Caligula: A Biography - Softcover

Winterling, Aloys; Most, Glenn W.; Psoinos, Paul; Schneider, Deborah Lucas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520287592 ISBN 13: 9780520287594

Publisher: University of California Press, 2015

Synopsis

The infamous emperor Caligula ruled Rome from A.D. 37 to 41 as a tyrant who ultimately became a monster. An exceptionally smart and cruelly witty man, Caligula made his contemporaries worship him as a god. He drank pearls dissolved in vinegar and ate food covered in gold leaf. He forced men and women of high rank to have sex with him, turned part of his palace into a brothel, and committed incest with his sisters. He wanted to make his horse a consul. Torture and executions were the order of the day. Both modern and ancient interpretations have concluded from this alleged evidence that Caligula was insane. But was he?

This biography tells a different story of the well-known emperor. In a deft account written for a general audience, Aloys Winterling opens a new perspective on the man and his times. Basing Caligula on a thorough new assessment of the ancient sources, he sets the emperor's story into the context of the political system and the changing relations between the senate and the emperor during Caligula's time and finds a new rationality explaining his notorious brutality.

About this title

About the Author

Aloys Winterling holds a chair for Ancient History at Humboldt-University Berlin. He is the author of Aula Caesaris and Politics and Society in Imperial Rome, among other books.

From the Back Cover

“Caligula enjoys a reputation as one of the most brutal and tyrannical Roman emperors. In this accessible narrative of Caligula’s life, Winterling uses his deep knowledge of Roman society and the imperial court to investigate why contemporaries chose to assassinate Caligula’s reputation as well as his person. Caligula emerges here as rather less insane, if no less loathsome, than his posthumous reputation made him out to be.”

―Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, author of Rome’s Cultural Revolution

From the Inside Flap

Caligula enjoys a reputation as one of the most brutal and tyrannical Roman emperors. In this accessible narrative of Caligulas life, Winterling uses his deep knowledge of Roman society and the imperial court to investigate why contemporaries chose to assassinate Caligulas reputation as well as his person. Caligula emerges here as rather less insane, if no less loathsome, than his posthumous reputation made him out to be.

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, author of Romes Cultural Revolution

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520287592
• ISBN 13: 9780520287594
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240