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It was mid-afternoon
on 22nd January, 41 AD.

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In the morning, the Emperor Caligula
had been to the theatre,

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but he had a bit of a hangover,
so he decided to skip lunch

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and freshen up with a quick bath.

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That's where he was going,
all on his own, down a back alleyway

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in the palace compound, when he was
jumped by a posse of soldiers.

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The first blow to his neck, or some
said to his chin, didn't kill him.

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The next 30 or so did.

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One nasty rumour said that
the assassins ate his flesh.

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Caligula was just 28 years old.

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He'd been in power for less
than four years.

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It was an extraordinary
moment in Roman history.

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Rome's third emperor
is Caligula, who has come

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to stand for the corruption,
horror and excess of Imperial Rome.

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Psychopath and depraved, he is said
to have ruled by the sword,

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to have made his horse
into a consul,

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and to have insisted
he be worshipped as a living god.

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And ever since, he has become
a template for tyranny,

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with chilling echoes right
up to our own age.

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One of Caligula's favourite sayings
was, "Let them hate me,

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"so long as they fear me."

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But how much of his story is true?

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On the throne for just four short
years, Caligula has left us

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little physical evidence.

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And to get behind the myths
means a detective hunt

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for clues all over
the Roman world.

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From the battlegrounds
of his war hero father in Germany

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to the island of Capri,

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where people said he was schooled in
the art of imperial power,

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to the astonishing luxury
of his life as emperor,

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I'll uncover a Rome full of
intrigue, murder and dynastic power

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and come face to face with not just
the monster, but the man.

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So who was Caligula?

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And why has he gone down in history
as one of Rome's biggest villains?

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The first clear sight we have
of Caligula in any historical record

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is a long way from Rome.
From about the age of two,

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Caligula spent
his childhood on the road,

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on the Empire's northern frontier,

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parcelled round from army camp to
army camp with his mum and his dad,

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one of Rome's most charismatic
military commanders.

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By now, Rome had been under one-man
rule for just 50 years.

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And a generation after the first
Emperor Augustus,

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power was in the hands
of one family - Caligula's.

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His father was Germanicus,

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the blue-eyed prince
of the imperial family,

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the nephew of the Emperor Tiberius,
and himself tipped for the throne.

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His mother was Agrippina,

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the granddaughter of the first
emperor Augustus,

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who was himself
the adopted son of Julius Caesar.

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In the world of Ancient Rome,

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you didn't get more blue-blooded
than Caligula.

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He was born Gaius Caesar Germanicus,
a name he inherited

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from his father, meaning something
like Thrasher of the Germans.

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And these were the family fields
of honour, the killing fields

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where Caligula's ancestors

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cemented their reputations
and political power.

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Today, the Roman Museum
in Xanten has been built

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not far from one
of the legionary camps

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where Caligula spent time as a boy.

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Inside, there is a remarkable
collection of Roman military gear

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from medals of honour,

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with portraits of Caligula's
dad Germanicus and mum Agrippina,

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dished out to soldiers,
to what was then

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the most technologically advanced
armour and weaponry on the planet.

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There are cavalry helmets
and daggers,

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the remains of frighteningly
powerful crossbows

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and rainstorms of piercing arrows,

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all of which remind us
that Caligula's childhood playground

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was not some cosy peacekeeping
mission, but a vicious war zone.

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But perhaps the museum's most
intriguing artefact

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is also its most humble.

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This is a perfectly preserved Roman
caligae, a standard army issue

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soldier's sandal, made of tough
leather with hobnails on the sole.

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If there's one object that's really
associated with Caligula,

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it's the caligae.

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The story goes that
when he was a boy

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and he was living on military
camps with his parents,

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his mum had him dressed up

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in the uniform of an ordinary Roman
soldier, right down to the caligae.

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He was a kind of baby squaddie,
the legionary mascot.

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And we tend to think of the name
Caligula as a rather grand

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imperial name. In fact,
it was the little boy's nickname.

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It means little boots,
bootykins or the kid in the caligae.

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When he grew up, Caligula hated it.

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It must have seemed as if he was
being called Emperor Diddums,

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or something.

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And if you'd have asked him
what his name was,

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he would have said, quite correctly,
his name was the Emperor Gaius.

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The fact that even now, we still
call him Bootykins,

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shows just how successful
his enemies were

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in pouring scorn over him.

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He himself would have been horrified
to think of us calling him Caligula.

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In the 1960s, in this small
hilltop town in Umbria,

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a group of workers dug up
an enormous bronze statue

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of Caligula's father, Germanicus,

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that once stood on what was probably
an army parade ground

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on the edge of town.

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It shows him in the classic
pose of an imperial leader,

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arm outstretched,
addressing his troops.

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And standing beneath him,
one can't help but sense the status

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and glamour of the man in whose
shadow the little Caligula grew up.

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One theory is that the statue was
put up by Caligula himself

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after becoming emperor,

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in memory of the event
that radically changed

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the course of his life.

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For in 19 AD,
when Caligula was just seven,

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Germanicus suddenly died
on a mission to Syria, poisoned,

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he claimed from his deathbed,
by the Roman Governor Piso,

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even perhaps under the orders of
his own uncle, the Emperor Tiberius.

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When the news of Germanicus's death
reached Rome,

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there was an absolute explosion
of grief. Life stopped, it's said.

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Ordinary people wept in the street.

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They wrote up on the walls,
"Give us back Germanicus."

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The only people not grieving were
the Emperor and his mother.

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They weren't seen in public

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and they didn't authorise
a full state funeral

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when the ashes of Germanicus came
home to be put in the family tomb.

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Eventually, Piso was put on trial,

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but a few days in, he conveniently
committed suicide and the trial

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was turned into something
more like a public inquiry.

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And this is a copy of the record
of that public inquiry,

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the formal report inscribed in
bronze, dated 10th December 20 AD.

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Basically, the message is - the only
person guilty here was Piso,

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conveniently dead.

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But the most extraordinary
bit of the document,

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and its real point, is down here,

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where it says that one
of these reports

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is to be inscribed in the chief
city of every province

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and that it is to be
inscribed in hibernis,

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in the winter quarters,
of each legion, cuiusque legionis.

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This is mass communication,
Roman style.

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It's a major attempt to get the
official message across everywhere.

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It's hard not to think it all might
not have been too little, too late.

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The suspicions
circling around Germanicus' death

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would mark the start of an
increasingly bitter feud

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between Caligula's mother
Agrippina and the Palace.

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Convinced that Agrippina and her
sons were plotting against him,

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Tiberius banished her to a remote
island off the coast of Italy.

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And shortly afterwards, in 31 AD,
he summoned the young Caligula,

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aged 19 or so, to the island
of Capri in the Bay of Naples.

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This was the seat of Tiberius'
power away from Rome.

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It was from here that he ruled
the empire by proxy,

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from a whole suite of imperial
villas built high into the cliffs.

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Tucked away in a museum
on the island

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is one small trace of Caligula's
stay here.

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This may not look very much,

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just like a bit of old Roman brick
stuck in a wall,

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but actually, it's the only physical
evidence that we have

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of Caligula's presence on Capri

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because it's got his name
stamped across it, Gaius Caesar.

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And that raises the question of what
he was doing here and why

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Tiberius brought him, and there have
been all kinds of theories.

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Was he here to be under
surveillance?

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Was he here
because Tiberius liked the kid?

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Or was he here to be
groomed to be Emperor

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and learn to start
building like an Emperor should?

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Away from prying eyes, it was here,
Roman writers later surmised,

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that Tiberius schooled the young
Caligula in the dark arts

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of tyranny and excess.

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The stories they told of what
Tiberius got up to

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here are all fantastical sex
and violence.

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Those people he wanted to get rid
of, he had chucked over the cliffs.

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And he'd stationed a platoon
of sailors in boats at the bottom

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to finish them off with their oars
if they weren't yet dead.

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And for poolside fun,
he had a troupe of little boys -

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his little fishes, he called them.

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They'd been specially trained
to swim between his thighs

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while he was in the pool
and nibble his genitals.

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Whatever Tiberius really got up to,

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we do know that Caligula's
time in his charge was defined

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by remarkable brutality, much of
which was aimed at his own family.

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For while Caligula was
living in the lap of luxury,

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his mother Agrippina was beaten up.

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She lost her sight in one eye,
she went on hunger strike,

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was force-fed,
until finally, she starved to death.

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Not only that, both his brothers
came to violent ends.

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One by one, Caligula had
lost his father and his mother

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and his two elder brothers.

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He and his sisters were the only
ones in the family left.

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It's a chilling reminder
that in Rome,

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the closer you were to power,
the harder it was to survive.

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In the vaults of the British Museum
is one macabre memento from Capri

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that sums up the young Caligula's
life in the Emperor's court.

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Looks like a real skull,
but actually,

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it's an extraordinarily lifelike
work of art made of marble.

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This must have made a stunning
centrepiece

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on the imperial dining table.

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Rich Romans loved the idea of eat,
drink and be merry,

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because tomorrow you'll die.

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But if you put it back in
the context of the imperial court,

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there are more sinister messages.

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For a start, there's
the violence of the Emperor himself.

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Anyone sitting round this
at the imperial dining table

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must have been aware that their
lives hung on a knife edge,

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that they could be flavour of the
month one minute, and dead the next.

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The best advice was never
to let your feelings show.

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Keep poker-faced.

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There's a horrible story
of an imperial princess

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who's dining one evening
with her brother.

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He keels over, dead, probably
poisoned. What does she do?

