According to Suetonius, who was writing in the early second century, there were two versions of what ultimately happened to the mad emperor. Neither are pleasant. The first was that while Caligula was talking to some young boys, the conspirator Chaerea came up from behind the emperor and slit his throat while another conspirator stabbed him in the chest. The second version, more violently detailed than the first, claims that once Caligula was isolated by the conspirators (a faction within the praetorians), he was asked the day's watchword. "Jupiter," the emperor replied. To which the Tribune responded, "So be it." Caligula looked incredulous as he was suddenly struck by a sword blow to the jaw. Knocked to the ground and writhing in agony, the rest of the conspirators continued to stab him. Some, Suetonius says, even "thrust their swords through his privates." This version, though more detailed, shares some curious details with the assassination of Julius Caesar, including the claim that Caligula was stabbed thirty times and had his genitals mutilated.
It was also 1,967 years ago today that the emperor Claudius, "poor Uncle Claudius" as Robert Graves famously had Caligula describe him, was proclaimed emperor by the praetorians. Claudius the "cripple, the stammerer, the fool of the family" was the most unlikely of candidates for Rome’s throne. According to Suetonius, after Caligula’s murder, Claudius, who was at that time 51 years old,
in great terror at the news of the murder…stole away to a balcony hard by and
hid among the curtains which hang before the door. As he cowered there, a common
soldier, who was prowling about random, saw his feet, intending to ask who he
was, pulled him out and recognized him; and when Claudius fell at his feet in
terror, he hailed him as emperor.
All things considered, Claudius turned out to be a pretty good emperor, sandwiched between the reigns of probably Rome's two worst emperors, his nephew Caligula and his great-nephew Nero…
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