Editing Caligula (section)

=== Public reform and finance ===
[[File:RIC 0039.jpg|thumb|right|[[Quadrans]] celebrating the abolition of a tax in AD&nbsp;38 by Caligula. The obverse of the coin contains a picture of a [[Pileus (hat)|Pileus]] which symbolizes the liberation of the people from the tax burden. Caption: {{Smallcaps|{{abbr|c|GAIUS}} caesar divi {{abbr|avg|AUGUSTUS}} {{abbr|pron|PRONEPOS}} {{abbr|avg|AUGUSTUS (i.e. Gaius Caesar, great-grandson of the Divine Augustus)}} / {{abbr|pon m|PONTIFEX MAXIMUS}}, {{abbr|pp|PATER PATRIAE}} {{abbr|cos des|CONSUL DESIGNATUS}} {{abbr|rcc|RES CIVIUM CONSERVATAE (i.e. the interests of citizens have been preserved)}}}}.]]
[[File:Caligula - Münzkabinett, Berlin - 5481108.jpg|thumb|The ''adlocutio cohortium'' of Caligula on a coin, giving a speech to the army]]

In 38, Caligula lifted censorship, and published accounts of public funds and expenditure. Suetonius congratulates this as the first such act by any emperor.{{sfn|Barrett|2015|p=297}}{{efn|In fact, Tiberius had published the imperial accounts once, and Augustus had done so twice. Caligula's publication was thought a highly creditable act, but he did not repeat it.{{sfn|Barrett|2015|p=297}}}} Very soon after his succession, he restored the right of the popular assembly ([[comitia]]) to elect magistrates on behalf of the common citizenry, a right that had been taken over by the Senate under Tiberius and Augustus. The [[aedile]]s, 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 (ancient Rome)|munera]]'' (gifts to the state or people), to win the popular vote.{{sfn|Wiedemann|1996|p=222}} Dio writes that this, "though delighting the rabble, grieved the sensible, who stopped to reflect, that if the offices should fall once more into the hands of the many... many disasters would result".{{sfn|Cassius Dio|loc=LIX.9–10}} When the Senate outright refused to accept this, Caligula restored control of elections to them. Either way, the emperor ultimately chose which candidates stood for election, and which were elected. Caligula was quite capable of recognising his own plans and decisions as flawed, and abandoning, revising or reversing them when faced with opposition.{{sfn|Barrett|2015|p=312}} He was open to good advice, but could just as easily take its offering as an insult to his youth or understanding – Philo quotes his warning "Who dares teach me?" Caligula abandoned his plan to convert the Temple of Jerusalem to a temple of the Imperial cult, with a statue of himself as Zeus, when warned that the plan would arouse extreme protests, and injure the local economy.{{sfn|Barrett|2015|pp=215, 312}}{{efn|Jewish grain producers had threatened to fire their fields if Caligula's plan went ahead. This would have caused a local grain famine during Caligula's planned visit to Alexandria.{{citation needed |date=August 2024}} }} 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. Personal generosity and magnanimity, coupled with discretion and responsibility, were expected of the ruling elite, and the emperor in particular.{{sfn|Cassius Dio|loc=LIX.9–10}}{{sfn|Suet. ''Calig.''|loc=16.2}} At some time, Caligula ruled that bequests to office-holders remain property of the office, not of the office-holder.{{sfn|Barrett|2015|pp=297–98, 301–302}}{{sfn|Cassius Dio|loc=LIX.9–10}}{{sfn|Suet. ''Calig.''|loc=16.2}}

==== Tax and treasury ====
Suetonius claims that Caligula squandered 2.7&nbsp;billion [[Sestertius|sesterces]] in his first year{{sfn|Suet. ''Calig.''|loc=37}} 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. This seems to have started in earnest around the time of Caligula's confrontation with the senate (in early 39).{{sfn|Suet. ''Calig.''|loc=38}} Suetonius's retrospective balance sheet overlooks what would have been owed to Caligula, personally and in his capacity as emperor, on Tiberius' death, and the release of the former emperor's hoarded wealth into the economy at large. Caligula's inheritance included the deceased empress [[Livia]]'s vast bequest, which Caligula distributed among its nominated public, private and religious beneficiaries. Barrett in ''Caligula: The Abuse of Power'' asserts that this "massive cash injection would have given the Roman economy a tremendous boost".{{sfn|Barrett|2015|p=298}}