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What all good imperial princesses
should do. She just goes on eating.

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In fact, we're told that
when Caligula was on Capri

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and his relatives were being
bumped off one by one,

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he learned never to show
any emotion at all.

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Underlying all this nastiness was
an issue that the Roman Empire

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always struggled to work out,

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the problem of succession.

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Even though Roman power had now
become a family business,

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since the founder of the dynasty,
Augustus, there was

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no fixed system
for passing the power on -

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a fatal flaw that colours
the whole Caligula story.

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Succession posed a problem
for the Romans for two reasons.

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First, the Emperor isn't a real job.

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It's supposed to be
just a bundle of personal powers,

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so you couldn't pass
those on in a normal way.

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But the other problem is that

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Augustus and Livia didn't have
children with each other

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even though each had children
with other people,

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and what that means is, there isn't
a clear line of succession.

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A son to follow a father,
a grandson to follow a son.

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So when an Emperor begins to seem
a bit sick or unreliable or gets old,

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all sorts of groups begin
to jockey for power.

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There's the legions in the provinces.

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There's the imperial bodyguards
in Rome. You've got the courtiers.

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You have the ex-slaves in the palace

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00:16:02,020 --> 00:16:04,100
who want to know who's going
to own them next

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and then you've got
various imperial women

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trying to get their sons into power.

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So it's a very, very unstable
situation.

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Is it that instability
and the uncertainty of it all

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that both produces real violence

232
00:16:17,980 --> 00:16:21,420
and also allegations and rumours of
violence?

233
00:16:21,420 --> 00:16:22,500
That's right.

234
00:16:22,500 --> 00:16:25,980
The first thing that Tiberius does
when he succeeds Augustus is,

235
00:16:25,980 --> 00:16:29,060
he sends a boat to an island on which
one of his relatives has been

236
00:16:29,060 --> 00:16:32,300
kept in exile for decades
to have the boy killed

237
00:16:32,300 --> 00:16:34,900
because he could have been
an alternative.

238
00:16:34,900 --> 00:16:37,820
And what does Caligula do
when he takes power?

239
00:16:37,820 --> 00:16:40,980
One of the first things he does
is, he has his cousin,

240
00:16:40,980 --> 00:16:43,380
a little boy named Tiberius Gemellus,

241
00:16:43,380 --> 00:16:46,500
murdered because he's somebody else
who could have been Emperor.

242
00:16:46,500 --> 00:16:50,980
What's amazing is that, for the
first 100 years of the Empire,

243
00:16:50,980 --> 00:16:53,100
there's not a single Emperor

244
00:16:53,100 --> 00:16:57,060
about whose death there isn't some
kind of allegation

245
00:16:57,060 --> 00:16:58,780
that he was bumped off,

246
00:16:58,780 --> 00:17:01,260
that the poisoned mushrooms
had done him in.

247
00:17:01,260 --> 00:17:06,620
There is that story of Caligula who,
some people said,

248
00:17:06,620 --> 00:17:12,500
had actually smothered Tiberius
when he was asleep

249
00:17:12,500 --> 00:17:15,100
in order to
take power himself.

250
00:17:15,100 --> 00:17:16,180
And the other story is,

251
00:17:16,180 --> 00:17:18,900
he got the captain of the Praetorian
Guard to do it for him

252
00:17:18,900 --> 00:17:22,260
because Emperors have people
to do the smothering for them.

253
00:17:28,060 --> 00:17:32,220
However Tiberius really died,
two days after his death

254
00:17:32,220 --> 00:17:35,020
on March 18th, 37 AD,

255
00:17:35,020 --> 00:17:38,860
the Senate declared Caligula
Rome's third Emperor.

256
00:17:38,860 --> 00:17:41,460
He could now triumphantly
return to Rome

257
00:17:41,460 --> 00:17:44,180
as the ruler of the known world.

258
00:17:44,180 --> 00:17:46,660
He was just 24 years old.

259
00:17:48,380 --> 00:17:51,460
At the time, he must have
seemed the best choice.

260
00:17:51,460 --> 00:17:53,540
As the childhood
mascot of the troops

261
00:17:53,540 --> 00:17:57,580
and the son of the great Germanicus,
he had the support of the army.

262
00:17:57,580 --> 00:17:59,580
And, as the great-grandson
of Augustus,

263
00:17:59,580 --> 00:18:03,780
he could claim a direct blood line
back to the founder of the dynasty.

264
00:18:05,500 --> 00:18:07,660
And to the adoration of the crowds,

265
00:18:07,660 --> 00:18:10,100
one of Caligula's first
acts as Emperor

266
00:18:10,100 --> 00:18:13,340
was to make a huge play of these
family connections.

267
00:18:14,820 --> 00:18:18,620
Braving the stormy seas, he made
a great song and dance of bringing

268
00:18:18,620 --> 00:18:23,620
the ashes of his dead mother back to
Rome, burying her with his own hands

269
00:18:23,620 --> 00:18:28,220
here in the enormous family tomb,
built by his great-grandfather,

270
00:18:28,220 --> 00:18:31,300
the Mausoleum of Augustus.

271
00:18:31,300 --> 00:18:34,220
BELL TOLLS

272
00:18:36,980 --> 00:18:39,060
At the Capitoline Museums in Rome,

273
00:18:39,060 --> 00:18:44,020
the whacking tombstone Caligula put
up to his mother still survives

274
00:18:44,020 --> 00:18:48,060
and it's so much more
than just a grave marker.

275
00:18:48,060 --> 00:18:49,580
It starts by saying OSSA.

276
00:18:49,580 --> 00:18:54,460
These are the bones,
in fact the ashes of Agrippina,

277
00:18:54,460 --> 00:18:57,460
the daughter of Marcus Agrippa,

278
00:18:57,460 --> 00:19:01,460
the grand-daughter, NEPTIS DIVIAVG

279
00:19:01,460 --> 00:19:04,060
of Augustus, the first Emperor,

280
00:19:04,060 --> 00:19:06,660
who's now a god, a Dyeus.

281
00:19:06,660 --> 00:19:11,340
And she's the wife,
the UXOR of Germanicus Caesar,

282
00:19:11,340 --> 00:19:13,460
the golden boy of the Empire

283
00:19:13,460 --> 00:19:16,380
and she's the mother, MATRIS,

284
00:19:16,380 --> 00:19:21,180
of Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus,

285
00:19:21,180 --> 00:19:24,700
PRINCIPIS, the Emperor Caligula.

286
00:19:24,700 --> 00:19:29,380
In a way,
it says just as much about Caligula.

287
00:19:30,540 --> 00:19:34,980
This is his manifesto
to his right to imperial rule.

288
00:19:37,140 --> 00:19:39,500
But there was another way in which
Caligula could get

289
00:19:39,500 --> 00:19:43,700
the message across about
who was now in charge,

290
00:19:43,700 --> 00:19:47,020
by the money he minted,
stamped with his portrait,

291
00:19:47,020 --> 00:19:50,260
on which he showered
down on the people of Rome.

292
00:19:50,260 --> 00:19:55,300
Caligula is supposed to have been
absolutely spectacularly generous.

293
00:19:55,300 --> 00:19:58,900
He's said on some occasions to have
gone up to the first floor

294
00:19:58,900 --> 00:20:02,220
of a building in the Forum
and actually thrown money,

295
00:20:02,220 --> 00:20:05,420
thrown coins at the crowd.

296
00:20:05,420 --> 00:20:08,580
They would have got some good cash
to take home

297
00:20:08,580 --> 00:20:15,340
but, more important in a way,
you'd also go home with a message

298
00:20:15,340 --> 00:20:17,860
because one of the ways
that Emperors could

299
00:20:17,860 --> 00:20:19,780
get their version of events

300
00:20:19,780 --> 00:20:23,060
and their slogans
across to the Roman people at large,

301
00:20:23,060 --> 00:20:25,140
was to put them on the coins,

302
00:20:25,140 --> 00:20:29,780
so you literally carried around the
imperial propaganda in your pocket.

303
00:20:32,020 --> 00:20:36,540
In Caligula's case, they hammer home
the point about the royal blood

304
00:20:36,540 --> 00:20:38,260
flowing through his veins.

305
00:20:39,780 --> 00:20:41,900
This one shows Caligula on one side,

306
00:20:41,900 --> 00:20:44,740
his father, the great Germanicus,
on the other.

307
00:20:45,940 --> 00:20:50,100
Another shows a carriage parading
a statue of his mother

308
00:20:50,100 --> 00:20:53,460
in celebrations
founded in her honour.

309
00:20:53,460 --> 00:20:57,420
And even more important,
this one shows Caligula sacrificing

310
00:20:57,420 --> 00:21:02,580
a bull at the temple of his
great-grandfather, the god Augustus.

311
00:21:02,580 --> 00:21:06,660
This one has an even more
pointed message.

312
00:21:06,660 --> 00:21:10,460
On the one side, there's a really
gorgeous portrait of Caligula

313
00:21:10,460 --> 00:21:13,420
and his name here, Gaius Caesar.

314
00:21:13,420 --> 00:21:18,260
But on the other, you can see
what must be him standing on a box,

315
00:21:18,260 --> 00:21:23,900
his arm outstretched and he's
talking to a group of soldiers

316
00:21:23,900 --> 00:21:26,940
and it says at the top, ADLOCUT,
short for adlocutio,

317
00:21:26,940 --> 00:21:32,380
the speech of the Emperor,
to his troops and underneath, C-O-H,

318
00:21:32,380 --> 00:21:37,100
short for COHORTES,
the cohorts of the Praetorian Guard.

