Dominic Sandbrook (3:38)

That's right. And then he gets murdered by his own guards at the age of 28.

Tom Holland (3:41)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (3:42)

And in that time, he doesn't win any great military victories, he's not responsible for any great monuments. And yet, as you say, I mean, he has to be up there with Julius Caesar Augustus and Nero Nero as one of the most famous Romans who's ever lived. And as you say, I mean, right up to the present day, complete byword for cruelty and also for sexual depravity.

Tom Holland (4:06)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (4:07)

Because he was, what was it, that thing, that kind of sub porn film from the 70s where John Gielgud embarrassed himself by sitting in a bath.

Tom Holland (4:15)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (4:16)

So, yeah, so the kind of the. The flavor of scandal and depravity hangs over him. And some of the episodes from his life, I mean, you know, they're. They're very well known. So he's said to have slept with his sisters, turned his palace into a brothel.

Tom Holland (4:32)

Yep.

Dominic Sandbrook (4:33)

He likes to humiliate senators, so he'll have them kind of run by his chariot or serve him at dinner, kind of dressed up as slaves. The consuls forget his birthday and so he sacks them. And probably the most notorious story of all, at least this is how it's understood, is that he made his horse in Katatus a consul.

Tom Holland (4:56)

Yes.

Dominic Sandbrook (4:57)

Actually, that's not quite what Suetonius says, but we'll be looking at that and perhaps teasing out what that whole story might have been. And when you were reading that, people on the YouTube will have been able to see that, but when you talked about having throats cut, you turned and kind of grinned at me in a menacing way. And I think there is a slight element of kind of very, very dark.

Tom Holland (5:18)

Comedy about me or about Caligula, or are we the same about you, about.

Dominic Sandbrook (5:22)

Suetonius account and perhaps about Caligula himself, wouldn't you say? Okay. I mean, there's a kind of a quality of Grand Guignol about all of.

Tom Holland (5:30)

Those, all three of these people.

Dominic Sandbrook (5:32)

So I think Suetonius is clearly revealing. I think there's a certain quality of black humour there and actually when I was translating I felt it very, very kind of vividly. But it's clear that this is often Caligula's as well. So there was one, there was one particular account which I absolutely loved because it actually reminded me of the malevolent dwarf Quilp in Charles Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop. And it's Suttonis description of Caligula standing in front of a mirror. Though he had a naturally off putting and hideous face, he worked diligently in front of a mirror to make it even more so, contorting it into all kinds of fearsome expressions.

Tom Holland (6:11)

Yeah, that's what I do.

Dominic Sandbrook (6:12)

People who've watched the YouTube will be able to see. So I guess the question is pretty much as it was where we were talking about Tiberius yesterday is, you know, what is going on? How do we explain all the horrors and the depravities and these kind of grotesque anecdotes that sometimes shade into the kind of the blackest kind of comedy? Did they actually happen?

Tom Holland (6:39)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (6:39)

If they did, what's the explanation? Was Caligula mad? Was he a sadist? Or is it a bit like we decided, I think, that. That Tiberius was. Has he been the victim of fake news?

Tom Holland (6:53)

Right, exactly. And we are for Caligula unusually dependent on one source, aren't we? Because we have Tacitus for Tiberius but we don't have Tacitus for Caligula. There are fragmentary sources or smaller sources like Seneca or Josephus for Caligula, but Suetonius is the only full one and it's from Suetonius's biography. I mean it is actually in many ways one of the great biographies in all literature.

Dominic Sandbrook (7:18)

I think it really is.

Tom Holland (7:19)

Yes, it is from Suetonius biography of Caligula, really. Arguably even more so than his biography of Nero that we get the sort of stereotypical image of the demented Roman emperor who has been driven into total depravity by absolute power. I mean, that's what this is, isn't it? It's a model of absolute power corrupting.

Dominic Sandbrook (7:40)

Yeah. And I guess that that's why Suetonius's portrait of Caligula has been so influential, because it, it absolutely that idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Caligula seems to be the model illustration of that. So since Suetonius is so important to our understanding of Caligula and it's played such an important role in propagating the image of him as the Kind of ultimate mad, bad emperor. I think it's important to trace in some detail exactly what it is that Suetonius has to say about his life and reign. And one thing that will strike anyone who reads it immediately is how incredibly important in Suetonius's account of Caligula, the emphasis on his bloodline is on his pedigree, on his ancestry. And the reason for that, of course, most obviously is that he comes to power, he. He becomes emperor, he becomes princeps, the first man in Rome by virtue of his descent from Augustus, who is not just the first emperor, but by this point is a God. And Caligula is descended from Augustus very much through the female line. So his grandmother is Julia, who was Augustus's only child and herself got destroyed in a sex scandal. And his mother is Agrippina, who was Augustus's last surviving grandchild, who we heard about in the previous episode, falls out with Tiberius. Tiberius imprisons her on an island, she goes on hunger strike and dies of starvation. But it's not just the female descent, it's not just the descent from his mother's line that amplifies Caligula's status as the best bred man in Rome. There's also his father, and this is a guy who is so dashing, so heroic, that throughout his life and in the decades that follow, he's commemorated as the absolute darling of the Roman people. And this is a guy who rejoices in the name of Germanicus.

Tom Holland (9:35)

Right?

Dominic Sandbrook (9:36)

And Suetonius tells us that when Tiberius dies, there is this great kind of upsurge of public, almost ecstasy. And it's not, Suetonius says, just because Tiberius had died, but because the son of Germanicus has come to power. So he writes, the entire mass of the people classed the memory of his father, Germanicus, to their hearts. So it matters who Germanicus is. And Suetanes recognizes this. And in his biography, he gives us a very detailed account of Germanicus. It's almost a kind of biography within the broader biography of Caligula. I mean, you could almost say he's the 13th Caesar, so he's a guy.

Tom Holland (10:14)

Who never gets to become emperor, but Suetonius really goes into his story. So tell us a little bit about Germanicus, because basically Suetonius thinks that Germanicus is the best man who's ever lived. Brilliant at everything, top of the class, you know, brilliant speaker, brilliant scholar, all of this kind of stuff.

Dominic Sandbrook (10:29)

So he writes about Germanicus in the way that you, if you had a fake Reddit account, yeah, would write about Yourself on the rest is history. Reddit account.

Tom Holland (10:41)

I actually don't. Just to be clear, I. I don't have a fake Reddit account.

