Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, episode 60, no better slave, no worse master.

The honeymoon lasted for about six months.

The brief window of optimism that opened with the death of Tiberius was slammed shut by

Caligula before the year was out.

The half year between Tiberius's death and Caligula's nearly fatal illness can be described

as the period after which the Romans had jumped from the frying pan, but before they hit

the fire.

Because as it turns out that while Tiberius was cruel, paranoid, and calculating, Caligula

was simply mad as a hatter.

Now, I think most of us, even those who were relatively new to Roman history, know that

Caligula was up to some pretty rotten stuff.

Even people I know who have no interest in history whatsoever, generally know, for example,

that a pretty disturbing flick called Caligula came out once upon a time, and that the guy

had to be pretty messed up for the movie based on his life to gin up so much controversy.

Which is true, in coherent as it is, Caligula the movie does do a pretty good job capturing

the essence of the man as portrayed by the ancient historians.

But the question is then, how accurate were those ancient historians?

Should we really believe every detail that has been handed down to us as objective truth,

or should we take some of it with a grain of salt?

Unfortunately, we've lost the relevant chapters from Tacitus, who is generally the most reliable

source for information on the early Imperial period, and were left with a combination of

sweetonious and caches deo, both of whom were writing well after the fact, and the contemporary,

...