319
00:21:37,100 --> 00:21:40,620
And the message of this is clear.

320
00:21:40,620 --> 00:21:43,420
Whatever family background you have,

321
00:21:43,420 --> 00:21:46,060
whatever deals you've done,

322
00:21:46,060 --> 00:21:48,860
nobody in Rome can become an Emperor

323
00:21:48,860 --> 00:21:52,060
unless they've got the support
of the army.

324
00:21:53,740 --> 00:21:57,820
And this is what many modern despots
and tyrants have also discovered.

325
00:21:57,820 --> 00:21:59,820
Without the support of the troops,

326
00:21:59,820 --> 00:22:02,740
you're either deposed
or you're dead.

327
00:22:05,540 --> 00:22:08,580
These coins give us
an idea of how an Emperor

328
00:22:08,580 --> 00:22:12,220
branded his image in the days
before TV and radio.

329
00:22:13,700 --> 00:22:16,420
Alongside stamping
his face on the cash,

330
00:22:16,420 --> 00:22:20,340
cheap cameos of Caligula were
cut from glass and clay

331
00:22:20,340 --> 00:22:24,460
and portrait busts were sent
out across the Empire to be copied

332
00:22:24,460 --> 00:22:28,220
and turned into a whole
gallery of imperial statues.

333
00:22:30,140 --> 00:22:31,540
If you've ever wondered

334
00:22:31,540 --> 00:22:34,820
why there are so many heads
and so few bodies, one reason is

335
00:22:34,820 --> 00:22:37,780
that the heads were always meant
to be replaceable.

336
00:22:37,780 --> 00:22:42,380
You can see just how easy it would
be to take one head out

337
00:22:42,380 --> 00:22:44,900
and pop another one in.

338
00:22:49,220 --> 00:22:51,420
Once established on the throne,

339
00:22:51,420 --> 00:22:56,420
one of the ways Rome's new Emperors
cemented their power was to build.

340
00:22:56,420 --> 00:23:00,260
And even if Caligula ruled for just
four years, we know that some of

341
00:23:00,260 --> 00:23:04,700
Rome's most iconic ancient monuments
started life under his watch.

342
00:23:07,220 --> 00:23:10,980
There were the aqueducts,
the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus,

343
00:23:10,980 --> 00:23:14,780
bringing water from over 40 miles
away to the centre of Rome.

344
00:23:16,220 --> 00:23:20,820
The Obelisk that now stands in front
of St Peter's is also Caligulan,

345
00:23:20,820 --> 00:23:25,500
shipped over from Egypt
on an enormous specially-built boat.

346
00:23:26,700 --> 00:23:30,420
And then there was the most obvious
statement of Caligula's power,

347
00:23:30,420 --> 00:23:33,980
the imperial HQ
on the Palatine Hill,

348
00:23:33,980 --> 00:23:38,060
whose Latin name Palatium,
gives us our own word, palace.

349
00:23:39,420 --> 00:23:43,180
Most of what we now see here dates
from long after Caligula's death.

350
00:23:44,580 --> 00:23:48,740
His own building was destroyed
in the great fire of Rome in 64 AD,

351
00:23:48,740 --> 00:23:52,700
but it seems that Caligula was
the first Emperor to remodel

352
00:23:52,700 --> 00:23:57,780
the imperial residences to make them
more palatial in our terms.

353
00:24:01,820 --> 00:24:04,780
The Emperor didn't just
live on the Palatine Hill.

354
00:24:04,780 --> 00:24:09,740
Caligula also inherited vast
pleasure gardens called Horti,

355
00:24:09,740 --> 00:24:12,100
on the outskirts of the city.

356
00:24:13,780 --> 00:24:15,620
One of them, the Horti Lamiani,

357
00:24:15,620 --> 00:24:19,660
is still a garden of sorts in modern
Rome and it's the location

358
00:24:19,660 --> 00:24:24,380
of the only eye-witness account
of Caligula in action that we have.

359
00:24:25,980 --> 00:24:28,980
It was written by Philo,
a Jew from Alexandria,

360
00:24:28,980 --> 00:24:31,260
who had come to petition
the Emperor

361
00:24:31,260 --> 00:24:34,180
against political discrimination
back home

362
00:24:34,180 --> 00:24:37,540
and it's a rare glimpse of
Caligula the Emperor,

363
00:24:37,540 --> 00:24:39,740
face to face with his subjects.

364
00:24:41,540 --> 00:24:44,700
When Philo and his delegation
get to their appointment,

365
00:24:44,700 --> 00:24:46,740
they discover that the Emperor's
mind

366
00:24:46,740 --> 00:24:48,540
is actually on home improvements

367
00:24:48,540 --> 00:24:51,460
and they traipse around after him
through the gardens

368
00:24:51,460 --> 00:24:55,700
as he goes from pavilion to
pavilion, planning his makeover.

369
00:24:55,700 --> 00:25:00,460
When they get his attention,
they bow down to the ground.

370
00:25:00,460 --> 00:25:05,020
But it doesn't cut much ice with
Caligula, who simply says,

371
00:25:05,020 --> 00:25:08,580
"So you're the god-haters who don't
think I'm a god, then?"

372
00:25:08,580 --> 00:25:10,980
And he follows that up by asking,

373
00:25:10,980 --> 00:25:13,860
"And, anyway,
why don't you eat pork?"

374
00:25:13,860 --> 00:25:16,380
One of the Jews thinks quickly
on his feet and said,

375
00:25:16,380 --> 00:25:18,820
"Well, quite a lot of people
don't eat a lot of things.

376
00:25:18,820 --> 00:25:21,420
"I mean, some people
don't eat lamb."

377
00:25:21,420 --> 00:25:25,660
"I'm not surprised," said Caligula,
"It tastes horrible."

378
00:25:25,660 --> 00:25:28,020
And the flunkies all laugh.

379
00:25:28,020 --> 00:25:33,220
It's a wonderful and horrible
vignette of the day-to-day

380
00:25:33,220 --> 00:25:35,820
exercise of imperial power.

381
00:25:35,820 --> 00:25:39,180
There's no cruelty here,
there's no violence.

382
00:25:39,180 --> 00:25:41,340
There's even a bit of banter.

383
00:25:41,340 --> 00:25:44,540
But, all the same, it's humiliating.

384
00:25:44,540 --> 00:25:47,940
Caligula's message is quite clear.

385
00:25:47,940 --> 00:25:51,940
My fancy window glass
is more important

386
00:25:51,940 --> 00:25:54,700
than the Jews of Alexandria.

387
00:25:56,380 --> 00:25:59,060
It's a revealing story
and it also tells us

388
00:25:59,060 --> 00:26:02,460
a lot more than we might
think about imperial luxury.

389
00:26:02,460 --> 00:26:06,980
For one of the ways Emperors
dazzled you with their power,

390
00:26:06,980 --> 00:26:12,660
rammed it in your face, was with
the very trappings of their world.

391
00:26:12,660 --> 00:26:15,780
And it's from the pleasure
gardens that we can still find

392
00:26:15,780 --> 00:26:18,380
traces of Caligulan splendour.

393
00:26:18,380 --> 00:26:21,860
From them have come
some of the most impressive

394
00:26:21,860 --> 00:26:23,820
and famous statues of Ancient Rome,

395
00:26:23,820 --> 00:26:26,220
such as the Discobulus,

396
00:26:26,220 --> 00:26:29,940
the discus-thrower, a version
of an earlier Greek masterpiece.

397
00:26:39,020 --> 00:26:41,100
There's the Maid of Anzio

398
00:26:41,100 --> 00:26:44,500
found at the palace where we think
Caligula was born.

399
00:26:47,460 --> 00:26:50,060
And the Sleeping Hermaphrodite,

400
00:26:50,060 --> 00:26:52,940
a wonderfully urbane joke,

401
00:26:52,940 --> 00:26:55,180
the kind the palace just loved.

402
00:26:55,180 --> 00:26:58,900
On the one side,
she's a luscious sleeping woman.

403
00:26:58,900 --> 00:27:01,980
On the other,
she's definitely more of a bloke.

404
00:27:04,420 --> 00:27:08,860
And in the 1870s, excavators
dug up an astonishing find

405
00:27:08,860 --> 00:27:13,380
in one of the imperial pleasure
gardens that used to be Caligula's.

406
00:27:13,380 --> 00:27:17,220
Hundreds of precious stones,
rubies, garnets, carnelians,

407
00:27:17,220 --> 00:27:19,580
bits of rock crystal and amber

408
00:27:19,580 --> 00:27:24,980
embedded in amazing frames of
filigree silver and gold.

409
00:27:24,980 --> 00:27:28,940
When this stuff was first
discovered in the 1870s,

410
00:27:28,940 --> 00:27:31,420
no-one could quite work
out what it was.

411
00:27:31,420 --> 00:27:35,620
One idea was that they'd come across
a throne room,

412
00:27:35,620 --> 00:27:40,820
but there's just so much of this
stuff, I think we have to imagine

413
00:27:40,820 --> 00:27:45,300
precious stones literally embedded
in the palace walls,

414
00:27:45,300 --> 00:27:50,460
twinkling in the lights at night,
looking amazing,

415
00:27:50,460 --> 00:27:53,100
or perhaps a bit
tacky during the day.