Dominic Sandbrook (10:45)

No, of course you don't. But just suppose. Just suppose. So this is what Suetonius has to say about Germanicus, who, as you say, he thinks he's absolutely brilliant. It is the broad consensus that no one has ever combined all the blessings of body and spirit to the degree that Germanicus did. Conspicuous equally for his good looks and his courage. He was brilliant both as an orator and as a scholar in Greek, as in Latin, celebrated for his generosity of spirit and remarkably successful in his endeavors cure people's devotion and inspire their affection.

Tom Holland (11:14)

I would write that of myself. I'll tell you. I think. I think Theo, our producer, has a fake Reddit account, and I think he goes onto a Reddit and just slags us off. And he would probably say this next thing because Suetonius says of Germanicus that he has very spindly legs.

Dominic Sandbrook (11:26)

That's his only drawback.

Tom Holland (11:28)

Right? That's the kind of thing Theo might say of us.

Dominic Sandbrook (11:30)

Although even then, Germanicus bulks them up. It's a bit like me with my trainer. I've bulked my legs up.

Tom Holland (11:35)

It's uncanny.

Dominic Sandbrook (11:36)

Bulk them up so much that I'm ripping my trousers apart like the Incredible Hulk. Right, okay, so Germanicus, he also has a brilliant pedigree, which of course, Caligula then inherits. So he's the grandson of Livia, who is, you know, who marries Augustus, which makes him the nephew of Tiberius. And he's, you know, as we said, he's the absolute golden boy. And so this is why Augustus marries him to his own granddaughter, Agrippina. Basically, Germanicus is being groomed to succeed Tiberius. And, you know, the sense is certainly with Suetonius, but more generally with Roman historians, that if Germanicus had managed to. To live, then this would have been brilliant. The world would have been great. Everyone would have been happy. So Germanicus is kind of deliberately trained to be kind of schooled in all the arts required to be an emperor. So he is sent off by Augustus to succeed Tiberius as commander of the German legions, because obviously, to be a Caesar, above all, you need to be able to. To command the loyalty of the legions. And he does very well, or at least it seems that he does. So his name, Germanicus, is a kind of honorific. He gets it because he is marching out across the Rhine to exact vengeance on the German tribes for their massacre of Varus 3 legions. And he's Endlessly burning villages and putting German tribes to the sword. And back in Rome, this, they think this is brilliant, so they, they call him Germanicus, although actually it's evident that Tiberius thinks he's a bit of a show pony and thinks it's actually all a bit of a wasted effort. But the point is that it creates a great stir back in Rome and so makes people love him even more. And he's popular not only with the Roman people, but with the legions themselves who are stationed on the Rhine. He's very charismatic, he's a very successful general. He clearly cares for the legions. And one of the markers of that is that very unusually and in fact, almost illegally, he has his wife Agrippina and their children with him. And this includes the very young Gaius. Gaius is just a kind of little toddler at this point. And the soldiers, you know, he's their little pet. And so they, they make him a legionary outfit and he kind of walks around, toddles around the, the camp in his armor and his military boots, which in Latin are calagai. So they called it Caligula, which are little boots.

Tom Holland (13:54)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (13:54)

So that's where the name Caligula comes from. And in fact, when Augustus dies, there are mutinies all along the line of the Rhine because they're unsure what the kind of political situation is and they're threatening essentially to reject Tiberius as, as emperor. And the only thing Suetonia says that stops them from going, launching a full scale rebellion is the appearance of Caligula. And Germanica says, if you don't calm down, I'm going to remove Caligula from the camp because I can't trust you to look after him. And this, Suetonia says, shames them into behaving a bit better.

Tom Holland (14:31)

Do you think that story is true?

Dominic Sandbrook (14:32)

Well, there's a much fuller account of this in Tacitus and it, yeah, it does seem a trifle more complicated than that.

Tom Holland (14:38)

Yeah, I was going to say, seems a bit unlikely. If you're really serious about having a mutiny, the sight of a child is unlikely to. You know, they don't have the soul of Hallmark greetings card writers, do they?

Dominic Sandbrook (14:48)

They're clearly very sentimental about him. And that vein of sentimentality about Caligula as this darling little boy is definitely a part of his public image when he becomes Emperor. Right.

Tom Holland (14:59)

So going back to his childhood, he and his family. So Germanicus is sent out to the east by Tiberius to be the big man in the east, isn't he?

Dominic Sandbrook (15:06)

Right. So that's broadening his, his range of experiences. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Holland (15:10)

And that's where it all goes wrong for Germanicus.

Dominic Sandbrook (15:11)

Again, very detailed account of this in Tacitus. Suetonius gives more truncated account, but essentially what happens is Germanicus is sent out to the east as Tiberius's plenipotentiary. But Tiberius has also sent out one of his kind of aristocratic mates, a guy called Piso, to be Governor of Syria, basically to keep an eye on Germanicus. And the two of them have a spectacular bust up. Germanicus falls ill, dies and on his deathbed accuses Paiso of having poisoned him. And the news that their favorite has not only died, but quite possibly been poisoned. When it reaches Rome, I mean, it has a devastating impact and a great kind of rolling surge of sentimental grief completely takes Rome over. Quite analogous to kind of the Princess Diana situation, which Agrippina then massively ramps up by returning to Rome, holding the urn with Germanicus ashes in it, kind of walking into Rome clutching it with her, you know, tear streaked face and her disheveled hair. And everyone in Rome just goes completely berserk with grief and anger because they blame Paiso for his death. And this anger also kind of involves Tiberius because they think that Tiberius isn't showing adequate grief. So rather like with the Queen. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So Piso ends up committing suicide because he knows that basically he's doomed. And Tiberius, who is not a sentimental man at all, views it with utter contempt in a kind of Duke of Edinburgh style perspective. And so it's no wonder that he and Agrippina don't get on having had that kind of, you know, that kind of relationship. And of course, in due course, Agrippina ends up dead and Caligula's two eldest brothers end up dead, presumably on Tiberius orders. So the whole Germanicus story ends very, very sadly with Caligula's two eldest brothers having been eliminated by Tiberius. He is now the sole surviving son of Germanicus and the sole surviving great grandson of Augustus, which makes him the obvious successor to Tiberius, which in turn makes his position very, very exposed and precarious.

Tom Holland (17:27)

Although at that point, if he's the obvious successor, the post of princeps, of Emperor has clearly degenerated into a monarchy, hasn't it? If the obvious successor is the only person left from the dynasty and the only thing that makes him an obvious successor is his bloodline.