Dio remarks the beginnings of a financial crisis in 39, and connects it to the cost of Caligula's extravagant bridge-building project at Baiae.{{sfn|Cassius Dio|loc=LIX.10}} Suetonius has presumably the same financial crisis starting in 38; he does not mention a bridge but lists a broad range of Caligula's extravagances, said to have exhausted the state treasury.{{sfn|Suet. ''Calig.''|loc=37}}

To Wilkinson, Caligula's uninterrupted use of precious metals in coin issues does not suggest a bankrupt treasury, though there must have been a blurring of boundaries between Caligula's personal wealth, and his income as head of state.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2004|p=10}} Caligula's immediate successor, [[Claudius]], abolished taxes, embarked on various costly building projects and donated 15,000 sesterces to each [[Praetorian Guard]] in 41{{sfn|Tacitus|loc=[[wikisource:The Annals (Tacitus)/Book 12#53|XII.53]]}}{{sfn|Suet. ''Claud.''|loc=10}} as his own reign began, which suggests that Caligula had left him a solvent treasury.{{sfnm|Alston|1998|1p=82|Salmon|1987|2p=153}}

In the long term, the occasional windfall aside, Caligula's spending exceeded his income. Fund-raising through taxation became a major preoccupation. Provincial citizens were liable for direct payment of taxes used to fund the military, a payment from which Italians were exempt. Caligula abolished some taxes, including the deeply unpopular sales tax, but he introduced an unprecedented range of new ones, and rather than employ professional tax farmers ([[publicani]]) in their collection, he made this a duty of the notoriously forceful Praetorian Guard. Dio and Suetonius describe these taxes as "shameful": some were remarkably petty. Caligula taxed "taverns, artisans, slaves and the hiring of slaves", edibles sold in the city, litigation anywhere in the Empire, weddings or marriages, the wages of porters "or perhaps couriers", and most infamously, a tax on prostitutes (active, retired or married) or their pimps, liable for "a sum equivalent to a single transaction". Citizens of provincial Italy lost their previous tax exemptions. Most individual tax bills were fairly small but cumulative; over Caligula's brief reign, taxes were doubled overall. Even then, the revenue was nowhere near enough, and the imposition was deeply resented by Rome's commoners. Josephus claims that this led to riotous protests at the Circus. Barrett remarks that stories of consequent "mass executions" there by the military should "almost certainly" be dismissed as "standard exaggeration".{{sfn|Suet. ''Calig.''|loc=12}}{{sfn|Barrett|2015|pp=298–301}}{{sfn|Josephus|loc=[[s:The Antiquities of the Jews/Book XIX#Chapter 19|19.28]]}}

Property or money left to Tiberius as emperor but not collected on his death would have passed to Caligula as office-holder. 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. The army was not exempt; centurions who left nothing or too little to the emperor could be judged guilty of ingratitude, and have their wills set aside. Centurions who had acquired property by plunder were forced to turn over their spoils to the state.{{sfn|Cassius Dio|loc=LIX.15}}{{sfn|Barrett|2015|pp=224, 301}}