416
00:27:53,100 --> 00:27:57,460
We do know that Caligula
was dead keen on pearls

417
00:27:57,460 --> 00:28:01,220
and one contemporary witness says
he actually used to like slippers

418
00:28:01,220 --> 00:28:04,220
with pearls sewn into them,

419
00:28:04,220 --> 00:28:05,940
which, if you ask me,

420
00:28:05,940 --> 00:28:09,660
is a far cry from those little
military boots he started out with.

421
00:28:11,940 --> 00:28:13,220
It's a cute vision.

422
00:28:13,220 --> 00:28:16,780
A newly-crowned Emperor
showing off his pearled slippers

423
00:28:16,780 --> 00:28:19,140
to his flunkies.

424
00:28:19,140 --> 00:28:22,860
But it's also another example of how
the imperial family

425
00:28:22,860 --> 00:28:27,540
used the ostentation of their
world to unsettle and disarm.

426
00:28:29,660 --> 00:28:31,860
This is one of the most iconic

427
00:28:31,860 --> 00:28:35,460
and impressive imperial
paintings from Ancient Rome,

428
00:28:35,460 --> 00:28:37,660
the so-called Garden Room,

429
00:28:37,660 --> 00:28:40,860
designed for Caligula's
great-grandmother Livia,

430
00:28:40,860 --> 00:28:45,020
in whose home
Caligula spent time as a boy.

431
00:28:45,020 --> 00:28:47,900
It's an impossibly utopian scene.

432
00:28:47,900 --> 00:28:51,820
The trees are all
full of perfectly ripe fruit.

433
00:28:51,820 --> 00:28:54,860
Every flower is perfectly in bloom

434
00:28:54,860 --> 00:28:58,540
and in the gloom of the flickering
lamps 2,000 years ago,

435
00:28:58,540 --> 00:29:02,100
it would be hard to know whether
we were looking at a real garden

436
00:29:02,100 --> 00:29:04,620
or a painting of one.

437
00:29:04,620 --> 00:29:08,380
Of course, that sort of illusionism
is one of the most impressive

438
00:29:08,380 --> 00:29:10,980
trademarks of Roman art.

439
00:29:10,980 --> 00:29:14,460
But it's also slightly unsettling.

440
00:29:14,460 --> 00:29:19,500
The blurring of the boundary
between the fake and the real

441
00:29:19,500 --> 00:29:25,660
is one of the factors about Roman
court culture that made it so scary.

442
00:29:27,180 --> 00:29:28,780
You never quite know

443
00:29:28,780 --> 00:29:32,460
whether what you're looking at is
real or an imitation.

444
00:29:32,460 --> 00:29:35,100
Pretence or reality.

445
00:29:36,860 --> 00:29:40,260
On the one hand, what you think is
real turns out not to be

446
00:29:40,260 --> 00:29:43,860
and there's a great story
about going to dinner with Caligula,

447
00:29:43,860 --> 00:29:47,380
looking at the fantastic spread,
it all looks wonderful

448
00:29:47,380 --> 00:29:51,900
until you spot that the
food on the table is made of gold.

449
00:29:51,900 --> 00:29:55,180
It's very precious
but what are you supposed to do?

450
00:29:55,180 --> 00:29:57,420
Can you pretend to eat it?

451
00:29:57,420 --> 00:29:58,780
And on the other hand,

452
00:29:58,780 --> 00:30:04,420
what you think is fake
can turn out to be deadly real.

453
00:30:04,420 --> 00:30:08,780
There's another story of Caligula
having what looked like

454
00:30:08,780 --> 00:30:14,140
a practice gladiatorial bout with
an opponent, with wooden swords,

455
00:30:14,140 --> 00:30:17,580
except Caligula had a real weapon.

456
00:30:17,580 --> 00:30:20,820
So this all looks very impressive.

457
00:30:20,820 --> 00:30:26,180
It's all very lovely, but it reminds
us that there's a more shadowy,

458
00:30:26,180 --> 00:30:30,620
sinister world of smoke and mirrors
in the Imperial Court.

459
00:30:34,340 --> 00:30:38,860
It's a perfect example
of the choreography of threat

460
00:30:38,860 --> 00:30:42,580
that lurked beneath
everyday palace life.

461
00:30:42,580 --> 00:30:45,700
A threat, if you think about it
from the Emperor's point of view,

462
00:30:45,700 --> 00:30:48,100
that worked both ways.

463
00:30:48,100 --> 00:30:52,580
The labyrinthine corridors of
the palace were teeming with people,

464
00:30:52,580 --> 00:30:54,980
from visiting dignitaries and spies

465
00:30:54,980 --> 00:30:58,220
to the collectors
of the Imperial rubbish.

466
00:30:58,220 --> 00:31:01,260
It must have been
a security nightmare.

467
00:31:01,260 --> 00:31:03,780
How did the Emperor
ever know who was who?

468
00:31:03,780 --> 00:31:06,260
And how did he marshal
his own security?

469
00:31:09,740 --> 00:31:11,820
They did have a system of passwords.

470
00:31:11,820 --> 00:31:13,740
The Emperor would issue
a new one each day

471
00:31:13,740 --> 00:31:16,660
and you would have to say the word
if you were challenged.

472
00:31:16,660 --> 00:31:19,940
But that wasn't enough for the most
anxious of emperors.

473
00:31:19,940 --> 00:31:21,700
One of them is said

474
00:31:21,700 --> 00:31:24,660
to have had the walls of the palace
lined with mirrors

475
00:31:24,660 --> 00:31:27,500
so he really could see who was
coming up behind him.

476
00:31:31,340 --> 00:31:35,100
In this world, where the Emperor
was always watching his back,

477
00:31:35,100 --> 00:31:38,100
the people he ended up
trusting the most

478
00:31:38,100 --> 00:31:42,180
weren't just his personal
security force, but also his slaves.

479
00:31:42,180 --> 00:31:45,340
And high up on the wall
of the museum in Rome

480
00:31:45,340 --> 00:31:50,660
is the record of the staff from
one of Caligula's actual palaces.

481
00:31:50,660 --> 00:31:53,260
Each one tells us what they did.

482
00:31:53,260 --> 00:31:57,740
Here's one, for example,
"Saturninus Svaia".

483
00:31:57,740 --> 00:31:59,740
That is short for "Svairista".

484
00:31:59,740 --> 00:32:05,060
It means ballplayer, but perhaps
Saturninus was a personal trainer.

485
00:32:06,220 --> 00:32:09,620
We've got Argaeus,
he's a Gubernatio,

486
00:32:09,620 --> 00:32:13,100
the helmsman, perhaps,
on the Imperial yacht.

487
00:32:13,100 --> 00:32:20,100
But perhaps my favourite of all
is this chap here, Venustos Spec.

488
00:32:20,100 --> 00:32:23,100
Spec could be short
for "speculatos".

489
00:32:23,100 --> 00:32:28,100
Venustos might have been
a watchman or spy.

490
00:32:28,100 --> 00:32:31,100
But it could also be
short for "specularius",

491
00:32:31,100 --> 00:32:35,660
in which case he was the guy
who made the mirrors.

492
00:32:35,660 --> 00:32:40,020
It's a wonderful snapshot
of the underbelly of court life.

493
00:32:40,020 --> 00:32:44,260
But it would be a mistake to think
that they were just lowly servants.

494
00:32:44,260 --> 00:32:46,580
Some of them played a vital role

495
00:32:46,580 --> 00:32:49,980
in the palace's strategy
of control and fear.

496
00:32:49,980 --> 00:32:53,940
Aphetos, here,
he's an "invitato".

497
00:32:53,940 --> 00:32:59,140
He's the guy who controls the guest
list at the palace dinner parties.

498
00:32:59,140 --> 00:33:00,980
Now, Roman aristocrats

499
00:33:00,980 --> 00:33:05,260
wouldn't have touched this kind
of job with a barge pole.

500
00:33:05,260 --> 00:33:08,580
But these guys could
have quite a lot of power.

501
00:33:08,580 --> 00:33:13,540
And Romans told quite
a lot of sometimes wild stories

502
00:33:13,540 --> 00:33:18,540
about just how powerful these
imperial slaves and ex-slaves were.

503
00:33:18,540 --> 00:33:22,220
Caligula is supposed to have had
one called Protogenes,

504
00:33:22,220 --> 00:33:25,300
who carried around with him
under each arm,

505
00:33:25,300 --> 00:33:29,620
with more than a bit of menace and
ham-acting at the same time,

506
00:33:29,620 --> 00:33:31,180
two different files,

507
00:33:31,180 --> 00:33:35,900
one labelled "dagger",
the other labelled "sword",

508
00:33:35,900 --> 00:33:38,740
as if they contained
the lists inside

509
00:33:38,740 --> 00:33:41,420
of who was to be
put to death and how.

510
00:33:43,300 --> 00:33:48,340
It's not hard to see why the Emperor
relied on these guys.

511
00:33:48,340 --> 00:33:51,500
They didn't represent
a direct threat to him,

512
00:33:51,500 --> 00:33:54,740
they weren't going to become
emperor themselves.

513
00:33:54,740 --> 00:33:56,940
And, after all,
he owned most of them.

514
00:33:56,940 --> 00:33:59,660
But in the end
it didn't do Caligula any good.

515
00:33:59,660 --> 00:34:02,300
Some of them are supposed
to have been involved

516
00:34:02,300 --> 00:34:03,980
in the final plot to kill him.

517
00:34:07,180 --> 00:34:11,220
This is now one of the most powerful
images of Caligula that we have.

518
00:34:11,220 --> 00:34:16,860
A man who was paranoid about his own
security, and not unreasonably.