Dominic Sandbrook (17:42)

Well, I think it's slightly more complicated than that because essentially the idea is that it's perfectly legitimate for an aristocrat to succeed to the estate and the fortune and the titles and the glory of his ancestors. No one has a problem with that. And so the pretense is, is that the, the august family, the family of Augustus, are just a family like any other, even though obviously what it brings is the rule of the world. So there is a kind of a veiled hypocrisy about it. You are right, of course. Effectively it is a monarchy. But nobody wants to admit that. Augustus hadn't wanted to admit it. Tiberius doesn't want to admit it. The Senate don't want to admit it. You know, everyone keeps it under, under a veil. And this will become important in explaining Caligula's policy as emperor and why he becomes so unpopular with the Senate. But in the meanwhile, he is very exposed. Tiberius does have a grandson of his own who's a very little boy called Gemellus. But Caligula, he turns 18, he's summoned by Tiberius to Capri. And Suetonius is predictably, very vituperative about what Caligula gets up to on Capri. So he writes, the island proved a treacherous place for him, rife with attempts either to trick or to pressure him into airing his grievances against Tiberius. But refusing to take the bait, he behaved as though nothing had happened to his family and their ruin had quite slipped his mind, dismissed the wrongs him with a straight face so convincing that it begged belief and was so ready to cringe and crawl before his grandfather and his courtiers that it has been said of him quite justifiably that never was there a better slave nor a worse master.

Tom Holland (19:17)

And there's also this stuff about. So Suetonius has obviously painted a picture of Tiberius and Capri that is very damning, shall we say? And Suetonius also says that Caligula was able to suck up Tiberius because he shared his cruelty and deviant appetites, doesn't he? He likes watching people being tortured and he dresses up in drag. You know, all of this kind of thing, which I'm guessing you will say is part of the sort of the fake news edifice that has been constructed around Tiberius.

Dominic Sandbrook (19:43)

How do we know? I mean, we, you know, I mean, how can we rely on this? But again, the kind of, the resonance of, of the myth is so overwhelming that it kind of becomes historically significant in its own right. So Tiberius watches Caligula, it is said, encourages him in, you know, joining in watching tortures or erotic floor shows or whatever, and is supposed to have said of, of Caligula that he was rearing someone fated to prove a viper. To the Roman people. I mean, that's most improbable, right? Tiberius was, you know, he. He felt that he was a deep patriot. He would not have wanted to rear a viper.

Tom Holland (20:24)

Right?

Dominic Sandbrook (20:25)

But this is the perspective that will come to be put on it because of course, Suetonius and other historians know what is going to happen, know the kind of man that Caligula is, is going to be. So 16th of March 37, Tiberius dies. Inevitably, there is what Suetonius describes as a plausible rumour that Caligula is responsible for it. So Suetonius says that Caligula poisons Tiberius. When he doesn't die, he then smothers him with a pillow, he. And. And then when that doesn't work, he strangles him.

Tom Holland (20:58)

The death of Rasputin or something.

Dominic Sandbrook (21:00)

Exactly. But presumably this is all taking place in an empty room. So how. How anyone would know? I mean, we don't know. And so Caligula then becomes princeps. There is effectively, there isn't anyone else who can, you know, take his place. Gemellus is still, I think he's eight or nine something, so no way that he can succeed. And so he becomes Emperor. And he does so as someone with very, very little experience of public life in Rome, of how the Senate functions, of the role played by the magistracies, all of these kind of things, which of course, both Augustus and Tiberius had absolutely been raised in before they became Emperor. He also has no military experience. He doesn't really have any. Any friends or allies among the senatorial elite. And so you may wonder, well, that being so, how could he. How could this kind of, this very young man possibly succeed to the rule of the world? And the answer is, is that Caligula clearly has a very kind of unsentimental and, and you might say, pitiless intelligence. And the reason that he hasn't bothered working out how the Senate behave or, you know, the role of the consuls or anything, is that he's recognized that they. That effectively doesn't really matter anymore, that there are much more significant centers of power in the state of which the most obvious is this group of guards called the Praetorians. So a praetorium is the military headquarters and the Praetorian Guards are the guards that traditionally look after someone who is in military command. And Augustus, in his role as supreme commander of the various legions across the Empire, you know, he has to have his own praetorian. And so he has his Praetorian Guards and Tiberius has them as well. And he has built the Praetorians, a great military base and the walls of Rome. And Caligula has recognized that this is what matters. And so he's made sure to square them. And particularly the head of the Praetorians, guy called Macro, he also of course has the blood of the deified Augustus in his veins. So he, you know, there's a touch of the divine there and the people, as we've said, adore him because he is the son of Germanicus. And so when Caligula accompanies Tiberius body to Rome, he is mobbed and cheered the whole way. And again, to quote Suetonius, ecstatic crowds of well wishers called him their shining light, their chick, their puppet, their baby boy. The senators, you know, they're watching this and thinking, oh Lordy, I mean, there's nothing we can do about this. And so they vote the 24 year old Caligula, all the powers that it had taken Augustus a lifetime to accumulate. And obviously they're not particularly happy about that.

Tom Holland (23:51)

I must stick in their craw.

Dominic Sandbrook (23:53)

Yeah, there's nothing, you know, what can they do? They've got to suck it up.

Tom Holland (23:55)

And right from the start, Caligula proves himself a master, doesn't he, of playing to the, to the people, to the gallery. He reminds me a bit of a guy, the guy who's the ruler of Chechnya, who's called Ramzan Kadyrov, who also succeeded, you know, he succeeded his father. It's not really a monarchy, but he's, he's always like wrestling bears and trying to hang out with Hollywood film stars and stuff. And Caligula is very much of that ilk, isn't he? He likes a sensational, melodramatic, crowd pleasing gesture.

Dominic Sandbrook (24:24)

Yeah, he does. And again, I was thinking perhaps of Charles Spencer. That's not the first moment.

Tom Holland (24:29)

Yeah, there's the three people who aren't often bracketed together.

