For the early part of his reign, he is said to have been "good, generous, fair and community-spirited"[3][4] but increasingly self-indulgent, cruel, sadistic, extravagant and sexually perverted thereafter; an insane, murderous tyrant who demanded and received worship as a living god, humiliated his Senate, and planned to make his horse a consul.

[24][25] Caligula is described during this time as a first-rate orator, well-informed, cultured and intelligent, a natural actor who recognized the danger he was in, and hid his resentment of Tiberius' maltreatment of himself and his family behind such an obsequious manner that it was said of him that there had never been "a better slave or a worse master".

Tiberius is said to have indulged the young man's appetite for theatre, dance and singing, in the hope that this would help soften his otherwise savage nature; "he used to say now and then that to allow Gaius to live would prove the ruin of himself and of all men, and that he was rearing a viper for the Roman people and a Phaethon for the world.

He granted his sisters and his grandmother Antonia Minor extraordinary privileges, normally reserved for the Vestals, and female priesthoods of the deified Augustus; their powers were entirely ceremonial, not executive, but their names were included in the standard formulas used in the senate house to invoke divine blessings on debates and proceedings, and the annual prayers for the safety of emperor and state.

[62][63] Caligula began work on a temple to Livia, widow of Augustus; she held the honorific title of Augusta while still living, and when she died was eventually made a diva (goddess) of the Roman state under Claudius.

[69] Caligula shared many of the popular passions and enthusiasms of the lower classes and young aristocrats: public spectacles, particularly gladiator contests, chariot and horse racing, the theatre and gambling, but all on a scale with which the nobility could not match.

The aediles, elected officials who managed public games and festivals, and maintained the fabric of roads and shrines, would now have incentive to spend their own money on lavish, high-profile spectacles and other munera (gifts to the state or people), to win the popular vote.

[82][f] He gave funds where they were needed; he helped those who lost property in fires, and abolished a deeply unpopular tax on sales, but whether his extravagant gifts to favourites during his earliest reign – be they actors, charioteers or other public performers – drew on his personal wealth or state coffers is not known.

[85] and addressed the consequent treasury deficit by confiscating the estates of wealthy individuals, after false accusations, fines or outright seizure, even the death penalty, as a means of raising money.

Roman inheritance law recognised a legator's obligation to provide for his family; Caligula seems to have considered his fatherly duties to the state entitled him to a share of every will from pious subjects.

[93][94] Stories of a brothel in the Imperial palace, staffed by Roman aristocrats, matrons and their children, are taken literally by Suetonius and Dio; McGinn believes they could be based on a single incident, extended to an institution in the telling.

[97] Suetonius appears to reverse the traditional aristocratic client-patron ceremonies of mutual obligation, and have Caligula accepting payments for maintenance from his loyal consular "friends" at morning salutations, evening banquets, and bequest announcements.

"[108][109] To help meet Rome' burgeoning demand for fresh water, he began the construction of aqueducts Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, which Pliny the Elder considered to be engineering marvels.

[117][118] This is one of Dio's more confusing accounts, involving conspiracies, denunciations and trials for treason (maiestas), following Caligula's launch of invective at the entire senate, reviewing and condemning their current and past behaviour.

Suetonius, possibly failing to get the joke, presents it as further proof of Caligula's insanity, adding circumstantial details more usually expected of the senatorial nobility, including palaces, servants and golden goblets, and invitations to banquets.

[131][134] In 39 or 40, by Suetonius' reckoning, Caligula ordered a temporary floating bridge to be built using a double line of ships as pontoons, earth-paved and stretching for over two miles from the resort of Baiae, near Naples, to the neighbouring port of Puteoli, with resting places between.

Both gave Caligula ample opportunity for casual, friendly banter, which seems to have included humiliating levity, always at the Jewish delegation's expense; but he made no claims of divinity, either in his dress nor his speech, merely asking at the second encounter, more or less rhetorically, why Jews found his veneration so difficult.

[159] The destruction of the altar at Jamlia and, presumably, removal of "idolatrous" images placed in synagogues by Greek citizens, might have been intended as an expression of Jewish religious fervour, rather than a response aimed at one tyrant's offensive claims of personal godhood.

[161] In some versions, Caligula proved amenable to rational discussion with Agrippa and Jewish authorities, and faced with threats of rebellion, destruction of property and loss of the grain-harvest if the plan went ahead, abandoned the project.

Roman knowledge of pharaonic brother-sister marriages to maintain the royal bloodline would have shored up the many flimsy, scandalised allegations of adolescent incest between Caligula and Drusilla, supposedly discovered by Antonia but reported as rumour, and only by Suetonius.

[164][165][166] In late 39 or early 40, Caligula ordered the concentration of military forces and supplies in upper Germany, and made his way there with a baggage train that supposedly included actors, gladiators, women, and a detachment of Praetorians.

[189][page needed] The rebellion of Tacfarinas had shown how exposed Africa Proconsularis was to its west and how the Mauretanian client kings were unable to provide protection to the province, and it is thus possible that Caligula's expansion was a prudent and ultimately successful response to potential future threats.

[205] The divi (deceased members of the Imperial family promoted to divine status) were creations of the Senate, who voted them into official existence, appointed their priesthood and granted them cult at state expense.

Cicero could protest at the implications of Caesar's divine honours while living but address Publius Lentulus as parens ac deus (parent and god) to thank him for his help, as aedile, against the conspirator Catiline.

Augustus, once deceased, was officially worshipped as a divus – immortal, but somewhat less than a full-blown deity; Tiberius, his successor, forbade his own personal cult outright in Rome itself, probably in consideration of Julius Caesar's assassination following his hubristic promotion as a living divinity.

[218] Dio claims that Caligula sold priesthoods for his unofficial genius cult to the wealthiest nobles, for a per capita fee of 10 million sesterces, and made loans available to those who could not afford immediate full payment.

Tales reported by Josephus, Suetonius and the satirist Juvenal regarding Caligula's sexual dynamism are inconsistent with rumours that Caesonia had to arouse his interest with a love potion, which turned his mind and brought on his "madness".

Caligula "clearly had a highly developed sense of the absurd, resulting in a form of humour that was often cruel, sadistic and malicious, and which made its impact essentially by cleverly scoring points over those who were in no position to respond in kind.

[279] Philo's works On the Embassy to Gaius and Flaccus give some details on Caligula's early reign, but more on events involving Jews in Judea and Egypt, whose political and religious interests conflicted with those of the ethnically Greek, pro-Roman population.

Josephus gives a detailed account of Caligula's assassination and its aftermath, published around 93 AD, but it is thought to draw upon a "richly embroidered and historically imaginative" anonymous biography of Herod Agrippa, presented as a Jewish "national hero".