- Caligula wasn't his real name. His real name was Gaius Caesar. Caligula was a nickname dating from when, as a small child, his father took him along on some of his military campaigns and dressed him up in a miniature soldier's uniform. This amused the real soldiers, and it was they who gave him the nickname. Caligula means “little boot”, after his miniature soldier's boots, or caligae. He hated the nickname.
- Emperor Augustus was dying around the time Caligula was born. He named his stepson Tiberius as his heir, under the condition that Tiberius adopt Caligula’s father Germanicus and make him his heir. However, soon after Tiberius came to power, he sent Germanicus on a mission during which he became ill and died. Suspicious, or what? His mother Agrippina accused Tiberius of murder, and in response he accused her and her older sons of treason and had them imprisoned. Agrippina starved herself to death and neither of the brothers survived, either. Caligula was a young child and wasn't sent to prison, but to live with his great-grandmother Livia, instead. She kept him out of the public eye until Tiberius's son died and Tiberius needed an heir. He summoned Caligula and adopted him, making him an heir.
- When Caligula became Emperor, he was popular at first, and did some good things. He freed unjustly imprisoned citizens, gave bonuses to soldiers, and eliminated a highly unpopular tax. He completed construction on the Temple of Augustus and Pompey’s theatre. He started work on an aqueduct to improve Rome’s water supply, and an amphitheatre. He rebuilt the walls at the temples of Syracuse and built a city in the Alps.
- But about six months into his reign, he got sick. He recovered, but was a changed man afterwards. It isn't known whether it was a physical illness or if he was poisoned, and whether the changes in his personality were down to paranoia or the effects of an illness, such as temporal lobe epilepsy, hyperthyroidism or Wilson’s disease. When he recovered, he had most of his family executed or exiled.
- Summary executions, incest with his sisters, talking to the Moon, believing himself to be a god, making his Horse a consul – did he really do all of that? Was he as bonkers as people make out? If he was completely unhinged, it would have been possible for the lawmakers of the time to remove him from power, and if he was that crazy, how did he manage to come up with a feasible plan to conquer Britain, later successfully carried out by Claudius? It's entirely possible that a lot of Caligula's outrageous behaviour was invented by his enemies or exaggerated by biographers after his death. Fake news is nothing new.
- He loved Gold, and had a temple built for himself with a golden statue inside. The statue would be dressed daily in whatever outfit Caligula himself was wearing. People even left offerings there, such as Flamingos, peacocks, and other exotic animals. He identified with Jupiter, the king of the gods, and would dress up as him. There is a story that when Caligula was forced to give up his invasion of Britain, to save face he declared war on Neptune, God of the sea, instead. He ordered his soldiers to whip the waves and collect seashells as the spoils of war.
- Caligula was afraid of Lightning, and would wear a crown of laurels on his head, because laurel trees were supposedly never struck by lightning.
- He was fond of clothes and jewellery, and had the best and most expensive clothes money could buy at the time – the more ornate, the better. He was a bit of a cross-dresser, too. Not only did he dress up as gods such as Jupiter and Neptune, but the goddesses, such as Diana and Juno as well, and he had a collection of female Shoes.
- It's alleged that he built a floating bridge across the Bay of Baiae just so he could ride triumphantly from one end to the other. There is no evidence that he actually did this, but there is evidence of huge pleasure barges which had marble décor, mosaic floors and statues. They were sunk when he died and re-discovered in the 1920s and 30s. However, they were mostly destroyed by fire during the second world war.
- Caligula was the first Roman emperor to be assassinated. He was stabbed 30 times by the Praetorian guards at the Palatine Games.
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