519
00:34:16,860 --> 00:34:21,060
As he no doubt learned from the fate
of his own family under Tiberius,

520
00:34:21,060 --> 00:34:26,660
conspiracies were an absolutely
inevitable part of Imperial Life.

521
00:34:29,300 --> 00:34:32,940
If Caligula is always looking behind
him, if he is always watchful,

522
00:34:32,940 --> 00:34:35,660
are there people who
really are out to get him?

523
00:34:35,660 --> 00:34:37,260
Yes, there were people
out to get him,

524
00:34:37,260 --> 00:34:41,020
and I think they were of two
quite different types.

525
00:34:41,020 --> 00:34:46,180
Either they are people within
the extended family who accept

526
00:34:46,180 --> 00:34:50,060
that Rome is now a dynastic
autocracy of which they are part,

527
00:34:50,060 --> 00:34:54,140
but want themselves, rather than
Caligula, to be the autocrat.

528
00:34:54,140 --> 00:34:57,540
But there's also another type
of potential opposition,

529
00:34:57,540 --> 00:34:59,420
which is people who don't think

530
00:34:59,420 --> 00:35:02,420
that Rome ought to be a dynastic
autocracy at all,

531
00:35:02,420 --> 00:35:05,420
and they want to
put the clock back to the Republic

532
00:35:05,420 --> 00:35:08,820
run by the Roman aristocracy,
run by the Senate.

533
00:35:08,820 --> 00:35:13,180
But it's really the first type,
the family trying to replace him

534
00:35:13,180 --> 00:35:16,340
from one of their own number,
that looks like the most important.

535
00:35:16,340 --> 00:35:19,460
We have most evidence for it. Yes.

536
00:35:19,460 --> 00:35:23,060
His brother-in-law,
Aemilius Lepidus,

537
00:35:23,060 --> 00:35:26,100
was executed for plotting
against him.

538
00:35:26,100 --> 00:35:28,980
And his wife, Caligula's sister,

539
00:35:28,980 --> 00:35:31,540
and also Caligula's
other surviving sister,

540
00:35:31,540 --> 00:35:33,380
were both exiled as a result.

541
00:35:33,380 --> 00:35:38,540
So clearly, Caligula saw this
as a threat from those closest

542
00:35:38,540 --> 00:35:41,580
to him inside the family,
to his own position.

543
00:35:41,580 --> 00:35:44,180
So in a sense, he is quite right
to be looking over his shoulder

544
00:35:44,180 --> 00:35:48,260
because the people who've got
the knife out are likely to be

545
00:35:48,260 --> 00:35:51,500
the people he's hanging out with
most days of the week. Yes.

546
00:35:51,500 --> 00:35:53,700
And he doesn't know how many
of them there are.

547
00:35:55,860 --> 00:35:59,620
Ever since, historians have wanted
to make this family plot

548
00:35:59,620 --> 00:36:01,900
one of the turning
point in Caligula's reign

549
00:36:01,900 --> 00:36:05,780
that marked his transition from
golden boy with promise

550
00:36:05,780 --> 00:36:09,060
to the maniacal monster
we've all come to know.

551
00:36:09,060 --> 00:36:12,420
But the fact is that this is
the period of Caligula's life,

552
00:36:12,420 --> 00:36:17,140
his time in power, about which
we actually know the least.

553
00:36:17,140 --> 00:36:20,620
Were these conspiracies
real conspiracies?

554
00:36:20,620 --> 00:36:24,460
Was this the moment that
he started to lose his grip?

555
00:36:24,460 --> 00:36:26,340
We don't know.

556
00:36:26,340 --> 00:36:30,180
What we do is that this is
when the stories of madness

557
00:36:30,180 --> 00:36:34,900
and excess that have come to define
Caligula mostly start.

558
00:36:36,420 --> 00:36:40,660
And perhaps the most famous
is that he gave his favourite horse,

559
00:36:40,660 --> 00:36:44,420
Incitatus, that's "Speedy",
his own palace.

560
00:36:44,420 --> 00:36:46,540
That he fed him oats mixed with gold

561
00:36:46,540 --> 00:36:48,740
and that he made him
a consul of Rome.

562
00:36:49,820 --> 00:36:54,380
The fact is that no ancient writer
ever says that Caligula

563
00:36:54,380 --> 00:36:56,060
made his horse a consul.

564
00:36:56,060 --> 00:37:01,180
What they say is that he planned to
or that people said he planned to.

565
00:37:02,660 --> 00:37:06,420
I'd be pretty certain that
what underlies all this

566
00:37:06,420 --> 00:37:09,060
is a bit of banter,
a Caligulan joke.

567
00:37:09,060 --> 00:37:11,820
I can imagine him at dinner
one evening with his friends

568
00:37:11,820 --> 00:37:14,540
among the aristocracy and he's
trying to needle them a bit.

569
00:37:14,540 --> 00:37:16,620
He's saying, "Oh,
you're a right hopeless lot,

570
00:37:16,620 --> 00:37:19,820
"I'd rather have my horse
consul than one of you."

571
00:37:19,820 --> 00:37:23,940
And that then goes down in history
as if he was serious.

572
00:37:23,940 --> 00:37:27,260
But anyway, we all do love
stories about monarchs

573
00:37:27,260 --> 00:37:29,580
and their pampered pets.

574
00:37:29,580 --> 00:37:32,140
Just think of our fantasies
about Queen Elizabeth

575
00:37:32,140 --> 00:37:35,380
and her corgis,
how they have diamond collars

576
00:37:35,380 --> 00:37:37,580
and they eat out of silver bowls

577
00:37:37,580 --> 00:37:40,580
and they're served by footmen
in uniform.

578
00:37:40,580 --> 00:37:42,220
I wonder what we'd say

579
00:37:42,220 --> 00:37:45,500
if we found that she'd nicknamed
one of them Prime Minister?

580
00:37:48,420 --> 00:37:52,180
And it wasn't just
stories of unbridled excess.

581
00:37:52,180 --> 00:37:54,740
Much of what else was thought
wrong with Caligula

582
00:37:54,740 --> 00:37:57,140
came down to his sex life.

583
00:37:57,140 --> 00:38:00,620
It was said
he turned his palace into a brothel,

584
00:38:00,620 --> 00:38:06,180
loved dressing up in women's clothes
and was so insatiable for sex

585
00:38:06,180 --> 00:38:08,780
that he wore out his male partners.

586
00:38:08,780 --> 00:38:11,860
For us, Caligula has become
more than anything

587
00:38:11,860 --> 00:38:15,420
a byword for sexual excess
and perversion.

588
00:38:15,420 --> 00:38:19,540
We can hardly hear his name
without conjuring up images

589
00:38:19,540 --> 00:38:24,300
of drunken orgies, sex in the wrong
place with the wrong people,

590
00:38:24,300 --> 00:38:29,780
with little boys, married women,
virgins and, most notoriously,

591
00:38:29,780 --> 00:38:32,060
with his own three sisters.

592
00:38:32,060 --> 00:38:35,660
If we were making a porn
movie, Roman-style,

593
00:38:35,660 --> 00:38:39,940
we'd be bound to cast
Caligula in the lead.

594
00:38:39,940 --> 00:38:41,780
And if these stories
have been added to

595
00:38:41,780 --> 00:38:43,860
and embellished over the years,

596
00:38:43,860 --> 00:38:46,660
they actually first appear
in sources

597
00:38:46,660 --> 00:38:48,940
written years after his death,

598
00:38:48,940 --> 00:38:52,900
mostly by the second century
biographer Suetonious.

599
00:38:52,900 --> 00:38:56,420
And they tell us just as much
about the anxieties

600
00:38:56,420 --> 00:38:59,420
of the Roman elite
as they do about Caligula.

601
00:38:59,420 --> 00:39:03,020
So you get these tales about,
you go to dinner with Caligula,

602
00:39:03,020 --> 00:39:05,060
you're a senator
and you take your wife

603
00:39:05,060 --> 00:39:08,460
and then in the middle between
courses, you suddenly discover

604
00:39:08,460 --> 00:39:11,500
that the Emperor has gone out
of the room with your wife.

605
00:39:11,500 --> 00:39:14,660
They come back a bit later,
they all look a bit flushed

606
00:39:14,660 --> 00:39:18,500
and then the Emperor says, "Oh,
she's not very good in bed, is she?"

607
00:39:18,500 --> 00:39:21,060
Yeah,
and associated with those stories,

608
00:39:21,060 --> 00:39:23,940
there's the account of how people
are coming to the banquet,

609
00:39:23,940 --> 00:39:27,540
Caligula is on his couch,
people file past the end

610
00:39:27,540 --> 00:39:29,740
and he acts like someone at a slave
market,

611
00:39:29,740 --> 00:39:31,380
sort of checking out the girls,

612
00:39:31,380 --> 00:39:34,380
trying to decide which one he's going
to select for later.

613
00:39:34,380 --> 00:39:37,220
So this is how the Emperor
shows his power,

614
00:39:37,220 --> 00:39:42,060
by humiliating the elite
in all sorts of different ways.

615
00:39:42,060 --> 00:39:43,860
This is one way amongst many.

616
00:39:43,860 --> 00:39:48,340
But perhaps the most damning story
was Caligula's incest

617
00:39:48,340 --> 00:39:52,300
with his favourite sister, Drusilla,
with whom, as a boy,

618
00:39:52,300 --> 00:39:56,020
he was said to have been discovered
in bed by his own grandmother.

