Julius wasn’t the only famous Roman with the name Caesar .
Gaius Caesar was the emperor of Rome from A.D. 37 to 41.
He’s remembered as a vicious and cruel ruler, a sadist and someone that suffered from elusions of his own power and importance. And those were the nice things about him.
Gaius Caesar grew up in a military camp where his father’s soldiers nicknamed him “Caligula” — “Little Boots” for the child-size military boots he wore. His father, Germanicus, was a great Roman general and an adopted son of Emperor Tiberius.
Germanicus’s military victories made him extremely popular with the Roman public. So popular, in fact, that Tiberius became jealous and had him killed. Later, Tiberius killed Caligula’s mother, Agrippina, and Caligula’s brothers.
Historians don’t know why, but Caligula was spared and went to live with Tiberius on the island of Capri. Eventually Caligula gained the confidence of Tiberius and when the emperor died, he named Caligula and his grandson joint heirs to the throne. But Caligula had no interest in sharing power, so he managed to get the Roman senate to declare Tiberius’s will invalid and to choose him as emperor.
Everything started out good — for the first six months Caligula was a good ruler, but all that changed when he got sick with what was called at the time, “brain fever.” Speculation is that his sickness may have been an attack of encephalitis — a disease that can cause a marked character change and results in behavior similar to schizophrenia. Anyhow, after the illness, Caligula’s character changed completely — he became a vicious tyrant. Historians believe that he probably became insane.
His actions, after his sickness, included only things that a total wacko could think up. Like, murdering most of his family, declaring himself a god, making his horse a senator, emptying the Roman treasury, etc.
Finally, the Roman people had enough and were ready to give “Little Boots” the boot. Caligula and his fourth wife were killed by the officers of his guard. He was succeeded as emperor by his uncle Claudius — a kinder, gentler emperor. Of course, Caligula had set the bar pretty low……
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