Roman dig backs ancient writers' portrait of megalomaniac Caligula

Guardian ^ | Aug., 03 | John Hooper

[churchillbuff]

British and American archaeologists digging in the Roman Forum said yesterday they had uncovered evidence to suggest that the emperor Caligula really was a self-deifying megalomaniac, and not the misunderstood, if eccentric, ruler that modern scholars have striven to create. For several decades historians have been lifting their eyebrows at the Latin authors' portrait of Caligula as a madman who came to believe he was a god.

But Darius Arya of the American Institute for Roman Culture said a 35-day dig by young archaeologists from Oxford and Stanford universities had reinstated a key element in the traditional account.

"We have the proof that the guy really was nuts," said Dr Arya as he sat in the shade of a clump of trees a few metres from the excavation.

Suspicious of the very unanimity of the ancient sources, modern scholars have suggested they could have been politically biased.

They have argued, for example, that Caligula's renowned plan to make his horse a consul was really a joke that his subjects failed to comprehend. And, for many years, they have taken a sceptical view of a claim, by Suetonius, that he incorporated one of Rome's most important temples into his own palace.

Writing about 70 years after Caligula's assassination, Suetonius recorded that the emperor "built out a part of the palace as far as the Forum, and making the temple of Castor and Pollux its vestibule, he often took his place between the divine brethren, and exhibited himself there to be worshipped."

"This was so outrageous - an act of such impiety, such hubris - that a lot of historians have had great difficulty in believing it," said archaeologist Andrew Wilson, the leader of the Oxford University team.

Earlier digs in the area showed that a street had run between the two buildings in both the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, before Caligula's reign.

This gave rise to a theory that the emperor had merely built a bridge between them, even though another ancient source provided an explanation for the apparent contradiction: that the original street was re-established when Caligula's successor, Claudius, destroyed his blasphemous extension.

Standing in the broiling sun of a Rome August afternoon, Dr Wilson said yesterday that the latest excavations had uncovered no trace of a bridge, but they had found more and more evidence of structures within the site of Caligula's palace that ran at an identical angles to others abutting the site of the temple of Castor and Pollux.

The dig had also revealed sewerage lines running at the same angle. "The Caligulan foundations imply walls that seem to be projected across the line of the street as far as the temple," Dr Wilson said.

He pointed to a stretch of floor, also uncovered by the dig, which showed that Caligula's palace had at one time projected into the line of the street: the angles of the room put one corner within the carriageway.

"You don't have any room for a street any longer," he said.

This and other anomalies forced him and his colleagues to start rethinking their assumptions and conclude that the ancient sources seemed to be right: that an extension was indeed built which obliterated the street between the palace and the temple, but that Claudius had pulled it down and restored the street a few years later.

He said the hypothesis had begun to take shape only about a week ago.

"From the Forum, what you would have seen was the palace rearing up behind the temple, which would have looked just like his lobby," Dr Wilson said.

"There would have been no longer any distinction between the house of god and the house of the emperor."

Unhappy childhood

· Caligula - Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus - was Rome's third emperor, ruling AD37 to 41

· As a baby he was taken by his parents on military campaigns and shown to troops wearing miniature soldier's outfit, including hob-nailed sandal - caliga.

· His later excesses have been ascribed to a troubled upbringing: his mother and two brothers all died violently

· To become emperor, Caligula ordered the murder of his cousin. He was greeted by wave of popular approval which evaporated as he became ever more arrogant, erratic and cruel. He was said to have had incestuous relationships with his sisters and to have planned to make his horse a consul. He once ordered hundreds of ships tied together so that he could ride across the bay of Naples.

· He was assassinated at 28 by Praetorian Guards

[churchillbuff]

When architects did up Gold's Gym and find stacks of Our magazine, will they be able to provide the proper links to the modern California Republican Party - and its fall into decadance?

[Paul Atreides]

Billigula

[I still care]

To me this story is just more evidence that scholarly types have difficulty believing true evil exists.

I don't think people living nowadays can concieve of the barbarity of some ancient "civilizations".

[LenS]

Suspicious of the very unanimity of the ancient sources, modern scholars have suggested they could have been politically biased.

Gee, so if the ancient sources had all disagreed, then modern scholars would feel better? Man, postmodernism has really rotted the brains of historians.

[lelio]

When I buried our cat in the back yard I threw some long grass on top just so I wouldn't be shoveling dirt on top of him. I thought thought that an archaeologist digging there thousands of years from now will speculate that grass had something to do with our death rites.

[wimpycat]

Suetonius rocks. I highly recommend "The Twelve Caesars". As ancient historians go, he was surprisingly balanced, giving the good points and the bad points about Julius Caesar and the Emperors. And he's much more entertaining to read than Tacitus.

[HighWheeler]

OK, I thought it was "Clintigula"

[Spok]

But did he really say "I did not have sex with that Vestal!"?