619
00:39:56,020 --> 00:40:01,180
There's no actual accusation
of incest by anybody contemporary,

620
00:40:01,180 --> 00:40:03,420
absolutely contemporary
with Caligula, is there?

621
00:40:03,420 --> 00:40:06,860
And even this Suetonious stuff,

622
00:40:06,860 --> 00:40:10,540
where he's talking about granny
finding them in bed,

623
00:40:10,540 --> 00:40:14,740
it's quite interesting that even
Suetonius is only saying,

624
00:40:14,740 --> 00:40:17,540
"People used to say that.
The gossip was..."

625
00:40:17,540 --> 00:40:20,380
Whereas he's quite clear that
incest took place,

626
00:40:20,380 --> 00:40:23,700
when it gets to the detail,
it's all...

627
00:40:23,700 --> 00:40:25,300
Kept at a distance.

628
00:40:25,300 --> 00:40:29,940
Yes. I think even Seneca, who is
pretty much Caligula's contemporary,

629
00:40:29,940 --> 00:40:33,460
he does talk about
when Caligula's sister Drusilla dies,

630
00:40:33,460 --> 00:40:36,580
Caligula's excessive
grief for Drusilla.

631
00:40:36,580 --> 00:40:38,740
He doesn't know what to do
with himself,

632
00:40:38,740 --> 00:40:41,340
he dashes off to the country,
he dashes back to Rome,

633
00:40:41,340 --> 00:40:44,700
he tries to console himself
with gambling.

634
00:40:44,700 --> 00:40:47,540
He goes around in a terrible state.

635
00:40:47,540 --> 00:40:50,940
But he doesn't link that
to perverse sexuality.

636
00:40:50,940 --> 00:40:54,220
I think there's also
the dynastic aspect of it.

637
00:40:54,220 --> 00:40:57,140
The stories about incest are partly
about their anxieties

638
00:40:57,140 --> 00:41:00,100
about the way that power is now
transmitted in the Roman world.

639
00:41:00,100 --> 00:41:02,860
Instead of it going from one
lot of middle-aged men

640
00:41:02,860 --> 00:41:04,700
to another lot of middle-aged men

641
00:41:04,700 --> 00:41:06,900
through a proper process
in the Senate,

642
00:41:06,900 --> 00:41:10,340
it's one family that's
holding on to power

643
00:41:10,340 --> 00:41:13,260
and the women in the family then
have influence in a way

644
00:41:13,260 --> 00:41:15,860
they never had previously done
under the Roman Republic.

645
00:41:15,860 --> 00:41:18,580
So really what the stories are
telling us,

646
00:41:18,580 --> 00:41:21,100
they are telling us about power?
I think that's right.

647
00:41:21,100 --> 00:41:23,940
He's a youngish man, he's not
a great military leader

648
00:41:23,940 --> 00:41:26,580
or anything like that, but he's got
all this power

649
00:41:26,580 --> 00:41:28,180
as leader of the Roman world.

650
00:41:28,180 --> 00:41:32,420
His relations with the Senate
are clearly very uneasy.

651
00:41:32,420 --> 00:41:36,220
So they tell these stories
about his outrageous behaviour.

652
00:41:41,140 --> 00:41:44,700
Perhaps this is a clue to
one of the problems of Caligula.

653
00:41:44,700 --> 00:41:48,660
Whereas Augustus and Tiberius had
come to power after prominent

654
00:41:48,660 --> 00:41:53,620
military careers, "Bootikins" was
thrust on the throne at just 24.

655
00:41:55,420 --> 00:41:58,860
Without the military pedigree
or political experience

656
00:41:58,860 --> 00:42:00,620
to earn the elite's respect,

657
00:42:00,620 --> 00:42:04,180
it's hardly surprising that he might
cast around

658
00:42:04,180 --> 00:42:08,300
for alternative,
more king-like models of leadership.

659
00:42:08,300 --> 00:42:13,380
And that included presenting
himself as both Emperor and God.

660
00:42:15,700 --> 00:42:17,580
The boundary between Roman emperors

661
00:42:17,580 --> 00:42:21,020
and the gods was always
a fragile one.

662
00:42:21,020 --> 00:42:24,180
But Caligula trampled
right through it.

663
00:42:24,180 --> 00:42:26,700
He is said to have insisted

664
00:42:26,700 --> 00:42:31,180
on being worshipped as a god
in his own lifetime.

665
00:42:31,180 --> 00:42:33,140
And to make matters worse, we are

666
00:42:33,140 --> 00:42:36,820
told he transformed the most
symbolic space in Rome,

667
00:42:36,820 --> 00:42:41,260
the People's Forum,
into his own stage to be worshipped.

668
00:42:41,260 --> 00:42:45,660
One story was that he turned
the Temple of Castor and Pollux

669
00:42:45,660 --> 00:42:48,060
into the porch
of his own house

670
00:42:48,060 --> 00:42:51,380
and used to go and sit there
between the statues of the gods,

671
00:42:51,380 --> 00:42:53,060
waiting to be worshipped.

672
00:42:54,460 --> 00:42:58,100
Another story was, he used to go
up to the Capitoline Hill

673
00:42:58,100 --> 00:43:00,140
to talk to Jupiter there.

674
00:43:00,140 --> 00:43:03,820
And then built a bridge
between the Palatine

675
00:43:03,820 --> 00:43:07,700
and the Capitoline to make those
conversations a bit easier.

676
00:43:08,860 --> 00:43:13,140
It's even said that he had
flamingos sacrificed to him.

677
00:43:13,140 --> 00:43:17,900
If there's now nothing left of these
buildings above ground in the Forum,

678
00:43:17,900 --> 00:43:21,820
archaeologist Henry Hurst has
uncovered evidence beneath

679
00:43:21,820 --> 00:43:25,140
that suggests they might not be
entirely fantasy.

680
00:43:25,140 --> 00:43:28,380
We dug over all of this area
and we're very lucky

681
00:43:28,380 --> 00:43:31,660
in that we found some
unusually well-dated remains.

682
00:43:31,660 --> 00:43:33,180
We could date them

683
00:43:33,180 --> 00:43:36,820
pretty much to around 40 AD,
around the time of Caligula's reign.

684
00:43:36,820 --> 00:43:41,940
And what they consisted of was
a large courtyard going that way

685
00:43:41,940 --> 00:43:44,940
towards the hill
and behind it a very grand room

686
00:43:44,940 --> 00:43:49,380
and a grand courtyard.
Then where we are, a big enclosure

687
00:43:49,380 --> 00:43:51,380
with a central monument.

688
00:43:51,380 --> 00:43:55,300
The combination of that
and this grand courtyard and room

689
00:43:55,300 --> 00:43:59,220
makes one think of some
sort of a palatial complex.

690
00:43:59,220 --> 00:44:02,300
And on the other side of that wall
is the Temple of Castor and Pollux.

691
00:44:02,300 --> 00:44:06,740
Yes, so the story that Caligula
extended the palace out

692
00:44:06,740 --> 00:44:10,300
towards the Forum and made the
temple his vestibule

693
00:44:10,300 --> 00:44:14,900
seems quite possible because these
remains are huge and palatial

694
00:44:14,900 --> 00:44:17,740
and very close
to the back of the temple.

695
00:44:17,740 --> 00:44:21,180
And what about Caligula's
fantastical bridge to Jupiter

696
00:44:21,180 --> 00:44:23,060
on the Capitoline Hill,

697
00:44:23,060 --> 00:44:27,900
which, if true, would have spanned
a distance of over 250 metres,

698
00:44:27,900 --> 00:44:29,980
and been 30 metres above the ground?

699
00:44:31,380 --> 00:44:34,340
The sane and traditional view of this
is that the bridge

700
00:44:34,340 --> 00:44:37,860
was just a timber footbridge,
which went from somewhere high up,

701
00:44:37,860 --> 00:44:41,140
using the roofs of buildings,
and ended up over in the Capitoline

702
00:44:41,140 --> 00:44:44,260
so you wouldn't find any traces
archaeologically.

703
00:44:44,260 --> 00:44:47,780
But we have the mystery of what
we're standing on.

704
00:44:47,780 --> 00:44:54,900
What it looks really like is a pier
of the Roman bridge at Verona.

705
00:44:54,900 --> 00:44:58,540
These look like that quite a bit, so
we thought, is this a bridge pier?

706
00:44:58,540 --> 00:45:02,540
And in favour of that is this
question of levels

707
00:45:02,540 --> 00:45:07,940
because the temple behind us there
is one storey up from where we are.

708
00:45:07,940 --> 00:45:11,500
There's also the story about how
Caligula threw coins

709
00:45:11,500 --> 00:45:14,740
from the roof of the Basilica Julia,
also one storey up,

710
00:45:14,740 --> 00:45:18,060
and that was just over there,
so it would be quite sensible

711
00:45:18,060 --> 00:45:21,020
if you were having a bridge for it
to be effectively one storey high

712
00:45:21,020 --> 00:45:24,140
so that it could link these things
all at first floor level.

713
00:45:24,140 --> 00:45:26,660
So a raised walkway
and then up to the Capitoline.

714
00:45:26,660 --> 00:45:28,860
And then eventually up to
the Capitoline, yes.

715
00:45:29,860 --> 00:45:33,380
It's just a small block of marble,
a tantalising clue

716
00:45:33,380 --> 00:45:36,940
to the lengths Caligula went for
his own self-aggrandisement.

717
00:45:38,180 --> 00:45:41,300
But it also points to the difficulty
we now have

718
00:45:41,300 --> 00:45:43,780
in separating fact from fiction.

