![]() ![]() ![]() He’s immediately succeeded by his stuttering club-footed uncle Claw-Claw-Claudius. To Gore Vidal, he ‘plunges into death’ as ‘the last great trip.’ His killers kick a severed head aside contemptuously, as Incitatus rears and canters away, a symbolism probably intended to represent Caligula’s untamed spirit escaping. Until his bloody assassination becomes inevitable, with Caligula’s expression fixed somewhere between exultation and amused vindication as it happens. He makes his horse – Incitatus, a consul. Deep in decadence he instigates the ‘Imperial Brothel’ staffed by Senator’s wives, each five-gold-piece they earn goes to balance the civic budget. His sister-lover Drusilla is the only thing he really cares for, and her death shoves him further into ultimate madness. The bare truth is, Caligula – nicknamed ‘Little Boots’, ruled from 37-to-41AD, starting off well until a near-fatal midpoint illness – possibly the result of poisoning, which knocks him off-course. But the writings that survive were not subject to the rigorous objectivity we expect from modern historians, they all had their own axes to grind. In a scene perhaps intended to echo one in ‘The Fall Of The Roman Empire’ (1964) Macro holds his hand in a naked flame to prove his loyalty to the new emperor, which doesn’t stop Caligula having him executed soon after in a giant mechanical contrivance for lopping off and harvesting heads. In this version, when Caligula loses his nerve, Macro does it for him. ![]() Ancient historian Suetonius who documents his perversities suggests Caligula may have murdered him. Caligula succeeded his mentor, Tiberius, on the former emperor’s assassination, inheriting the city, the empire – the world. Although most of this is conjecture, the movie follows what is generally assumed to be known. A jape that mocks the military, the credulity of the populace, and the pretensions of Imperial Rome itself – forcing limits to the tipping point that would provoke response, inviting lethal retribution. His ‘expedition’ to Britain results in his soldiers attacking papyrus reeds on the shores of a nearby lake, then triumphantly returning with the spoils of looted sea-shells. Through Graves’ eyes Caligula’s horrific debauches seem to be more a way of testing out those constraints, taunting Rome’s endurance recklessly. He was an ‘extraordinary’ man according to Gore Vidal, ‘some think the most wicked young man who ever lived.’ He’s also one who’s story has been retold in the guise of multiple interpretations all the way through to MegaCity One’s insane ‘Judge Cal’ in ‘2000AD’ magazine. ![]()
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