Editing Caligula (section)

====''Princeps''====
In a single day, and with a single piece of legislation, the 25-year-old Caligula, previously a virtual unknown in Rome's political life, and with no military service, was thus granted the same trappings, authority and powers that Augustus had accumulated piecemeal, over a lifetime and sometimes reluctantly. Until his first formal meeting with the Senate, Caligula refrained from using the titles they had granted him. His studied deference must have gone some way to reassure the more astute that he should prove amenable to their guidance. Some must have resented the political manipulations that led to this extraordinary settlement. Caligula was now entitled to make, break or ignore any laws he chose.{{sfn|Barrett|2015|pp=77–82}} Augustus had shown, and Tiberius had failed to realise, that the roles of ''primus inter pares'' ("first among equals") and ''princeps legibus solutus'' ("a princeps not bound by the laws") required the exercise of personal responsibility, self-restraint, and above all, tact; as if the Senate still held the power they had voluntarily surrendered.{{sfn|Barrett| Yardley|2023|p=61}} In the words of scholar [[Anthony A. Barrett]], "Caligula would be restrained only by his own sense of discretion, which became in lamentably short supply as his reign progressed".{{sfnm|Gradel|2002|1pp=142–158|Winterling|2011|2pp=9–13, 51|Barrett|2015|3pp=79–80, 130–132}}

Caligula dutifully asked the Senate to approve divine honours for his predecessor but was turned down, in line with senatorial and popular opinion regarding the dead emperor's worth. Caligula did not push the issue; he had made the necessary gesture of filial respect.{{sfn|Barrett|2015|pp=72–74, 78–79, 82}} Tiberius' will named two heirs, Caligula and Gemellus, but the latter was still a minor, and could not hold any kind of office. The will was annulled with the standard justification that Tiberius must have been insane when he composed it, incapable of good judgment.{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|p=221}}{{sfn|Cassius Dio|loc=LIX.1}} Although Tiberius' will had been legally set aside, Caligula honoured many of its terms, and in some cases, improved on them. Tiberius had provided each praetorian guardsman with a generous gratitude payment of 500 [[sesterce]]s. Caligula doubled this, and took credit for its payment as an act of personal generosity;{{sfn|Cassius Dio|loc=LIX.1}}{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|p=222}} he also paid bonuses to the city troops and the army outside Italy.{{sfn|Cassius Dio|loc=LIX.1}}{{efn|Various coin issues suggest the payment of regular donations to the praetorians throughout Caligula's reign.{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|p=222}} }} Every citizen in Rome was given 150 sesterces, and heads of households twice that amount. Building projects on the Palatine hill and elsewhere were also announced, which would have been the largest of these expenditures.{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|p=222}}

Thanks to Macro's preparations on his behalf, Caligula's accession was a "brilliantly stage-managed affair".{{sfn|Barrett|2015|p=77}} The legions had already sworn loyalty to Caligula as their imperator. Now Caligula gave the miserly Tiberius a magnificent funeral at public expense, and a tearful eulogy,{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|p=221}} and met with an ecstatic popular reception along the funeral route and in Rome itself. Among Caligula's first acts as emperor was the provision of public games on a grand scale. Philo describes Caligula in these early days as universally admired.{{sfn|Philo|loc=''On the Embassy'' [[s:On the Embassy to Gaius#II|II.10]]}} Suetonius writes that Caligula was loved by many, for being the beloved son of the popular Germanicus.{{sfn|Suet. ''Calig.''|loc=13}} Three months of public rejoicing ushered in the new reign.{{sfn|Suet. ''Calig.''|loc=14}} Philo describes the first seven months of Caligula's reign as a "[[Golden Age]]" of happiness and prosperity.{{sfn|Philo|loc=''On the Embassy'' [[s:On the Embassy to Gaius#II|II.12–13]]}} Josephus claims that in the first two years of his reign, Caligula's "high-minded... even-handed" rule earned him goodwill throughout the Empire.{{sfn|Barrett| Yardley|2023|p=99}}{{sfn|Josephus|loc=[[s:The Antiquities of the Jews/Book XVIII#Chapter 18|18.256]]}}

Caligula took up his first consulship on 1 July, two months after his succession. He accepted all titles and honours offered him except ''[[pater patriae]]'' ("father of the fatherland"), which had been conferred on Augustus. Caligula refused it, protesting his youth, until 21 September 37. He commemorated his own father, Germanicus, with portraits on coinage, adopted his name, and renamed the month of September after him. He granted his sisters and his grandmother [[Antonia Minor]] extraordinary privileges, normally reserved for the [[Vestal Virgin|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. Caligula named his favourite sister, Drusilla, as heir to his ''[[imperium]]''. Oaths were sworn in the name of Caligula, and his entire family. One of his sesterces not only identifies each sister by name, but associates her with a particular imperial virtue; "security", "concord" or "fortune".{{sfn|Barrett|2015|pp=87–88}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wood |first=Susan |date=1995 |title=Diva Drusilla Panthea and the sisters of Caligula |journal=American Journal of Archaeology |volume=99 |issue=3 |pages=436–439 |doi=10.2307/506945 |jstor=506945 |issn=0002-9114}}</ref> Caligula ordered that an image of his deceased mother, Agrippina, must accompany all festival processions. He made his uncle [[Claudius]] his consular colleague, tasked with siting statues of Caligula's two dead brothers, and occasionally standing in for Caligula at games, feasts and ceremonies. Claudius' own family found his limp and stammer "something of a public embarrassment"; he mismanaged the statue commission and his first consulship ended soon after, alongside Caligula's but his appointment elevated him from mere equestrian to senator, and eligible for consulship. Barrett and Yardley describe Claudius' consulship as an "astonishingly enlightened gesture" on Caligula's part, not one of Caligula's attempts to court popularity, as Suetonius would have it.{{sfn|Barrett| Yardley|2023|pp=76–77}}{{sfn|Suet. ''Calig.''|loc=15}}

Caligula made a public show of burning Tiberius' secret papers, which gave details of his infamous treason trials. They included accusations of villainy and betrayal against various senators, many of whom had willingly assisted in prosecutions of their own number to gain financial advantage, imperial favour, or to divert suspicion away from themselves; any expression of dissatisfaction with the emperor's rule or decisions could be taken as undermining the State, and lead to prosecution for ''maiestas'' (treason).{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|p=219}} Caligula claimed – falsely, as it later turned out – that he had read none of these documents before burning them. He used a coin issue to advertise his claim that he had restored the security of the laws, which had suffered during Tiberius' prolonged absence from Rome; he reduced a backlog of court cases in Rome by adding more jurors and suspending the requirement that sentences be confirmed by imperial office.{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|pp=222–223}}

Stressing his descent from Augustus, Caligula retrieved the remains of his mother and brothers from their places of exile for interment in the Mausoleum of Augustus.{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|p=223}}{{sfn|Cassius Dio|loc=LIX.3}} Caligula began work on a temple to [[Livia]], widow of Augustus; she held the honorific title of [[Augusta (title)|Augusta]] while still living, and when she died was eventually made a ''diva'' (goddess) of the Roman state under Claudius. The temple had been vowed in her lifetime, but not constructed.{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|p=223}}