719
00:45:43,780 --> 00:45:45,820
After just four years in power,

720
00:45:45,820 --> 00:45:49,740
there's little hard archaeology that
we can tie to Caligula for certain.

721
00:45:51,140 --> 00:45:55,580
But there is one site
not far from Rome where we can.

722
00:45:55,580 --> 00:45:59,980
This is Lake Nemi,
one of Caligula's favourite places.

723
00:45:59,980 --> 00:46:04,060
It's where all the myths
come together.

724
00:46:04,060 --> 00:46:08,780
The uncontrolled extravagance,
the divinity, and even the violence.

725
00:46:11,940 --> 00:46:16,020
It was known in the ancient
world as the speculum Dianae -

726
00:46:16,020 --> 00:46:17,820
the mirror of Diana.

727
00:46:18,860 --> 00:46:20,140
And in the 1930s,

728
00:46:20,140 --> 00:46:25,260
it was the site of one of the most
stunning finds in Roman archaeology,

729
00:46:25,260 --> 00:46:30,140
two enormous floating villas
that were so large

730
00:46:30,140 --> 00:46:34,060
and so lavish that they've become
the ultimate symbols

731
00:46:34,060 --> 00:46:37,860
of Caligula's excess
towards the end of his reign.

732
00:46:39,140 --> 00:46:44,620
And unsurprisingly, it was Italy's
20th-century tyrant, Mussolini,

733
00:46:44,620 --> 00:46:49,300
who spent a fortune raising them
from the mud and installing them

734
00:46:49,300 --> 00:46:52,860
in a huge museum at the end
of the lake.

735
00:46:52,860 --> 00:46:55,380
The shells of the boats were
tragically destroyed

736
00:46:55,380 --> 00:46:57,540
in the Second World War.

737
00:46:57,540 --> 00:47:02,580
Now we've only got models, but much
of the hardware still survives.

738
00:47:02,580 --> 00:47:05,780
No doubt whose boats these are!

739
00:47:05,780 --> 00:47:10,300
It says
Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.

740
00:47:10,300 --> 00:47:12,420
These are Caligula's barges.

741
00:47:12,420 --> 00:47:15,660
It's a bit hard to know what
a water pipe is doing on a boat.

742
00:47:15,660 --> 00:47:17,580
They can't be ordinary boats.

743
00:47:17,580 --> 00:47:23,300
Perhaps they're bringing water to
Caligula's hot tub under the stars.

744
00:47:25,660 --> 00:47:28,540
Suetonius has left us a vivid
description

745
00:47:28,540 --> 00:47:30,860
of other Caligulan boats,

746
00:47:30,860 --> 00:47:36,300
so luxurious that they had jewelled
prows, sails of purple silk,

747
00:47:36,300 --> 00:47:39,460
and bathrooms of alabaster
and bronze.

748
00:47:39,460 --> 00:47:40,700
Long thought a myth,

749
00:47:40,700 --> 00:47:44,260
the boats of Nemi hint
that they might in fact be true.

750
00:47:47,420 --> 00:47:51,700
For alongside the naval hardware
of the ships are glimpses

751
00:47:51,700 --> 00:47:54,060
of astonishing imperial luxury.

752
00:47:56,340 --> 00:48:00,540
There are rows of columns
made from Grecian marble,

753
00:48:00,540 --> 00:48:03,380
sinister sculptures of Medusa heads,

754
00:48:03,380 --> 00:48:05,820
and huge golden hands,

755
00:48:05,820 --> 00:48:10,020
beautifully sculpted mooring rings
of wolves and lions,

756
00:48:10,020 --> 00:48:12,940
and balustrades
cast in solid bronze.

757
00:48:14,940 --> 00:48:17,820
There have been all kinds of
theories about what these boats

758
00:48:17,820 --> 00:48:19,300
were actually for.

759
00:48:19,300 --> 00:48:22,500
Some people have thought
they must have been religious.

760
00:48:22,500 --> 00:48:27,060
Was it here that Caligula came to
commune with the goddess Diana

761
00:48:27,060 --> 00:48:29,500
by the light of the moon?

762
00:48:29,500 --> 00:48:33,900
Was one of them a temple
to the Egyptian goddess Isis?

763
00:48:33,900 --> 00:48:38,460
Or were they just very lavish
pleasure barges?

764
00:48:38,460 --> 00:48:42,460
Romans with too much money loved
nothing more

765
00:48:42,460 --> 00:48:46,100
than to build out onto water.
Was that what Caligula was up to?

766
00:48:48,140 --> 00:48:51,660
The boats of Nemi will no doubt
always remain an enigma...

767
00:48:53,060 --> 00:48:57,060
..but there is one place on the
lake where Caligula's intentions

768
00:48:57,060 --> 00:48:58,700
come into sharper focus.

769
00:49:01,940 --> 00:49:05,340
All around the shore were
dozens of shrines and temples

770
00:49:05,340 --> 00:49:07,860
that went back hundreds of years.

771
00:49:07,860 --> 00:49:10,940
And one of them raises troubling
questions

772
00:49:10,940 --> 00:49:15,860
about whether he was a victim or
actually a colluder in his own fate.

773
00:49:21,460 --> 00:49:24,500
This was once the sanctuary of
Diana,

774
00:49:24,500 --> 00:49:28,580
a richly decorated temple
in a grove of sacred trees.

775
00:49:30,460 --> 00:49:34,500
There was just one weird thing
about the sanctuary of Diana

776
00:49:34,500 --> 00:49:39,060
and that was the priest in charge,
the so-called King of Nemi,

777
00:49:39,060 --> 00:49:41,260
the Rex Nemorensis.

778
00:49:41,260 --> 00:49:45,540
First of all, he was a runaway
slave, and secondly,

779
00:49:45,540 --> 00:49:49,500
in order to get the job, he had to
kill the present incumbent.

780
00:49:49,500 --> 00:49:53,820
If you wanted to become Rex here,
you came to the sanctuary,

781
00:49:53,820 --> 00:49:56,380
you went and found the special
sacred tree,

782
00:49:56,380 --> 00:49:58,140
you pulled off a branch.

783
00:49:58,140 --> 00:50:01,900
If you managed to pull off that
branch, you were allowed

784
00:50:01,900 --> 00:50:05,740
to challenge the current priest
to a fight to the death.

785
00:50:06,740 --> 00:50:10,020
If you won,
you became Rex yourself,

786
00:50:10,020 --> 00:50:12,540
but of course you also got
a death sentence

787
00:50:12,540 --> 00:50:16,500
because someone else would be along
sooner or later to challenge you.

788
00:50:18,060 --> 00:50:22,420
Ancient writers tell us about seeing
the priest in this sanctuary.

789
00:50:22,420 --> 00:50:24,180
He had a sword in his hand

790
00:50:24,180 --> 00:50:28,260
and he was always looking furtively
about him, for obvious reasons.

791
00:50:32,500 --> 00:50:36,100
The ritual of Nemi harked back to
a very primitive level

792
00:50:36,100 --> 00:50:37,980
of ancient religion,

793
00:50:37,980 --> 00:50:41,180
and Caligula was said to have
revived it with glee,

794
00:50:42,300 --> 00:50:45,780
finding a slave to come
and kill the priest in charge.

795
00:50:47,460 --> 00:50:50,500
Whether Caligula did that
because he wanted to inject

796
00:50:50,500 --> 00:50:54,300
a bit of religious reality into
what had become a charade,

797
00:50:54,300 --> 00:50:57,940
or whether it was just capricious
sadism, we don't know,

798
00:50:57,940 --> 00:51:02,500
but it's hard not to think
of the King of Nemi

799
00:51:02,500 --> 00:51:06,700
as an uncanny double
of the Emperor of Rome.

800
00:51:06,700 --> 00:51:09,940
Both were looking behind their
backs,

801
00:51:09,940 --> 00:51:13,140
and maybe Caligula had
spotted that too.

802
00:51:19,220 --> 00:51:24,300
However knowing Caligula might have
been, in the end it didn't save him.

803
00:51:24,300 --> 00:51:26,380
On 22nd January, 41 AD,

804
00:51:26,380 --> 00:51:32,060
he was assassinated after just
three years, 10 months,

805
00:51:32,060 --> 00:51:33,860
and eight days in power.

806
00:51:35,940 --> 00:51:39,980
And if the facts of Caligula's life
might forever elude us,

807
00:51:39,980 --> 00:51:44,300
ironically it's his death about
which we know the most,

808
00:51:44,300 --> 00:51:47,940
thanks to a graphic account written
by a Jewish historian,

809
00:51:47,940 --> 00:51:50,420
Flavius Josephus.

810
00:51:50,420 --> 00:51:54,340
Peter Wiseman is taking me
to where he thinks is the exact spot

811
00:51:54,340 --> 00:51:56,940
where Caligula, the Emperor Gaius,

812
00:51:56,940 --> 00:52:01,180
was set upon by members of his
own personal security force.

813
00:52:02,260 --> 00:52:03,900
He sees, coming towards him,

814
00:52:03,900 --> 00:52:07,460
a colonel of the Praetorian Guard
called Cassius Chaerea,

815
00:52:07,460 --> 00:52:10,100
whom he knows of old. So,
he feels safe. He thinks he's safe.

816
00:52:10,100 --> 00:52:11,540
Cassius Chaerea, however,

817
00:52:11,540 --> 00:52:14,500
is the leader of the assassination
conspiracy,

818
00:52:14,500 --> 00:52:19,940
and Chaerea draws his sword and
he brings it down as hard as he can.

