The Roman biographer Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, who lived from about AD 70 to about 130, originally came from the town of Hippo Regius in the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis -- today the town is called Annaba and it is located on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria. Suetonius was an eques (equestrian) and was therefore just beneath a senator in rank in the Roman social and political order. He held senior positions in the Roman government and had direct access to archival sources that enabled him to write with some authority about the exercise of power at the top of Roman society. He is most famous for his biographies of the first twelve 'Caesars' beginning with Julius Caesar and ending with the emperor Domitian who died in AD 96.
Better known be his nickname of Caligula ('little jackboot'), Gaius was born in AD 12, and when he was only in his mid-twenties ascended to the imperial throne on the death of Tiberius in AD 37. Of the twelve emperors whose lives were recorded by Suetonius, Caligula is surely meant to be associated with the truly 'bad' emperors like Nero and Domitian. Indeed, Caligula is usually regarded to have been just about the worst of the bad. His brief four-year reign was marked by some of the most egregious extravagances of imperial power. Historians are divided on the nature of his rule. Some of them see the more outlandish types of behavior reported of Caligula as stemming from his own disordered personality, further exaggerated by the great powers that he wielded as emperor. Other historians, however, see these problems as structural ones that were, to some extent, beyond Gaius' control no matter what he did. The former historians see in Gaius a violent psychopath, the latter see a man who was trying to transform the position of the Roman emperor into something closer to an imperial court but who failed, and who, in consequence, elicited only hatred and revulsion from the Roman aristocracy.
Questions: How does Suetonius portray the Roman emperor? Of what sort of actions of the emperor does he approve? What sort does he assume that his fellow Romans would approve? What things does the emperor do that Suetonius judges to be bad? Why are they 'bad'? What is it that turns Caligula into such an evil ruler? What problems does he not handle well, and why? Why is it that these particular deeds of his cause so much distress in the power elite of the Roman ruling order?
Discussion and Questions Copyright 2000/2001, Prof. Brent D. Shaw.