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Julio-Claudian Emperors

Tyranny

Caligula recovered and quickly showed an new and terrible face. He began to encourage treason trials and paid informers, allowing the most outrageous accusations. He also encouraged deification of himself, though he never actually achieved it.

He began to exhibit bizarre behavior, much of which was calculated to show his contempt for the established order. Within the palace he established silly passwords, like "kiss me, sweetie". These passwords had to be repeated by the palace guards, who were grizzled old centurions given guard duty as a kind of honorable semi-retirement.

He set up a brothel using senators' wives, then required attendance. He made his horse a Roman senator, complete with golden stall and senatorial robes. He had his aged uncle Claudius tossed into a river in February because, he said, he wanted to see if the old fellow could swim.

All of these could be counted amusing or merely bizarre, but Caligula cause many people to be executed. Suetonius and others speak of terrible atrocities. Politically worse than any of these things, however, was his relation with the army. He began to pursue an erratic foreign policy. He alienated Judea for no good reason. He authorized a wild dash into German that availed nothing. He prepared a major invasion of Britain then inexplicably called it off at the last minute. These things did not endear him to the army. And when he alienated the Praetorian Guard itself, his days were numbered.