Dominic Sandbrook (24:32)

No, but in that speech that Charles Spencer gave at his sister's funeral, which kind of really ratcheted up the sense of kind of melodrama and emotional intensity, Caligula, he recognizes that his status as the son of Germanicus and of Agrippina is an important part of his kind of mythos, of his image. So the moment he's arrived in Rome and become Emperor, no sooner has he done that than he's off on a ship off to the prison islands where his mother and his elder brother had died and he scoops up their ashes and he returns to Rome and he sails up the Tiber and He's on this great ship with his. His standard fluttering proudly in the prow. And he lands and he then walks, rather as his mother had walked with the. With the ashes of Germanicus, he walks with the. The ashes of his mother and his brothers to the great mausoleum of Augustus on the Campus Martius, where he lays them. And he does this, Suetonius specifies at midday when the city was at its busiest, so he wants everyone to see him. And he then goes out of his way to kind of issue proclamations essentially saying, you know, the. The grim age of Tiberius is over. It's a golden age has come. I am a kind of shining model of munificence and benignity. So he issues amnesties to all those who are facing trial on charges that had been brought against them while Tiberius was living. He revives the popular elections. So the elections, you know, for magistracies that Tiberius had abolished, this goes down well with the people and he gives a solemn promise that he will never do anything to make anyone hate him and will never give ear to informers. So this is his manifesto. Also in contrast to Tiberius, very pointed contrast to Tiberius, he lays on all kinds of spectacular shows. So we talked in the previous episode how Tiberius despises the things that the mass of the people like. He has no time for gladiatorial shows. Tiberius's idea of a good time is to have a kind of pub quiz. He likes setting quizzes on literary matters and things like that. That's his idea of a good time, not Caligula's. So there are gladiators, there are beast shows, there are chariot races. And Caligula particularly likes chariot races. You know, he identifies very strongly with one of the particular teams, kind of backs them very strongly, and he loves scattering largess. So he will do this thing where there are kind of tokens and he'll throw these tokens out into the crowd. And depending on which token you pick up, you will get something. So it might be, I don't know, just a. A barn or something, or it might be a villa. So. Wow. And he likes to sit there and watch people scrabbling and elbowing, you know, each other out of the way to grab them. And so Tonia says he was tireless in promoting shows of every description on stages across Rome and sometimes even did so by night, making the whole city blaze with light.

Tom Holland (27:27)

So I know we'll get onto this in the second half, but, I mean, very quickly. He's obviously a natural populist, isn't he?

Dominic Sandbrook (27:33)

Yes, a Popularis, as the Romans would call it. Yeah.

Tom Holland (27:36)

Now, obviously the issue there is, then there are lots of people in the Senate who are not natural populists for whom populism is anathema. And they're looking at this bloke who's, what in his. How old is he? 24. 24. Has never held a senior command, has never held a senior office. And they must be thinking, this is mad. I mean, why is this bloke ruling Rome? He's completely out of his depth. But also he's against everything that we stand for, which is tradition, integrity, seriousness, all of these things.

Dominic Sandbrook (28:05)

Yeah. And the Roman tradition, which had been manifest throughout the Republic, is that it's brilliant to be old. So that's why republican portrait busts, they're always showing themselves with kind of sagging jowls and crow's feet and everything like that. And there's an instinctive sense that young people are just kind of naturally violent and aggressive and haven't learned to temper their appetites. And Caligula seems set on kind of illustrating this. So they, they resent the way that he. He kind of makes jokes and he sniggers loudly, which is obviously very off putting if you're giving a grand duration in the Senate. They hate his, you know, the way that he's always going on about chariot racing. Caligula has a kind of thing. I mean, it's basically kind of a bit like driving a very fast sports car. He. He has an insane number of horses that draw him on his chariot through the streets of Rome. He's cutting a dash in a way that they find very, very offensive. And of course, you know, all these gladiator shows and stuff. I mean, it's expensive.

Tom Holland (29:05)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (29:06)

Tiberius had been very, very abstemious and mean. So the treasury is quite full, but clickel is kind of burning through it at an absolute rate of knots. But they haven't really got any choice except to hold their breath and, you know, cross their fingers and trust that everything will be okay.

Tom Holland (29:22)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (29:23)

And it is a good sign for them that along with all his other kind of measures designed to make him look good, he said that he's, you know, there aren't going to be any more treason trials. We're not going to have them. So you can rely on that. So the first eight months of his rule, you know, there are worrying signs, but there hasn't been kind of any major, major confrontation between Caligula and the Senate. And then in October 37. So, as I say, eight months after coming to power. Caligula falls ill. And this is a very dangerous moment because this isn't a formal monarchy. There isn't really it. There aren't set rules establishing how, you know, when one princeps dies, a new princeps comes to power. And so the moment Caligula falls ill and it looks like he's going to die, all the heavyweights in his administration are scrabbling around trying to work out who this, you know, who his successor will be. And the obvious successor is this young lad Gemellus, kind of, you know, 13 or 14 by this point, Tiberius only grandson. So they are going off and kind of paying court to him and, and preparing to, to elevate him to the throne. And meanwhile there is this absolute toady, this lick spittle, a guy called Atanius who swears a solemn oath that if only the gods will restore Caligula to health, then he will go into the arena and fight publicly as a gladiator. And obviously doesn't. He doesn't expect that this would happen. It would be unthinkable for someone of his rank and age to go into the arena and fight a trained killer. But, you know, he's basically hedging his bets if, if Caligula survives and then it'll be great, you know, he'll, he'll, he'll approve of his loyalty. And if he doesn't, then no one will remember it. Caligula does recover, I think, against the odds. And he rises from his sickbed and he's informed what Artanius has done and also more significantly, what the captain of the Praetorians and you know, his leading senatorial backers, what they've been up to going around and paying court to Gemellus. And he moves with absolute lethal dispatch. So first off, he sends two soldiers to Gamelas who sit the boy down and take out their knives and show Gemellas the best way to kill himself and then stand there and watch while Gemellus kills himself. And that's the end of him. Gemellus would be patrons, including the prefect of the Praetorians, are likewise ordered to commit suicide, which they do. And Atanius, this guy who has vowed that he will fight a gladiator if only Caligula recovers. Well, so this is how what Suetonius says happened. Caligula takes him at his word and he forces this poor guy. I mean, he's not at all the kind of person who is fitted either by background or I think, by physique to face up to a trained gladiator out into the arena. Atanius is killed very briskly. He's dragged off with a hook across the sand. His body's dumped. And Caligula's sense of humor has this kind of bloody punchline. And people in the arena undoubtedly found it funny. I mean, it's exactly the kind of joke that would have appealed to a crowd of people gathered to watch bloodsports. But it also sends a pretty chilling message to the Roman elites that, you know, there's no more Mr. Nice Guy. And there's the definite sense that Caligula has been biding his time. And now that he has the evidence that some of the Senate have been conspiring against him, as he sees it, by kind of going after Gamelas, he is ready for the kill. And Suetonius, he. He has this kind of wonderful pivot in his biography. It's one of, I think, the single greatest line ever written in any biography, ever.