After the Clinton years, the reign of Caligula doesn't seem so outrageous.

[Wilhelm Tell]

Unfortunately, many scholars are thorough-going statists. A lot of people getting tenure worship Castro and some even still try to whitewash Stalin's crimes, so why not excuse Caligula as well? I dread the day it becomes official, politically-correct dogma to rehabilitate Hitler. America isn't quite dumbed-down enough for that, but, I fear, America may someday become that dumbed-down.

I once read an article that said the Romans became so messed-up because they used lead pipes to carry water and many people, including numerous crazy emperors, became insane due to lead poisoning. I don't know how true that is. A lot of things in Imperial Rome went far beyond bad behavior, as if people were not in their right minds at all.

[GladesGuru]

"NO UGLY WOMEN ALLOWED"

I detected a slight error in your sign. As I remember, both the HillaBeast and Janet Reno appeared at DNC functions. Not to mention that the Dems seem to have a taste for the "attractiveness challenged" and "adapose enhanced" female.

OK, OK - I am assuming them to be female. Without DNA tests who can be sure in such social situations?

[ConservativeConvert]

EXACTLY. I have studied ancient Roman history extensively and have read the ancient accounts of Caligula's megalomania without any doubt as to their veracity. The same "academics" who doubt such behavior could have been possible are among the same folks who would have protested against the war acting as Saddamite apologists.

Revisionist historians are full of ca-ca.

[lelio]

I'll have to check that out. I tried listening to the unabridged version of Gibbon's Decline and Fall on audio tape and fell asleep multiple times. Perhaps it was the narrator who had this accent that sounded like Rush doing his Jesse Jackson impersionation.

[Agnes Heep]

He really was an S.O.B. When he died he was just on the brink of destroying the Judeans for refusing to place a statue of him in the temple. In fact, if you want to read a heartwarming story, see Josephus for his account of the general Petronius, whom Caligula charged with setting up his image in the temple. The Jews refused to do it, and Petronius couldn't convince them otherwise. Finally he said words to the effect that he would place his own life in jeopardy by trying to stall Caligula, for it was better that he should die than so great a multitude as the Jews should perish. When word of this reached Caligula he sent a message back by ship ordering Petronius to commit suicide. Shortly after the message was sent, Caligula was assasinated, and the ship bearing the news of his death reached Petronius before the order to kill himself.

[Paul Atreides]

Now, now....do you really think Bubba would invite the water buffalos to a toga party?

[Agnes Heep]

If only the United States had but one neck, so that I might sever it in a single stroke!

[StormEye]

"Writing about 70 years after Caligula's assassination, Suetonius recorded that the emperor
"built out a part of the palace as far as the Forum, and making the temple of Castor and Pollux
its vestibule, he often took his place between the divine brethren, and exhibited himself there
to be worshipped."

This type of behavior is still occurs today. It's nothing new. Consider both the Kims in
North Korea, Saddam in Iraq, Fidel in Cuba, Mao in China, Stalin in Russia, Hitler in
Germany; all men who want/wanted to be"godlike" in their respective countries.
The Mullahs in Iran are doing the same thing. The DemonRATs have tried it in this
country with with their absurd memorializing of JFK. African dictators are still at it too --
Kahddafi in Libya and that idiot racist anti-white dictator in Zimbabwe come to mind.

[Knightsofswing]

I frea that we are going the way of the acient romans. Their civiliation rotted from the inside out& then were conqured by the vandalls. they had their "games" & so do we. At the end they believed that anything went [sex,drugs & rock&roll ect...]
Well, foks there is a "Herato" at the gates. In fact there are a bunch of them there. And GOD help those who would cross that bridge.

SEMPER FI!!

[nicollo]

You ought to read "The Autumn of the Patriach" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a story told by various narrators of their going through the ruins of a just-dead dictator's palace. The man had sold the ocean to the Gringos, for example, and he kept scores of concubines who gave birth at seven months. This was typical Marque hyperbole, as was, I thought, the description of the palace as run-down. He was so corrupt that he didn't care about the upkeep of the palace.

I learned differently after the Paraguayan dictator Alfroeder Stroessner was deposed in the late 1980s. When they went into his palace it was found decrepit. Stroessner swiped over a billion dollars from that little country, and he didn't even care to fix the holes in the ceiling of his home.

Oh, and he abused girls regularly. His son was known as "La Colonela." Ouch.

I'm not surprised by the Caligula revisionists. Castro is another Stroessner, Stalin, Caligula, etc. Can't let history stain ole Fidel, now, can we?

When I was working down there I enjoyed laughing at Stroessner and all his corruption. Then Clinton became President, and I had to apologize. Our Arkansas Ceasar was even worse than Stroessner.

How embarrassing.

[frithguild]

There are those who crediby argue that Calligula, and even the Romans generally, suffered from lead poisoning. Thus, their saturnian (God of lead) behavior like devouring your offspring depicted by Goya: