Caligula Assassinated: Praetorians End Tyrant's Reign

He was assassinated by his own bodyguard in a corridor under the Palatine Hill on January 24, 41 AD. Caligula had been emperor for less than four years. He was 28. Born Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus in Antium in 12 AD, he was the son of the popular general Germanicus and the great-granddaughter of Augustus, Agrippina the Elder. He grew up in military camps on the Rhine frontier, where soldiers gave him the nickname Caligula, meaning "little boot," after the miniature soldier's boots he wore as a child. He became emperor in March 37 AD, succeeding Tiberius, who may or may not have been smothered with a pillow by the Praetorian prefect Macro. The Roman public was delighted. Caligula was young, generous, and the son of a beloved war hero. He abolished treason trials, recalled exiles, and distributed money to the populace. The first seven months of his reign were widely celebrated. Then, in October 37 AD, he fell gravely ill. The ancient sources don't agree on the cause, but it may have been encephalitis or a severe fever. He recovered. He was, by most accounts, a different person afterward. He had the Praetorian prefect who had helped him to power executed. He forced senators to run beside his chariot. He reportedly declared himself a god and had conversations with the moon. The story that he made his horse Incitatus a consul is probably exaggerated, though he may have threatened to do it as a deliberate insult to the Senate. He spent lavishly, exhausting the treasury Tiberius had carefully built up. He demanded divine honors and planned a campaign to invade Britain that ended with his soldiers collecting seashells on a French beach, which may have been a calculated humiliation rather than madness. On January 24, 41 AD, a group of Praetorian officers led by Cassius Chaerea attacked him in a cryptoporticus beneath the Palatine. They killed his wife, Caesonia, and dashed his infant daughter's brains against a wall. The Senate tried to restore the Republic. The Praetorian Guard found Claudius hiding behind a curtain and made him emperor instead.