Tom Holland (33:04)

Crikey.

Dominic Sandbrook (33:05)

Where he writes enough of the princeps. What remains to be described is the monster.

Tom Holland (33:11)

Crikey. So the monster is coming. And we will be back after the break. Welcome back to the Rest Is History. Enough of the print caps. What remains to be described is the monster. So, Tom, you described this as your favorite line in the history of biography, and we are moving now. Caligula has been clearly very shocked by the speed with which people move to associate themselves with a potential successor when he fell ill. And, you know, politically, that makes sense, that he would be insecure and he would wish to. Yeah, he's looking for enemies. But from this point onwards in the biography, Suetonius is really going beyond that. And he is basically saying Caligula is a dyed in the wool, inveterate, debauched, depraved monster. And talk us through some of the examples, Tom, that he gives of this kind of behavior.

Dominic Sandbrook (34:09)

Right. So there are various examples that Suetonius gives of the character of a monster that he says Caligula has. Perhaps the most shocking is that Caligula demands worship as a God. So Augustus had been, you know, he's worshipped as a God, but not in his lifetime. Augustus had really stamped down against any thought of that. But Caligula, Suetonius says he's all in. So Suetonius reports that Caligula orders some of the most famous statues of the gods from Greece brought to Rome. He replaces the heads of the gods with his own head. Senators compete to serve him as. As priests. They offer up all kinds of sacrifices to him. So Suetonius specifies flamingos, peacocks, black grouse, two varieties of guinea hen, pheasants. There are times when Caligula will dress up as various gods, so sometimes as Jupiter, even, shockingly, as Venus. And there are other times where he will claim to be talking to Jupiter. So this is all clear evidence of either monstrousness or insanity, or both. Yeah, Suetonius says that he. He essentially goes out of his way to humiliate the elites in every way he can. And obviously, the most humiliating thing that you can do to a senator is to treat him as a slave. So Suetonius specifies that he would brand senators, equestrians who had offended him with. With branding irons, after which, Suetonius writes, he would condemn them either to the mines or to the building of roads, or to be thrown to wild beasts, or to be shut up in cages on all fours like animals, or to be sawn in half. So none of that's fun. He takes his vendetta against the elites, even to the extent of toppling their ancestors. So statues of famous men from Rome's past, Suetonius says, are toppled and smashed to pieces. And he also says that members of the. The aristocracy with famous names, they're told to get rid of these names. So the Pompeys, for instance, Pompey the Great, they have this name, Magnus. They're told they can't use that anymore. That. That would be the kind of example. And there's also very kind of pointed sexual humiliations that he inflicts on them. So he will invite senators and their wives to dinner. And while they're kind of lying there, Caligula will appraise the various wives of these senators. You know, if there's one that he particularly feels drawn to, he'll take her away, sleep with her, and then send her back to her husband all kind of disheveled. And it's making it very clear what's happened. Caligula will then come back and offer a kind of commentary on her performance. And the wretched husband just kind of lies there looking a bit sick. And this is where the detail comes in that Caligula sets up a brothel in his own great palace on the Palatine Hill, above the Forum, and he staffs it with married women and boys, both of whom are of very high status. So, I mean, all good stuff.

Tom Holland (37:04)

So let's. Let's dig into this a little bit. So, obviously, because we don't have many other sources, it's pretty hard for us to get a sense of how grounded in reality these accusations are. You make the point, don't you that Suetonius doesn't present this as a continuous chronological narrative. It's just a sort of bullet pointed list of the bad things that Caligula is supposed to have done.

Dominic Sandbrook (37:29)

Yeah, that's right. And so it is difficult to kind of get a sense of it as a narrative, but I think it's just about possible if you map Suetonius account with the various other fragments of evidence that we have, to kind of get a narrative of Caligula's reign. So, you know, he comes to power first eight months, it's kind of okay. There's nothing particularly shocking from the senatorial point of view that's happening, even though there is, you know, a sense of menace. Then he falls ill. When he recovers, he eliminates, he eliminates Gamellus, his own conceivable rival and anyone who he, he thinks might be a kind of particular figure of opposition to him. And he continues, in the wake of his recovery from that illness, to pay lip service to his partnership with the Senate in the way that Augustus had done, in the way that Tiberius had done. But then it, it seems that two years into his reign, he's finally had enough. And there is this most spectacular showdown. And he summons the Senate and addresses them and expresses to them in the most bald, uncompromising way his utter contempt for everything that they represent. He strips away all these hypocrisies that we were talking about earlier, this pretense that the Senate in some way have any autonomy or power, that that Rome is a partnership between the princeps and the Senate. He says this is absolute nonsense. It's ludicrous, the idea that Rome is a republic. Madness. I am a monarch. I have complete authority over you. You are nothing. You are worms. And just for good measure, he then announces that he is reintroducing the treason trials that he had announced were canceled with such trumpeting two years before. And the Senate are so stunned by this, they don't really know what to say. And Caligula sweeps out and they all just kind of sit there ashen faced, as private eye would put it. And the following day they all kind of reconvene and they pass a formal vote in which they, they formally thank Caligula for his sincerity and the intelligence of his comments. They praise him for his piety and they say, such wonderful clemency from Caesar. Even though we're worms, he's still, you know, we should offer him multiple sacrifices as a way of expressing our gratitude for him, for his clemency and his general all Round decency. So it's a massive grovel.

Tom Holland (40:10)

Crikey. So my question to you, Tom. So I compared him with Ramzan Kadyrov in the first half. You could compare Kim Jong Un in North Korea. Again, hereditary, but not in a monarchy. Right. So my question is, what's the power base for doing this? So he hasn't heard a command. He doesn't have powerful allies, or hasn't. Before he became Emperor, he didn't have powerful allies in the Roman establishment. How can he possibly do this, stand up to these very powerful, prestigious patrician people and boss them around in this way?

