Kaligula

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your eyes! This is written by my good friend Tim Mougenot, an American expat living half the time in London and the other half in Paris. He left after selling everything he owned and taking the QE2 without a plan, as he was disillusioned with the political environment in the US, wisely seeing more problems coming. In fact, he left right before 911. We frequently correspond about all things political, and he used the very interesting term "Kristian Kaligula" in a recent e-mail. I requested that he define this further for posting here- read on....

KRISTIAN KALIGULA

He was a serial power abuser, descended from the first family of Rome, to whom the gods spoke, and who believed that he had become one of them shortly before his own praetorian guard got rid of him because he had pissed off everybody by wrecking the economy with senseless wars (i.e., national defence).

He made the fatal mistake of keeping on the old advisors (though he had little respect for his elders - he was decidedly impious) of his predecessor Tiberius, who he personally smothered with a pillow after a long investigation of the emperor's morals by a Special Prosecutor.

He was very moralistic about everyone else's behaviour, but no one dared to question his, he being divine. His divinity first occured to him at about the same time he gave up the pleasures of the vine, and turned his back on Bacchus. He created a very effective police state, and everyone was so scared of him that no scribe in Rome would write a word against him, and would only leak the names of spies on his say so. He was really into torture and very painful capital punishment.

He treated the Senate and all other Roman institutions with great disdain: he tried to make his horse Harrietus a Magistrate, and arrogated war powers to himself . He fancied himself to be a great warrior like his father, and liked to dress the part on triremes sometimes, though he had never seen battle. Fortunately, his father had been murdered (in a family spat), because if he had lived he might have ended up becoming friends and playing golf with Tiberius on Capri, if Tiberius hadn't been smothered.

His most famous military campaign was a very expensive invasion of Britain, from which he was to bring home treasure and many slaves. But he suffered from ennui while in Gaul (as one does), and came home with chests of seashells from the Normandy coast which he presented to the Senate as gifts from Neptune. Even the rich, who hadn't paid so much as a sesterce in taxes since he became emperor, thought this was a bit over the top since he brought back not one drop of olive oil.

Several years of bad harvests and natural disasters, and an incompetent official response, led to popular unrest. To take their minds off these problems, he spread rumours among the Roman people of imminent invasion by foreigners (i.e., turrists) and accused everyone who demurred (and whose money he wanted) with treason, and had them killed in interesting ways.

In an unusually sensible policy he persecuted the kristians, who were always on the lookout for martyrdom anyway (they were going through an identity crisis, not realising that they were kristians yet, and eating matzos and gefelte fish, which were not easy to find in ancient Rome).

He created a lot of bad feeling internationally, and made enemies far and wide: a lot of influential people in far-flung places began to wonder if they really wanted to be part of his empire after all. This caused diplomatic and trade problems for Rome for many decades after he had been put down - Syrians stopped eating gnocci burgers, for example, and the multinational corporations of the day were not happy.

As always with the assassinated, it appears that a lot of the hijinks with which his name have been associated were the invention of those who arranged or benefited from his removal, as though he weren't monster enough in his real life. He was much too busy building his powerbase, creating and killing enemies, power-biking, and going to bed at 9:00 p.m. to have time for such pleasures.

In fact, he seems to have been personally popular with the Roman people throughout his reign, seen as a straight-talker who got things done, and who kept them supplied with olive oil, kristians and lions fun and games, and glorious wars to bring civilisation to the less fortunate peoples of the world. The Romans, like all imperial peoples, liked to be assured that they were essentially nice and well-meaning, and would be on top of the world forever.

In short, he was a crazy, manipulative, piece of sociopathic work who rocked the boat big time until everyone, including the Senate and the Pentagonium, were in agreement that he had to go. He was succeeded by his Uncle Claudius who appears to have been a bit autistic. Despite a speech impediment, a limp, and his advanced years, Claudius proved to be quite popular just by being a relatively sane human being.

Any uncles in the house?