9. Too Late, Caligula Learned That It Was Unwise to Troll His Bodyguards
Caligula’s depravities included incest with his sisters. At dinner parties, he frequently ordered guests’ wives to his bedroom, then returned to the party to rate the quality of their performance. He berated the cuckolded husbands if he thought their wives were not good in bed. He also turned the imperial palace into a whorehouse, staffed with the wives of senators and other high-ranking dignitaries. To further demonstrate his contempt for the senatorial class and the Roman Republic for which they pined, Caligula had his beloved horse made consul – the Republic’s highest magistracy. Caligula’s weird behavior included the time when he declared war on the sea god Neptune. He marched his legions to the sea, and had them collect seashells to show the deity who was boss.
Caligula eventually declared himself a god, removed the heads from various deities’ statues, and replaced them with his own. However, it was not the craziness that doomed Caligula, but the insults he visited upon his bodyguards. His security detail’s commander, Chaerea, had a high pitched voice, and Caligula liked to mock him as effeminate. He thought it hilarious to come up with derogatory daily passwords that had to do with homosexuality. Whenever Chaerea was due to kiss the imperial ring, Caligula made sure it was on his middle finger, and waggled it obscenely. Chaerea finally had enough, and in 41 AD, he hatched an assassination plot with other Praetorian Guards. One day, they suddenly fell upon Caligula, and hacked him to death.