Dominic Sandbrook (40:41)

He has the Praetorians. He has lavished bribes on the Praetorians. They are the only soldiers in Rome. So as long as he has the Praetorians on board, there's nothing really that the Senate can do. He also has lavished money on the legions because ultimately, one of the other many hypocrisies that Caligula is kind of ripping to shreds is the idea that. That the role of the princeps is as anything other than a military commander.

Tom Holland (41:10)

Right.

Dominic Sandbrook (41:10)

You know, he is basically. I mean, he's not. He's not drawing attention to it deliberately, but he is making manifest that the underpinning of the entire system that Augustus has set up, which is supposed to be this partnership between the emperor and the Senate, is actually founded on the support of the legions. That's what matters. And so it's not surprising that senatorial opponents of Caligula recognize this as well. And of course, the commanders of the legions are themselves senators. And so there is a conspiracy against him. And it's not surprising that it's focused not in Rome, but on the Rhine, which is where that you have the highest concentration of legions in the entire empire. And it seems to have involved numerous senators, two of Caligula's sisters, interestingly, and most dangerously of all, the guy who effectively has the command of the legions on the Rhine, who is a very seasoned general and a very experienced guy at kind of negotiating all the various changes in regimes and things, a man called Gaetulicus. And again, the accounts of this are very garbled, but you can kind of piece together that Caligula is alerted to what's happening and he moves with very, very impressive energy and speed, sets off from Italy for the Rhine. It's his first trip outside Italy as emperor descends and surprises Gatulicus, who is arrested and executed. Caligula's sisters are sent to prison islands. So that thing you read at the beginning about Caligula saying to them, you know, I have swords as well as islands. So in other words, stay on the island and stay put, or else I will have you hacked to death with swords. And the Senate then endures this absolute reign of terror. So Caligula goes to Germany. This is when he raises more legions. It's when he does that whole thing with the shells on the. Oh, yeah, on the shore of the. The channel, which we talked about in our series on Roman Britain, and which I frankly said then and repeat, I've no idea what's going on with that. I mean, there are so many theories we don't know. It's an example of, I think, of just how garbled lots of the stories that are told about Caligula becomes. But anyway, he then comes back from. From Germany, in Gaul. And while he's in Gaul, he's met by various emissaries from the Senate. And Caligula tells them, I no longer acknowledge your authority. I. I despise you. I do not recognize that you have any kind of role to play in the running of the empire. And it's on his return to Rome, it seems that the horrors and the outrages that Suetonius lists, which we just went through, that they seem to have been perpetrated, and it's a reign of terror that. That works because the Senate is effectively left completely broken. You know, they feel powerless before him. They grovel before him and just, you know, like, trying to avoid a bully's eye.

Tom Holland (44:04)

So this is the moment, really, for the first time since. Really for the first time since Augustus inaugurated the empire. It's the first time that somebody has torn away what Augustus had worked so hard to create, which was the veil of legality and tradition. And somebody has just said, that's all rubbish. This is a pure military dictatorship. I am the dictator and I will humiliate you. I will torture you, and I will kill you if you step out of line.

Dominic Sandbrook (44:33)

And I think that that's why he has the fame that he does. So in recent times, he's become almost a kind of existential hero.

Tom Holland (44:39)

Yeah. Albert Camus wrote a play about it. Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (44:42)

So this kind of. This notion that politics is purely about power, and Caligula is perhaps the emperor who most brutally demonstrates that, most brutally recognizes it. But having said that, he does make one terrible mistake. So you, you know, you ask, well, what's the basis of his power? The basis of his power is his popularity with praetorians. And so it is foolish of him, then that he can't. You know, Caligula does seem to have loved a joke and he can't resist making a joke even about praetorians. And there is one praetorian in particular, a guy called Cassius Kyria, who's actually rather like me. He's mass, you know, huge gym toned body, enormous rippling muscles, but has a perhaps a slightly effeminate voice, a slightly soft voice. And so Caligula finds that the combination of, you know, the, the muscle man and the, the kind of the slightly female sounding voice very amusing.

Tom Holland (45:42)

Yes.

Dominic Sandbrook (45:43)

And so Suetaneous writes Caligula would make Priapus or Venus the watchword. And sometimes when the tribune had reason to thank him for something, Caligula would hold out his hand to be kissed, then make an obscene gesture with his fingers. It's obviously very funny for all Caligula's hangers on.

Tom Holland (45:58)

You do that with Theo.

Dominic Sandbrook (46:00)

I do, I do. So the, the time will come where he will inflict a terrible vengeance. Because what happens is that Cassie, Chiria and various other praetorians organize a conspiracy. And this is much more fatal, as is proven on the 24th of January, AD 41. Caligula is about to leave for Alexandria. So there's, you know, if you're a conspirator, you need to get a move on. And that day he's staging games in this great temporary theater on the Palatine. Caligula seems to be in an absolutely brilliant mood. He hasn't reserved any seats for the senators, so he sits there and enjoys watching them scrabble and try and get the best seat. Finds that very funny. Also finds it very funny when a flamingo is sacrificed and the blood of this flamingo splashes all over one of the senators, you know, blotting his, his rope and so. Click. It has a good laugh about that as well. Lunch comes, he decides he'll go and eat in the, in the, in the privacy of his own palace. So he stands up and, and heads off towards his own private quarters. He's just about to go inside when he's approached by a. Who tells him that some Greek boys of very noble background have been rehearsing a musical in his honour. And so Caligula turns aside to inspect them and actually, I think that's a kind of interesting example of Caligula. Not as a monster. I mean, that's quite, you know, he's in, he's told these boys have been rehearsing. He, he kind of breaks off from going to lunch to go and Hear them, because, you know, he's clearly recognizes that they will appreciate that. And he's walking down this passageway to go and listen to these Greek boys when he runs into Cassius Chaerea and Cassius Kyria asks for the day's password and as usual, it's an insulting one. So, you know, I'm a massive girl's blouse, something like that. And Cassius Crier is not amused. He draws his sword and he strikes at Caligula's neck. It misses and hits the shoulder blade. Caligula stumbles, crashes down onto the ground, but he's still very much alive. He's followed by his litter bearers. They have kind of great wooden poles and they come to the rescue of Caligula. Again, a kind of illustration of the way in which he can command a degree of loyalty. But there's no prospect of them being able to defend Caligula because Cassius Carrier is backed up with praetorians who have, you know, they have hard steel. And Caligula is soon kind of on the ground being slashed to pieces by a kind of hail of swords. He's dead. Cassius Cherea decapitates him. We're told that several of the praetorians stab their swords through Caligula's genitals. So again, this idea of kind of sexual humiliation, which Caligula had repeatedly practiced and now it's kind of inflicted on him. And there are even rumors that some of them pick up and eat his flesh, which I'm sure is exaggerated. So this is where Josephus comes into his own, the great Judean historian. He has quite a detailed account that seems to draw on quite authoritative sources. And so Caligula perishes as he had lived, kind of shadowed by. By horror, by horrific rumor and by kind of malevolent jokes. And that is the end of him. And so as we approach the end of this episode, it's probably time to just try and kind of go through and work out what kind of credibility can we put on this, how can we make sense of all these seemingly mad stories that are told about it?

