Reply #39: and on this note -- people were relieved when Caligula took office [View All]

[Lisa]

They were tired of Tiberius's repressive regime with its treason trials, and underlings who were allowed to commit atrocities while the Emperor ignored Rome and lived in a remote country villa.

People had felt sorry for Caligula, most of whose family had been executed or exiled -- "Little Boots" had a famous daddy who probably ought to have become emperor, but was put to death by the paranoid Tiberius.

Things seemed to be okay for the first year or so -- Caligula ordered the treason records destroyed, and lifted censorship laws imposed by Tiberius. Then he started to act in a bizarre way -- it's possible that he suffered brain damage after a bout with encephalitis. His proposed invasion of Britain was never carried out, and people were amazed when he brought the troops back to Rome, carrying a large collection of seashells! (Okay -- so this would probably have saved a lot of lives if Bush had done this instead of invading Iraq.) Caligula indulged so much in the whims of power, and bankrupted the Roman treasury, that eventually he was assassinated by his own guards, who picked his uncle Claudius as the new emperor.