Camp Gagnon - Caligula: Romes MOST Psychotic Emperor

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Who was Caligula, the God Emperor? Today we learn about the self-proclaimed God, what drove Caligula to give himself this title, the stories of his erratic tendencies and behavior, his battles, and ultimately what caused his downfall… WELCOME TO CAMP 🏕️Shoutout to our Sponsors: Morgan & Morgan and Bluechew👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🏕️ Get Today In History Email Here (Free): https://camp.beehiiv.com/🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.comTimestamps:0:00 Intro0:56 Who Is Caligula?2:58 Caligula’s Childhood4:41 Appointed Heir To Rome + Rebuilding The People’s Trust12:59 Caligula Begins Going Crazy24:24 The People Turn on Caligula29:20 Caligula's Death at His Jupiter Festival36:35 What Are Your Thoughts on Caligula?

We're talking about one of the most controversial and contested figures in all of Roman history, the man known as Caligula. He turned Rome's Senate into a stage from mockery. He built floating bridges dressed as a deity. And he nearly ignited a holy war by ordering his statue into the heart of Jerusalem's sacred temple. It's not just a story of madness. It's about power. And what happens when a man starts to believe that he is literally God incarnate?

He had the heads chopped off of divine statues and replaced with his own. And he wasn't simply just asking for worship. He was literally tearing down the boundary between man and God. Rome had seen cruel emperors before, but this is different. It's not just cruelty. It's cruelty as a performance art. The empire, it was ruled by a god who demanded fear as worship. This is the story of Caligua.

So let's begin at the very beginning. What's up, people, and welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gagnon. And welcome to my tent for every single week. We explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories. stories from throughout history, throughout the world, throughout all time. Today I'm joined by my dear friend Gabe over on the shiny ones and twos. What's up? What's going on?

All right, all right, all right. Guys, we have another wonderful episode, and today we are talking about ancient Rome. And not only ancient Rome, we're talking about one of the most controversial and contested figures in all of Roman history. That's right. The man known as Caligula. Now, I didn't even realize, I kind of heard Caligula's sort of a crazy wild guy, and we're going to get into why that is, but I didn't know that most, if not nearly everything we know about Caligula comes from writers and historians who lived after his death. And it's possible that everything we know about him has been,

I don't know you could say, politically maligned. Is it possible that Caligula's life has been changed and that the victors have written his history in a way to, you know, create some type of political narrative to slander. him. It is possible. Is it also possible if this guy is just a crazy narcissist with a god complex? That's also possible. No one will know for sure, but I think it's an interesting caveat. So, this is the story of Caligula. The emperor who didn't just claim to be a god, he demanded to be called a god. He spoke to Jupiter. Yes, literally Jupiter, as if it was an equal, as if he had

similar power to the massive planet. He turned Rome's Senate into a stage from mock. where he built floating bridges across the sea so he could ride over them dressed as a deity. And he nearly ignited a holy war by ordering his statue into the heart of Jerusalem's sacred temple. It's not just a story of madness. It's about power, absolute power. And what happens when it's pushed too far? And what happens when a man starts to believe that he is literally God incarnate? And what's fascinating about the story is that, you know, Caligula wasn't just,

some crazed, you know, psychopath. He was at one point Rome's golden boy. He was an heir to the throne that was quite popular, quite, you know, he was exciting. A lot of people were into it. He had youth charm. He loved Rome and Rome loved him. And he fell from grace in one of the more traumatic and disturbing crumbles that we've ever seen in history. So let's begin at the very beginning.

