kaligula was 29 years old and reigned for three years, 10 months and eight days. His body was quietly transported and half-burned on a hastily prepared pyre before being buried. Later his sisters returned from exile, exhumed him, cremated him and buried him again.