819
00:52:19,940 --> 00:52:23,940
Gaius is staggering around,
totally disoriented,

820
00:52:23,940 --> 00:52:27,780
and the guy who actually gave him
the final blow

821
00:52:27,780 --> 00:52:32,420
was a man called Aquila,
so he's the man who has the credit

822
00:52:32,420 --> 00:52:36,980
for the assassination of the Emperor
Gaius - Caligula.

823
00:52:36,980 --> 00:52:40,260
Are people pleased - a tyrant is
dead? Some people thought that.

824
00:52:40,260 --> 00:52:44,380
What you have to understand
about Gaius Caligula is that he was

825
00:52:44,380 --> 00:52:47,020
enormously popular with
the ordinary population.

826
00:52:47,020 --> 00:52:50,300
He was a Caesar, who was the son
of Germanicus,

827
00:52:50,300 --> 00:52:52,220
he was the great-grandson of
Augustus,

828
00:52:52,220 --> 00:52:54,780
he was the great-great-grandson
of Julius Caesar.

829
00:52:54,780 --> 00:52:58,140
All of these were popular heroes.
He was their popular hero,

830
00:52:58,140 --> 00:53:03,460
and they hated the idea that people
- senators, senior army officers -

831
00:53:03,460 --> 00:53:06,700
should take it upon them
to kill their man.

832
00:53:06,700 --> 00:53:09,980
But there's a sort of irony to this,
isn't it, because this is not an

833
00:53:09,980 --> 00:53:12,980
uprising of popular will,
this is a take-out move

834
00:53:12,980 --> 00:53:14,580
by the Praetorian Guard.

835
00:53:14,580 --> 00:53:17,900
Yes, a small group of senior officers

836
00:53:17,900 --> 00:53:21,460
who were also involving
senior senators.

837
00:53:21,460 --> 00:53:25,580
It's a question what they expected
to happen afterwards.

838
00:53:25,580 --> 00:53:27,540
It seems that Chaerea

839
00:53:27,540 --> 00:53:33,940
and the others were idealistic enough
to believe that, in killing Gaius,

840
00:53:33,940 --> 00:53:38,300
they would put an end to what
we call the principate.

841
00:53:38,300 --> 00:53:40,420
There wouldn't be
an emperor any more.

842
00:53:40,420 --> 00:53:44,980
But in the end they get this very,
very brief little flowering

843
00:53:44,980 --> 00:53:49,340
of what looks as if it might be
about to become the overthrow

844
00:53:49,340 --> 00:53:51,180
of autocracy entirely,

845
00:53:51,180 --> 00:53:54,020
and the return to the republic,
the little bit of debate,

846
00:53:54,020 --> 00:53:58,700
and then half an hour later
they found Caligula's uncle,

847
00:53:58,700 --> 00:54:00,940
Claudius, to put back on the throne.

848
00:54:00,940 --> 00:54:05,260
That's because the
Praetorian Guard itself

849
00:54:05,260 --> 00:54:08,180
depended on there being an emperor.

850
00:54:10,940 --> 00:54:14,460
It was the ultimate betrayal, and a
chilling reminder

851
00:54:14,460 --> 00:54:18,180
that in Imperial Rome it was
not the emperor, but the army,

852
00:54:18,180 --> 00:54:20,020
who held the reins of power.

853
00:54:21,700 --> 00:54:25,540
But there's one final chapter
in Caligula's story which adds,

854
00:54:25,540 --> 00:54:28,060
I think, to his terrible reputation.

855
00:54:30,700 --> 00:54:34,020
There's evidence that
attacks on his memory began

856
00:54:34,020 --> 00:54:36,020
almost before his body went cold.

857
00:54:37,020 --> 00:54:39,260
To justify his assassination,

858
00:54:39,260 --> 00:54:42,260
the new regime condemned him
as a tyrant.

859
00:54:43,660 --> 00:54:46,620
His uncompleted building projects
were then taken over

860
00:54:46,620 --> 00:54:49,060
and inscribed with Claudius's name.

861
00:54:50,860 --> 00:54:53,220
Some of his coins were defaced,

862
00:54:53,220 --> 00:54:56,500
his initials symbolically scratched
out,

863
00:54:56,500 --> 00:54:59,500
and in many of his official statues,

864
00:54:59,500 --> 00:55:02,500
the heads were either replaced
or destroyed.

865
00:55:03,700 --> 00:55:06,620
At the wonderful
Montemartini Museum in Rome,

866
00:55:06,620 --> 00:55:09,780
there's a strange bust
of Caligula's uncle,

867
00:55:09,780 --> 00:55:13,020
the new and in many ways
just as vicious emperor,

868
00:55:13,020 --> 00:55:15,780
which underscores the shifty
awkwardness

869
00:55:15,780 --> 00:55:18,180
of the transition of power.

870
00:55:18,180 --> 00:55:21,700
The face looks for all the world
like the Emperor Claudius.

871
00:55:21,700 --> 00:55:26,780
It is a bit middle-aged and frowny,
just how Claudius is often shown,

872
00:55:26,780 --> 00:55:31,140
but he's got this strangely
bouffant fringe.

873
00:55:32,780 --> 00:55:35,540
And if you go up above him, you can

874
00:55:35,540 --> 00:55:40,420
see the whole bouffant hairstyle
has been roughly chiselled off.

875
00:55:40,420 --> 00:55:44,940
What has gone on is that
a statue of Caligula has been

876
00:55:44,940 --> 00:55:47,780
changed into a statue of Claudius.

877
00:55:47,780 --> 00:55:52,580
And it looks pretty weird,
except if you imagine that this head

878
00:55:52,580 --> 00:55:58,100
would have been on a full-length
statue, and if you get low down,

879
00:55:58,100 --> 00:56:02,860
well, actually, he works pretty
OK as Claudius from this angle.

880
00:56:02,860 --> 00:56:07,700
Now, it's a way of saying
Caligula is obliterated

881
00:56:07,700 --> 00:56:10,620
and Claudius is now on the throne.

882
00:56:10,620 --> 00:56:16,020
I have a sneaking suspicion that
it also says, actually,

883
00:56:16,020 --> 00:56:21,980
the new emperor is only the old
emperor with a re-cut face.

884
00:56:26,540 --> 00:56:30,180
This hybrid head gives us
a clue as to why it's always been

885
00:56:30,180 --> 00:56:33,980
hard to come face-to-face
with the real Caligula.

886
00:56:35,220 --> 00:56:39,980
In the bloody transition of power,
his real face has got lost.

887
00:56:41,700 --> 00:56:45,100
And to find him, you now have to
look for him in other ways.

888
00:56:45,100 --> 00:56:49,220
In the shadow of his heroic father
on the battlegrounds of Germany,

889
00:56:49,220 --> 00:56:51,740
in the bricks of the
palace on Capri,

890
00:56:51,740 --> 00:56:54,740
where, one by one,
he lost his family.

891
00:56:54,740 --> 00:56:59,940
Or in the eerie luxury of his boats,
found at the bottom of Lake Nemi.

892
00:57:01,100 --> 00:57:04,740
And if what this tells us is that
some of the myths may be true,

893
00:57:04,740 --> 00:57:08,780
the paranoia, the excess,
even the self-proclaimed divinity,

894
00:57:08,780 --> 00:57:12,380
the rest, we'll never know.

895
00:57:12,380 --> 00:57:15,060
Were the stories of murder
and madness

896
00:57:15,060 --> 00:57:19,980
created as much by Caligula himself
to further a culture of fear?

897
00:57:19,980 --> 00:57:23,580
Or were they spun just like his
nickname, Bootikins,

898
00:57:23,580 --> 00:57:28,660
to blacken his name and to
justify his violent assassination?

899
00:57:28,660 --> 00:57:32,060
Whatever the truth,
it's in the story of Caligula

900
00:57:32,060 --> 00:57:36,340
that all the elements of tyranny
as we now recognise it

901
00:57:36,340 --> 00:57:39,260
come together for the first time.

902
00:57:39,260 --> 00:57:42,900
And perhaps that's why he's left
such a powerful imprint

903
00:57:42,900 --> 00:57:44,500
on our world.

904
00:57:44,500 --> 00:57:46,420
For almost 2,000 years now,

905
00:57:46,420 --> 00:57:51,020
Caligula has made people
reflect on power and its abuse.

906
00:57:51,020 --> 00:57:52,940
The man and the myth,

907
00:57:52,940 --> 00:57:56,860
and to be honest, you can't ever
quite separate the two, have raised

908
00:57:56,860 --> 00:58:02,220
all kinds of questions about
cruelty, excess, about adoration,

909
00:58:02,220 --> 00:58:04,740
and about the delusions
of an autocrat,

910
00:58:04,740 --> 00:58:06,940
and about his fearful isolation.

911
00:58:08,260 --> 00:58:12,540
But, for me, Caligula also turns
the spotlight onto ourselves,

912
00:58:12,540 --> 00:58:16,100
about what our own responses
to tyranny should be.

913
00:58:16,100 --> 00:58:19,100
Maybe there's a lesson. After all,

914
00:58:19,100 --> 00:58:23,140
when that group of disgruntled army
officers decided to rid Rome

915
00:58:23,140 --> 00:58:28,580
of the monster, sure - they left
him in bits on the palace floor -

916
00:58:28,580 --> 00:58:31,620
but all they got
was more of the same.

917
00:58:56,420 --> 00:58:58,980
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