Caligula Caesar
12 – 41 · Generation V · Roman emperor (r. AD 37–41) · Julio-Claudian
Caligula (AD 12 – AD 41). Roman emperor (r. AD 37–41). Nicknamed “little boots” by his father’s soldiers; four years of escalating cruelty ended with his own Guard’s daggers. Son of the general Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, he watched the feud between his mother and Tiberius destroy his family until he alone of its men survived, passing his final years before power on Capri at the old emperor’s side. Emperor at twenty-four, he worked to free the throne from every constraint, yet also spent lavishly for ordinary Romans — racetracks, theatres, amphitheatres, roads and ports — and began two of Rome’s great aqueducts, the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus. Mauretania was annexed during his reign; an attempted invasion of Britain and a statue of himself for the Temple in Jerusalem were both abandoned. The portrait of a mad god-king comes from senatorial writers working long after his death, and modern historians treat much of it warily. His murder ended the male line of the Julii Caesares.
One of 16 people of Julio-Claudian (69 BC–68) in this archive. Rome’s first imperial family: the Julii and the Claudii joined by marriage and adoption, Augustus to Nero.
Line of descent: Gaius Octavius of Velitrae → Augustus Caesar → Tiberius Caesar → Germanicus Caesar → Caligula Caesar.
Parents
- Germanicus Caesar (15 BC – 19)
- Agrippina the Elder (14 BC – 33)
Siblings
- Agrippina the Younger (15 – 59)