Caligula, just a seven-year-old boy, he's standing beside his father's funeral pyre. Right, his father's being cremated, he's watching the flames go up into the air, devouring the man that he once worshipped. Around him, you know, people are claiming that perhaps he was assassinated with poison. But for young Caligula, this was deeper than a conspiracy. This loss changed him fundamentally. His childhood was forged in mud and steel on the Germanic frontier, and soldiers actually nicknamed him a little boot for his miniature uniform. While all the other imperial children were rolling around playing in palaces in Rome,

Caligula learned to march with legions, who treated him almost like a team mascot or something. His mother, Agrippina, refused the soft life of Rome and didn't want this little prince tucked away in a palace, you know. So following her husband Germanicus, they went to the edge of the empire. But back in Rome, his family was caught in a death spiral of politics. That's right. His father, Germanicus, was so beloved, he became a threat to Emperor Tiberius.

When Germanicus died in 19 AD, ancient sources, again, claimed that perhaps he was poison. Caligula was left fatherless at the age of seven. I actually spoke with a Roman historian who was explaining to me Germanicus is almost seen as like the emperor that never was. Like he was so beloved throughout Rome that there'll even be like graffiti after Germanicus had died where they were like if only Germanicus was still here. Like almost like trying to think of like a good example. Like JFK where it's like, oh, it was cut too soon.

Like things would have been so much different if he hadn't been killed. But yet he was and his son. takes over. So Caligula's mother accused Tiberius, the emperor at the time, of assassination, and over the next decade, Caligula watched his family get systematically destroyed. His mother, exiled to starve on a barren island. His brothers imprisoned, one of them murdered, the other one driven insane before dying of hunger. And by age 20, Caligula stood as the sole male survivor, the only one of Dermanicus's children to live on. And so he learned Rome's brutal lesson early. Mercy was weakness and trust is death. Matter of fact, Tiberius

is just a little side note, I believe was the emperor at the time when Jesus Christ was crucified. So Tiberius, two strikes for you, dog. Killed Jesus Christo and Germanicus, the goat. So this is where things get a little bit different. This is where things change. Tiberius summons the young man to live with him on Capri. For six years, Caligulae, plays almost like a courtier, like someone that exists within Tiberius's close court to help out. Hiding his scars and rage beneath a mask,

you know, he just kind of pushes it down. The same man that he believes killed his dad he's now working for. Ancient sources hint that even then, his cruelty and obsession with performance were beginning to surface, but just, you know, hidden behind everything. So Tiberius dies in 37 AD. And that is when Caligula's mask comes off. And when Rome saw underneath what would ultimately terrify the entire empire to its core. So by March of 37 AD, Emperor Tiberius is gone and news

spreads across the empire like wildfire and the city of Rome explodes with joy. Rome is very happy that Tiberius is out of here. So after 23 years under this paranoid bitter ruler, Rome believed that finally they had salvation and that beyond this they were going to be able to, you know, find a new emperor that could actually save this, you know, shaky administration. And the man to do it was named Caligula. Caligula was extremely popular. He's the son of Germanicus, again, a man, a legend in Rome who was adored. And finally, there was going to be someone to take Rome to new heights. So at just 24, Caligula, takes over with political ruthlessness and ambition. What's interesting about Caligula's appointment is that when Tiberius dies, he doesn't just name Caligula as heir. He names two heirs, joint heirs, if you will, Caligula and his grandson, Tiberius Gamalus.

And that arrangement lasted exactly as long as it took Caligula to reach Rome. Caligula convinced the Senate to throw out the will, arguably that the old emperor must have been out of his mind or crazy. for trying to give power to his grandson, just a teenage boy. One smooth maneuver with the enthusiastic Senate backing it, and he had eliminated his only rival before it even began. Those early days were, you know, everything that the Romans had dreamed about. Caligula handed out bonuses to the guards and to the legions.

He welcomed back political exiles and returned their property. And crazy, I mean, maybe craziest of all, he gave every Roman citizen 400 Cestruses. That's like giving everyone $1,000 today, and it costs the state nearly a billion cestracies to do this. The mood in Rome is electric. Within three months, Romans had sacrificed over 160,000 animals celebrating the new emperor. And in Alexandria, the philosopher Philo described how, quote, all the world was filled with expectation and prayers for his prosperity. Clegola showed real political genus in how he handled Tiberius' memory.