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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McGinn |first=Thomas A J |date=1998 |title=Caligula's Brothel on the Palatine |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/50/article/651730/summary |journal=Echos du Monde Classique: Classical News and Views |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=95–107 |issn=1913-5416}}</ref>{{page needed |date=August 2024}} Similar allegations would be made in the future against [[Commodus]] and [[Elagabalus]].{{sfn|Barrett|2015|pp=299–302}} Winterling, citing Dio 59.28.9, traces the outline of the story to Cassius Dio's account for AD 40, and his allegation that the noble tenants of newly built suites of rooms at the palace were compelled to pay exorbitant rents for the privilege of living so close to Caligula, and under the protection of the praetorians. No brothel is mentioned in this account.{{sfn|Winterling|2011|pp=140–143}} 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. The sheer numbers of "friends" involved meant that meticulous records were kept of who had paid, how much, and who still owed. His agents would then visit the very same consuls who had been involved in conspiracies against him, rail against the Senate's treachery ''en masse'' but ask for "gifts" from individuals to express their loyal friendship in return. A refusal was unthinkable. Winterling describes the families who occupied these rooms as hostage, under the supervision of the Praetorians; some paid up willingly, some reluctantly, but all paid. Caligula made loans available at high interest to those who lacked the necessary funds, to complete the humiliation of Rome's elite, especially the old Republican families.{{sfn|Winterling|2011|pp=140–143}}

Despite his biographers' attempts to ridicule Caligula's taxes, many were continued after his death. The military remained responsible for all tax collection, and the tax on prostitution continued up to the reign of [[Severus Alexander]]. Caligula's ruling that bequests made to any reigning emperor became property of his office, not himself as a private individual, was made constitutional under [[Antoninus Pius]].{{sfn|Barrett|2015|pp=301–302}}

==== Coinage ====
Caligula did not change the structure of the monetary system established by Augustus and continued by Tiberius, but the contents of his coinage differed from theirs.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1923–1984|p=102}} The location of the imperial mint for the coins of precious metals (gold and silver) is a matter of debate among ancient numismatists. It seems that Caligula initially produced his precious coins from [[Lugdunum]] (now [[Lyon]], France), like his predecessors, then moved the mint to Rome in 37–38, although it is possible that this move occurred later, under Nero.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1923–1984|pp=102, 103}} His [[base metal]] coinage was struck in Rome.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1923–1984|pp=103–106}}

Unlike Tiberius, whose coins remained almost unchanged throughout his reign, Caligula used a variety of types, mostly featuring [[Roman imperial cult|Divus Augustus]], as well as his parents Germanicus and Agrippina, his dead brothers [[Nero Julius Caesar|Nero]] and [[Drusus Caesar|Drusus]], and his three sisters [[Agrippina the Younger|Agrippina]], [[Julia Drusilla|Drusilla]], and [[Julia Livilla|Livilla]]. The reason for the extensive emphasis on his relatives was to highlight Caligula's double claim to the Principate, from both the Julian and Claudian sides of the dynasty, and to call for the unity of the family.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1923–1984|pp=104–105}} The sesterce with his three sisters was discontinued after 39, due to Caligula's suspicion regarding their loyalty. He also made a sesterce celebrating the Praetorian cohorts as a mean to give them the bequest of Tiberius at the beginning of his reign. Caligula minted a [[quadrans]], a small bronze coin, to mark the abolition of the ''ducentesima'', a 0.5% tax on sales.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1923–1984|p=105}} The output of the precious metal mints was small and his sesterces were mostly made in limited quantities, which make his coins now very rare. This rarity cannot be attributed to Caligula's alleged ''damnatio memoriae'' reported by Dio, as removing his coins from circulation would have been impossible; besides, [[Mark Antony]]'s coins continued to circulate for two centuries after his death.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1923–1984|pp=106–107}} Caligula's common coins are base metal types with [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]], Germanicus, and Agrippina the Elder, and the most common is an [[As (Roman coin)|as]] with his grandfather [[Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa|Agrippa]].{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1923–1984|p=105}} Finally, Caligula kept open the mint at [[Caesarea (Mazaca)|Caesarea]] in [[Cappadocia (Roman province)|Cappadocia]], which had been created by Tiberius, in order to pay military expenses in the province with silver [[Ancient drachma|drachmae]].{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1923–1984|p=107}}

Numismatists [[Harold Mattingly]] and [[Edward A. Sydenham|Edward Sydenham]] consider that the artistic style of Caligula's coins is below those of Tiberius and Claudius; they especially criticize the portraits, which are too hard and lack details.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1923–1984|p=107}}