Tom Holland (49:28)

So possibility number one, obviously, and this, I'm sure, is the case for some of the stories, is that they are just not true, that they're either propaganda or they're literary formulae, or they are, you know, sort of folk, urban myths, rather like there are loads of urban myths about politicians today that. That people believe, aren't there? I mean, you know, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, you know, Donald Trump, whoever it might be. There are Lots of stories that people tell and swap, but we know ourselves that there might be a kind of metaphorical truth to them, but no literal truth.

Dominic Sandbrook (50:02)

Right. So we know there is one obvious example of that. There's one, one story that's told about him that we can be, I'd say, kind of 99% sure isn't true. And that's the story that he committed incest with his sisters. So he has three sisters and his, his favorite is called Drusilla, and he is clearly devoted to her. When he falls ill, he names her as his heir, which is a striking thing for, you know, for a woman in a society as patriarchal as Rome to be appointed the heir of a princeps. She then dies. And he does genuinely seem to have. Have been kind of crazed with grief, and he proclaims her as a God. And we know that that happens because we have kind of independent evidence for it. But the idea that he'd been sleeping with her or that he'd been sleeping with his other two sisters, we can be confident that that's not true, I think, for two reasons. The first is that the notion that a powerful Claudian and Caligula is, as well as being a Julian, a Claudian sleeps with his sisters is an absolute stereotype. It's told about Claudian, after Claudian after Claudian. So it's an accusation that is just kind of waiting to be served up. I mean, you might still say, well, I mean, that doesn't prove that it didn't happen in this case, but it kind of does. And I'll. I'll quote you a German scholar, Alois Wintling, who's written brilliantly about Caligula. He points out not only that Suetonius is the first to mention it, but also that there were contemporaries of Caligula who were familiar with aristocratic circles in Rome and well informed and who heap invective on the emperor. They would hardly have failed to mention such a charge had it been in circulation then.

Tom Holland (51:42)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (51:42)

So they would have mentioned it.

Tom Holland (51:44)

Yeah, that makes total sense.

Dominic Sandbrook (51:45)

Suetonius is the first person to mention it. Therefore we can be fairly confident that that accusation isn't true. But that explanation doesn't wash with everything that is told about him because there are substantiating reports that suggest that some at least of these stories are true. So how do we explain them? And another possibility, which again, Suetonius is the first to suggest, is that Caligula was mad. So Suetonius writes, it is my theory, and I have no doubt it is the Correct. One very modestly, that his mental infirmity was due to the coexistence within his personality of twin but directly contradictory flaws, extreme self confidence and abject timidity. But again, if he'd been mad, contemporaries would have pointed it out. They don't.

Tom Holland (52:31)

Is there not a claim when he fell ill?

Dominic Sandbrook (52:33)

Yes, that's a popular theory. I don't think there's any evidence for that at all.

Tom Holland (52:37)

And that's purely because of the order of Suetonius's biography. Is it that Suetonius basically says it's after that, but I suppose it's more likely, isn't it, that he's politically either emboldened or more insecure after he knows that people have been flirting with a successor.

Dominic Sandbrook (52:53)

Right. So that's why Suetonius mentions that he's both extremely self confident and abjectly timid. I mean, I think that's exactly the kind of example that suggests it. But I mean, that could be true, but it doesn't mean he's mad.

Tom Holland (53:05)

No.

Dominic Sandbrook (53:06)

And in fact, Caligula seems to have. Have had considerable political acumen. I mean, what he does to the Senate is very, very brutal but pretty effective. And when there is that military uprising against him, I mean, he, he outsmarts a seasoned military commander. So, you know, he. He may be malevolent, he may be pitiless, he may even be sadistic, but I don't think he's mad.

Tom Holland (53:30)

Which matches what we know of 20th century dictators. I mean, Hitler, Stalin and so on, they may have been horrendous, but they're not clinically insane. It's too easy to say they're mad, basically, it lets them off the hook.

Dominic Sandbrook (53:42)

But I think. I don't think you need it as an explanation because I think it's actually fairly clear where Caligula is coming from. And we've already hinted at it in this episode, which is that Caligula is a populist, or to put it in Latin, a popularis. And, you know, we've talked before, both in this series and in the podcast more generally, about how politics in Rome is about vibes rather than about policy. It's about whether you appeal to the kind of traditional elites or whether you appeal over their heads to. To the masses. And you've got to remember that the autocracy established by Augustus has only been in existence for 60 years, and the concrete hasn't set. People who are ruling as emperors are trying to work out what policy they should adopt, what role should be. I mean, and the People all around him are as well. And Augustus had embodied the Popularis tradition and the kind of, the more aristocrationalist perspective. Tiberius had been a traditionalist. Caligula, I think, partly out of temperament and partly because he correctly recognizes the weakness of the Senate, goes all in with the Popularis tradition. So his instinct is to kind of flatter and woo the people, to give them the entertainments that he himself enjoys. And of course, the spectacle of his enjoyment makes him very, very popular with the people and conversely to kind of turn against the Senate and rather than to appease senators, to crush them. And it's a strategy to which he brings very distinctive qualities. And I think that one of them clearly is a certain relish for cruelty and domination. I think that the sources are just too insistent on that for us to kind of, you know, whitewash it. I think he clearly was, you know, in that sense a completely terrifying man.

Tom Holland (55:38)

A nasty piece of work.

Dominic Sandbrook (55:39)

A very nasty piece of work. And with a particular focus, I think, on sexual humiliation. Again, even if the stories about him sleeping with senators wives in dinner parties or setting up a brothel on the Palatine are exaggerated, the fact that these stories are told clearly are drawing on authentic memories of the trauma that that senators were made to go through.