Instead of trashing the man who probably killed his father and destroyed his entire family, he gave Tiberius a grand funeral and declared him divine. The Senate approved, and at the same time, Kligula made a public show of honoring his own murdered family. He personally sailed to the island where his mother and brother had died, gathered their ashes, and brought them back to Rome for a pre-year-old. proper burial. And these weren't just, you know, sentimental gestures. They were calculated moves. Caligula was positioning himself as both a dutiful son and a traditional Roman, honoring the past

while offering some hope to the future. And just for a brief shining moment, it seemed like Rome had found their guy. Caligula, young, beloved by the people generous to the military, politically savvy enough to balance old traditions and new beginnings. I mean, across the empire, Everything was great. Trade routes were bustling. The military maintained peace at the borders, the treasury, built up by Tiberius' years of penny-pinching and sort of, you know, being cheap, overflowed with wealth. According to Philo, the empire under Caligula's early rule was universally peaceful and prosperous. But underneath the sort of golden surface cracks were forming. The same trauma that helped Caligula survive in Tiberius's shadow was still there.

Buried, but not gone. The boy who'd watched his entire family get destroyed at the hands of the state was still there. Behind the charming smiles and the handshakes. Now, with unlimited power, those wounds he had hidden for so long were going to tear open. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I want you to know that there are still good people in the world. and there are still people out there fighting for you. So here's a story. There's a guy riding a water slide, right?

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cause swelling in the brain, and the exact cause is lost to history, but the effect is unmistakable. Soutonius later wrote that it revealed not sickness of the body, but corruption of the mind, transforming Caligula from a reasonable, sort of affable man into something darker. The first sign of what was coming, remember Tiberius, Gamellus, the grandson of Tiberius and the co-air of Caligula's throne? Well, he's about to become victim, number one. He accused, the boy of treason and orders Tiberius Schemelis to commit suicide. The terrified teenager was forced to commit suicide himself under military supervision. This wasn't just about eliminating a rival. Paranoia was setting in and he was seeing threats

everywhere. And once that switch flips, things get weird fast. I mean, you got to remember, this guy saw his own father, a guy beloved by the Roman people get poisoned. So he wasn't taking any chances. Caligula starts showing up in the middle of, you know, the public dressing up as different gods. He starts demanding people to worship him. He builds a temple specifically to himself with altars, animal sacrifices, priests, the whole deal. And this wasn't just performance. It was a rupture from everything Roman emperors had carefully balanced since Augustus.

Caligula wasn't being like a pretend deity. He truly believed it. And his treatment of the Senate revealed, I mean, even more. Where he'd once shown restraint and respect, now he openly. was humiliating senators and other politicians, forcing them to run alongside his chariots like servants or forcing them to wait on him at feasts as if they were like his slaves. He even made some of them fight in the arena for his amusement. But if you want to see how far gone he truly was, this is when December arrives and his sister, Drusilla, passes away. Caligula was apparently,

you know, very close to her, maybe too close. His reaction to her death was intense. His grief, was something surreal and he declared her a goddess and created an official cult in her honor. This wasn't just mourning. This was someone whose grip on consensus reality was, you know, slipping away. We're barely eight months into this guy's reign and, you know, Rome's golden boy is gone. Those days are absolutely over. And in his place, it's this guy that is completely, completely obsessed with himself, thinks that he's a god and rules through fear and increasingly, is doing these bizarre spectacles and sees everyone as a potential enemy. The treasury that was just, you know, a few months ago, overflowing and everyone's getting paid,

is now drained, and it's draining fast. The goodwill he inherited from the people in the Senate, gone. And yet, for all the chaos, Caligula still knew how to protect himself, so he moved swiftly against the threats. Like Gamalus, you know, take that one out, with just enough legal cover to avoid, you know, creating some type of revolt. So he humiliated the Senate, but not. quite enough to make them rise against him, and slowly he's becoming a monster.