Tom Holland (56:06)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (56:06)

And you know, for reasons, again, that we've talked in this series, striking at an aristocratic Roman sense of sexual self respect is absolutely devastating to their whole sense of status. Caligula correctly identifies that as the way to really kind of break them.

Tom Holland (56:26)

And part of this is the assault on a series of conventions and taboos, presumably. So you talked before about him, the stuff with the gods or demanding that he's worshipped as a God, or most obviously the story that goes right back to when he was on Caprio with Tiberius, that he dresses as a woman.

Dominic Sandbrook (56:44)

Yes.

Tom Holland (56:44)

And this is about him taking the taboos that mean so much to the established senior, you know, blue blooded people and ripping them up and presumably delighting the mob, as it were, in doing so.

Dominic Sandbrook (56:58)

There's something almost kind of punk about it. It's so shocking that obviously some of his supporters, some of the people who are prone to support him, just kind of laugh in admiration at how far he has pushed things.

Tom Holland (57:11)

Right.

Dominic Sandbrook (57:11)

And this is a strategy that, that Nero will adopt as well. And it was a strategy in a kind of much, in a kind of much more modulated sense that Julius Caesar had done too, you know, that, that, that you shock people and the shock becomes kind of politically charged. And Caligula obviously revels in experimenting with.

Tom Holland (57:30)

That I think in that sense Nero and Caligula are remarkably similar, aren't they? Because they're basically part of the same political tradition. They're playing to the same audience and they're trying to. And they're, they're kicking against the same taboos and the same class, the senatorial class.

Dominic Sandbrook (57:47)

Right. And I think also it's the fact that they, they have the blood of a God in their veins and so they can cast themselves as being somehow more than mortal. They're doing the kind of things that gods would do or heroes in Greek mythology. This is very overt with Nero, but it's, I think, pretty clearly the same with Caligula. I think he is kind of blazing that as a policy for an emperor to follow, I mean, you have to basically be a descendant of Augustus to do it. Which is why when Nero dies and there are no more descendants of Augustus to rule as emperor, that tradition ends. But both of them are kind of making play with it. And he fuses that sense of, of essentially behaving like a God, behaving like a kind of, you know, one of a hero from Greek myth with a genius for spectacle and an eye for recognizing how to undercut the privileges and assumptions of the Senate. And the single best example of this, again a very well known story, is that he builds this huge three mile pontoon bridge in the Bay of Naples, or specifically in the Bay of Baila, and he then parades across it. First time he rides on a, on a horse and then he rides in this kind of great chariot. And Suetonius offers this not as an example of his monstrosities, but as one of the good things, you know, one of the positives of his reign. And in fact, Suetonius, his grandfather had watched it and had said how amazing it was. And we don't know exactly when he does this, but I think the likeliest date is when he comes back from Germany and Gaul. Because I think it's pretty clear that what he's doing is staging a triumph to upstage all triumphs. Because to, you know, to hold a triumph on the sea, I mean, that's the kind of thing a God does. But also triumphs, there's a set route in Rome that you follow and it's up to the Senate to license them. And Caligula is saying to the Senate, don't need you. I'm, I, you know, I am this godlike figure. I can ride over water if I want to.

Tom Holland (59:48)

And then the final and most famous thing, making his horse a consulate. So I know you have a very. Actually, I've heard you explain before. I think it's a very persuasive explanation of exactly what this is, because effectively this is just a very, very. This is a satirical joke.

Dominic Sandbrook (60:04)

It's a joke. So this is the last kind of attribute that Caligula brings to his model of kind of targeted terrorism, you might say, which is that he's funny and people like humor in a domineering political figure. You know, there's kind of contemporary evidence for that, I would say. And Caligula is, you know, we've said all along that there is a kind of vein of dark comedy in Suetonius's portrait that I think derives from Caligula himself, in large part. Suetonius, I think, doesn't get the. The point of Caligula's joke about his horse. So it's popularly said that Caligula made his horse a consul. That's not what Suetonius says. Suetonius says that he planned make Inca Tatus a consul. He also claims that Suetonius loves Inca Tatus, which literally means hotspur. So he wanted. He. He gives Inca Tartatus a stable fashioned out of marble, an ivory manger, purple saddlecloths and collars studded with jewels, and he bestowed as well, a fully furnished mansion. Now, all of these are basically the markers of senatorial status. It's what senators want and have. And to be a consul is the ultimate dream of any, any ambitious senator. And Caligula, by giving Inca Tatus a palace and by saying that he can make him a consul, is effectively undermining all the pretensions of the senatorial class. He's saying, you know, I can make my horse a consul or I can make you a consul. It's very humiliating for the Senate. It's very funny for Caligula, but of course, in the long run, the joke is on him because actually nobody today remembers the joke. It just confirms his reputation as a madman. Yeah. And it's, you know, the other example of the joke being on Caligula is the fact that Cassius Carrier ends up killing him. And my own suspicion is that I mentioned. I went in and talked to the writers of Succession, the Murdochs as the Caesars drama.

Tom Holland (62:08)

Yeah.

Dominic Sandbrook (62:08)

And I talked all about this period of Roman history and one of the markers is that Nero and Sporus are constantly being name checked. But I think that the character of Roman Roy, I think, has quite a lot of Caligula in him. I mean, I don't haven't asked specifically whether. Whether it was an influence. But he is called Roman. Yeah, he's the most Roman character. I mean, it's literally his name, and his character is quite Caligula. He's a Caligula who's still waiting in the wings, I think.

Tom Holland (62:37)

But for all Caligula's spectacle and his dark humor and his kind of popular populist touch, I should say he only lasts four years and he ends up dead in this extraordinary set piece, this great narrative set piece. He's been stabbed and stabbed again by Cassius Kyria and his men, abandoned in an alley. And what's going to happen next? You know, are they going to bring back the Republic? Is the Empire going to continue? If so, who on earth could possibly succeed? Is there anybody left from the Imperial family? And, Tom, we will be answering that question next time. But of course, there's only one way that people can hear that right now, isn't there? And that's if they're members of the Rest Is History Club. If they're members of our very own Praetorian Guard, they'll be able to hear it. And if you're not and you'd like to join up, you can go to therestishistory.com and hear right away what happens next after the assassination of Caligula, who comes next and what kind of emperor he was. So tomorrow, thank you very much for that. And on that bombshell, we'll be back next time with the story of the Emperor Claudius.

Dominic Sandbrook (63:43)

Bye.