But not just a complete tyrant. At this point, he's still clever, calculated, and mostly operating through legal lines to avoid complete revolution. At some point, Caligula becomes obsessed with the theater and theatrical performances. And it wasn't just some quirky hobby. It was literally how he saw power itself. He'd appear in public, dressed, not as a general, but as... literally different deities, Mars, Apollo, Jupiter.

And these weren't special occasions. It wasn't some type of holiday where you dress up. These were just daily spectacles. One day, he's a war hero. Next, he's the sun god. For people watching, the line between ruler and God just disappeared. And the scale of these performances, I mean, they're huge. At one point, he ordered a bridge to get built across the Bay of Naples, but not like a stone bridge.

It was a bridge made of ships. So picture this. It's three miles of commandeered vessels chained together so that he could gallop across in full costume playing the role of this conquering hero. And they aren't just displays. They're acts of control. Caligula, he didn't stop at just like playing these gods. He rewrote the rules of Roman society in order to fit his fantasy. So the senators of Rome, the elite political class, they're forced to literally fight each other.

Priests from noble families had to serve in temples dedicated to Caligula, and maybe most crazy of all, he had the heads chopped off of divine statues and replaced with his own. And he wasn't simply just asking for worship. He was literally tearing down the boundary between man and God. Ancient sources claim Caligula burned through enormous sums of money. Suetonius mentions 2.7 billion cestrices, though such a figure's likely exaggerated to emphasize the recklessness. but what's certain is that his building projects and spectacles were expensive and may have put a strain on the treasury. And the consequences are pretty far-reaching and very real.

So in the eastern provinces, his madness nearly starts an entire war. He decided to put a statue of himself. Remember all these statues he's cutting the heads off, putting them, you know, putting his head on? So he takes a statue of himself as Jupiter, the king of all the gods, and goes to Jerusalem, one of the most holy sites. in the world and puts the statue of himself inside the temple of Jerusalem. Think about this. The holiest sight in Judaism and the governor of Syria stalled the order just long enough for Caligula to die.

If it had gone through, it would have created a massive open revolt. The governor of the region knew that had this happened. It would have sparked a massive uprising. And so even he went against the emperor's orders, potentially at a cost for himself. Even diplomatic meetings became this sort of strange theatrical thing. When the philosopher Philo came from Alexandria with a delegation to plead for protection of the Jewish community, Caligula didn't listen at all. He wandered around his gardens during the audience with Philo and was too busy to even talk to him and too busy to really even govern at all and was just admiring his garden and his surroundings. Yet somehow he continued to hold on to the power.

Why? Because he understood one thing better than anyone. The Roman mob. He fed them. He entertained them. He dazzled them. He would have these public feasts in these lavish games, dramatic shows. These were the tools that kept people loyal.

But beneath the dress-up as gods and sort of the frantic chaotic behavior, there's still political calculation. Caligula still knew how to play the part of Emperor just well enough. to not get beheaded. So by 39 AD, we're looking at a completely different person. Caligula is no longer pretending to be a God. He is fully in the mindset that he is a God, that he was born of some divine birth. His palace becomes a temple. His daily routines become this sacred ritual. According to Soutonius, the historian, he claimed to have regular chats with Jupiter, the king of gods, and they would talk as if they were equals. There was no sort of surrender.

or reverence or respect, it was just like, yo, Jupiter, what's up? Guards reported something very disturbing, long, animated conversations late at night with no one there. He's just talking to the stars, to Jupiter, as equals. What makes Caligula so different is that Rome had always been careful with divinity. Emperors got deified after they had died. And even then, with some restraint. But Caligula, he shatters this boundary. He didn't just want worship.

He demanded it while he was alive. priest sacrifices all in his name. His surviving sisters, specifically Julia Lovila and Agrippina, got swept into his fantasy. He brought them to official ceremonies where they were worshipped as divine figures and rumors of incest swirled around. And while we can't know the truth, what's clear is that Caligula was creating a royal family not bound by human law, but by whatever divine laws he decided to make up. And the Senate was all, you know, it was just a a prop at this point. It was just a play. The senators were forced to kneel before him to chant his praises and these sort of rituals. Many just sort of mouth the words without emotion. Their faces

kind of reluctant with this silent humiliation. And Caligula, he loved it. He'd extend ceremonies just to watch Rome's old aristocracy squirm and kind of, you know, feel the pressure underneath his empiric gaze. But the divine status isn't just for show. It gave him some cover. And here is how twisted Caligula became. All righty, don't skip forward, guys, because I am on the road. World's fastest ad read coming at you. I'm going to be at Portland, Oregon, Fort Worth, Texas, Austin, Texas, Stanford, Philly, Levittown, Chandler, Arizona, San Diego. I'm also going to be adding Toronto, Montreal, as well as Washington, D.C., and a bunch of

other dates are in the description also in probably the comments of this episode. Go see me on the road. Come hang out. I'll be hanging out with everyone. after the show, come shake my hand, call me an idiot. Whatever you want to do, I will be there. Additionally, I will be doing my one hour of stand-up comedy. I'm very proud of this hour. I'm really excited to share with you guys, and it would mean the world if everyone could come on out. I'll see you guys. Let's get back to the show. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I'm sitting here in my beautiful tent, as you can see, every week, day in, day out. And people always ask, they say, Mark, how do I have a tent like that? I want to sit in a beautiful tent

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apart. Outside of Rome, the empire started to feel the strain. Funds drained into massive temples in Caligula's name, roads, aqueducts, and forts all were falling apart. Tax collectors became more ruthless as the treasuries would dry up and Caligula was spending even more money than you could imagine, spending kind of like a god, but ruling just drunk on power. One motto that sums up Caligula's reign is this, let them hate me so long as they fear me. This is a phrase from the poet Accus that Caligula conveniently just makes his own. And they weren't the words of just some raving lunatic. This is someone who understood how power worked. You see, Rome had seen cruel emperors before, but this is different. It's not just cruelty. It's cruelty as a performance art. It's

calculated and theatrical and absolute. The empire isn't just ruled by a tyrant at this point. It was ruled by a god who demanded fear as worship. So by 40 AD, Caligula's reign was about to completely go off the rails. At this point, he'd blown through Rome's entire treasury, and I mean all of it. There's almost nothing left, and provinces are basically ready to revolt. And worst of all, he managed to anger literally everyone who once kept him in power. The Senate, they were done.

They're all humiliated. The military, completely over. it. Even his own household staff were probably rolling their eyes. They were like, this guy sucks. And here's the crazy part. The first real threat didn't come from a foreign enemy. It came from his own family. His uncle Claudius, the harmless, stuttering scholar that everyone kind of dismissed, was quietly becoming interesting to people who were desperate. He wasn't plotting or anything, not really, but when your empire is falling apart and the idea of someone sane comes around, I mean, they start to look pretty appealing to the desperate senators and war commanders. So Claudius himself isn't pushing the issue for it, but he represented some type of hope, and that is terrifying for Caligula. Then you have the Praetorian Guard, Rome's elite bodyguards, who were sworn to protect the emperor. But here's the thing, they were also sworn to protect Rome. Increasingly, those seemed like different things. Especially their commander, Cassius Chiria. Caligula seemed to have taken a special delight in tormenting him personally. So for months,

every day the emperor would mock his voice, make fun of his build and muscularity and just his masculine in general. And it wasn't just being a jerk. He was grinding him down psychologically, the kind of thing that eventually just make someone go crazy. And then came what might be the final straw for Rome's elite. Caligula announces something that would make everyone go crazy. He planned to abandon Rome entirely. The plan was to move the whole imperial capital to Alexandria, where he claimed people actually understood divinity and could worship him properly. To Rome's ruling class, this wasn't just another mad whim. This was an existential threat.

Alexandria meant they'd lose power. Their influence, everything. The entire world would basically be upended. And the Egyptian priests, instead of the Roman senators, would then take control. And that was not going to happen. While all this insanity was happening, the money is continuing to disappear. So to fund these ridiculous spectacles, Caligula started selling everything. Palace furniture, family heirlooms, even gladiators.

At one auction, a senator dozed off and Calicula decided every head nod was a bid. The poor guy woke up having accidentally bought 13 gladiators, 13, without ever saying a word. The military situation just is, you know, getting even more crazy. Picture this, right? Like, you're a battle-hardened Roman soldier. You're a real tough guy, right? And your emperor, the literal emperor, drags you on these fake campaigns in Gaul, marching the Legion to the English Channel where he declares victory over Neptune, the sea god, and has you collecting seashells as like spoils of war. For veterans who'd bled under Augustus and Tiberius, this was soul crushing.

It's like, what are we doing? Like, we're doing like these fake fairy missions for no point. and maybe the most dangerous thing was how Caligula kept messing with the different provinces. His brilliant idea to stick a giant statue of himself in Jerusalem obviously almost creates an entire full-scale revolt in Judea and his plans to lead some type of theatrical campaign into Germania threatened to destabilize the entire northern frontier. The empire wasn't just being managed,

it was now being dragged in every direction into chaos. So by late 40 AD, senators who had at one point hated each other, know, for years had battled back and forth, suddenly found themselves bonding over their shared hatred of Caligula. Military officers weren't asking if the empire or the emperor might fall. They were speculating about when. Even people in Caligula's own court started quietly backing away, unwilling to defend a regime that they didn't even understand. And Caligula could sense that something was up. So he doubled his personal guard, started changing bedrooms every night, lashed out with these random, brutal punishments. But he,

never got it. The real danger wasn't lurking in the shadows. It was standing right next to him. All those people that he had been mocking, humiliating, and ignoring every single day. And his paranoia was, I mean, off the charts. But here's what's ironic. It didn't make him more careful. He continued to be paranoid, but he was still reckless. But it just made him more unpredictable. And in Imperial Rome, being unpredictable is way worse than being predictably insane. So this will be the end of Caligula. And the end comes suddenly, not before, you know, Caligula gives everyone one final absolute insane display of how far gone he truly is. So by January 41 AD, the emperor announced his over-the-top festival was just supposed to reveal his divine nature to all of Rome. So

this was the festival. Caligula himself, appearing as Jupiter, as he often does, the king of the gods, complete with fake thunder made by rolling bronze balls around. and lightning effects from torches. And in Caligula's mind, this was some type of sacred ceremony that was often, you know, like everything theatrical and would convince the people of how specially he was,

but also served some type of ceremonial spiritual purpose. You know, this was his big public moment to prove that he was God. But for the conspirators, led by the humiliated Praetorian commander Cassius Carria, along with many other senators and officers and basically everyone else that hated Caligula, this festival was basically their last shot.

If Caligula managed to pull off another dazzling show and wow the crowds, he might actually be able to win back the people's loyalty and continue to be untouchable. So their conspiracy was massive. I mean, senators, knights, military, soldiers, everyone from across the board, people often who hated each other and had very different political agendas suddenly worked together. The Jewish historian Josephus gives us the play-by-play of how, obsessively these guys planned everything. Escape routes, backup plans, contingencies for their contingencies.

They weren't leaving anything up to chance. So on January 24th, 41 AD, Caligula showed up to some theatrical performances that were part of his festival, and the conspirators had picked their moment perfectly. He was in public, but away from many of his bodyguards. And as Caligula walked through this narrow underground passage to get to the theater, Cassius Chariah approached him, acting like who. It was just routine business. And here's what happens.

Karea asked for the day's password. That's the military watchword that Roman guards used to confirm identity. And Kalebula answered Jupiter. The irony here is amazing. The man who claimed to be a god was about to die while saying the name of the supreme deity. And that is when Kaira struck. The blow was quick, but the others jumped in immediately. And within minutes, the man who had been terrorizing Rome was dead.

His desperate screams for mercy drowned out by the festival noise nearby. And what happens next is really just kind of shows how completely alone Caligula was. The Praetorian Guard, they didn't lift a finger to help the emperor. The Senate declared the Republic restored, but that fantasy lasted about five minutes before the soldiers found Claudius hiding behind a palace curtain and declared him, Emperor, on the spot. You remember Claudius, that was Caligula's uncle, that was, you know, just sort of like a stuttering, nice guy that many people had seen in the wings

and they were like, man, this guy would do better. Yeah, that's right. They found him hiding behind a curtain and said, you know what, you're going to be emperor now. And the Roman people who had once cheered when Caligula came to power, they heard about his death and basically just went, whew, thank God. Perhaps the most brutal testament to how isolated he'd become

was what happened to his body. According to Soutonius, only his freed men, the former slaves bound by law to serve him, dared to handle the emperor's remains, and they quickly cremated the fallen tyrant because nobody else wanted to touch him. The man who demanded worship for millions died completely alone and friendless,

abandoned by every single person who'd once bowed before him. Within hours, the empire had a new ruler. Claudius, not chosen by the Senate or by the people, but declared emperor by soldiers who understood Rome couldn't afford to be leaderless even for a day. The curtain fell on Caligula's insane four-year reign, but Rome's stage was already being set for whatever drama would come next. So the fallout from Caligula's reign went a little deeper than, you know, just his murder at the end.

It shattered the Roman system itself. Here's what's crazy. Caligula's madness wasn't just his own. It was sort of like this collective social failure, right? You have senators and generals, men who'd ruled provinces and led armies. Many of them smart and brave and principled. And they contorted themselves rather than confront the emperor's insanity. The government twisted itself into crazy shapes just to accommodate this one powerful man's delusion.

Caligula tore off the mask of previous emperors that, you know, they had kind of all upheld, right? You have Augustus, Tiberius, and they pretended that Rome was still a republic. Caligula changed that completely. He demanded worship as a living God and treated the Senate. just like his servants, because, you know, why wouldn't he? After him, the pretense was gone. Emperors ruled openly as dictators, and the Republic was just a memory.

The treasury, once overflowing, was emptied, and it forced future rulers to squeeze the provinces even more. The real lesson here, when you have absolute power, reality is negotiable. Declare yourself divine, and people will worship you order, the impossible, and armies will try their best. As Philo observed, Caligula was corrupted by the greatness of his authority, losing all sense of the line between man and God completely. The Roman system at the time had no checks, no way to remove a mad emperor except murder.

So next time you see someone in modern politics that is just pushing power and pushing the boundaries beyond what we're comfortable with, you know, just remember the Roman centers. They told themselves like, ah, we're just being practical. Let's just go with it. you know, this won't be, this won't be too bad. And in just four years, Caligula created ripples that would change Rome forever and last for centuries. So there you have it. That is the life and story of the Roman Emperor Caligula. What do you guys think? Are there parallels to the modern day? Do you see this happening around us in America and around the world? Has it happened in the 20th century? Is there someone in American history in the past, you know, 60, 70 years that's been like this? I'm trying to think.

So I feel like America's got some pretty good checks and balances. That's one thing that I think the founding fathers crushed it with is, yeah, it's functionally dysfunctional. The government is intended to be slow. It's intended to get jammed up. And maybe in a way, that's good. All the checks and balances keep things like this from happening where some type of, you know, demagogue or a tyrant takes over and rules, you know, with complete authority. But I'm curious what you guys think. Drop a comment below.

Is there someone else from history that we need to dive into? someone with a crazy past, someone with a wild story, an element of their life that has never been highlighted. Please let me know. Drop it in the comments either on YouTube or Spotify. I will read all of them. So just try to be nice. And I will see you guys next time.

Peace. What's up, people? Quick announcement. If you are a fan of Camp Gagnon or Religion Camp, I have great news because we are dropping history camp. That's right. This is the channel where we're going to be exploring the most interesting, fascinating, controversial topics from all time throughout all history.

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