Sic semper tyrannis!
Yes, I know those words were originally said by (or attributed to) Brutus concerning the murder of Julius Caesar, but the Romans apparently took them seriously, for 1,964 years ago today (Jan. 24) they offed another one of their tyrants (whose middle names were also "Julius Caesar"): The Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus.
What? You never heard of him?
But that’s his picture on the left!
Well, okay, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t know him by his proper name because he is far better known by his nickname.
Y’see, when he was a little boy, his father, the wildly popular Germanicus (who was in line for the throne but died under mysterious circumstances), took his family with him when he was out on military campaigns.
His little son Gaius had a little soldier suit, and it tickled the troops to see him wear it. As a result, they nicknamed him after one of the items of his soldier suit: his little boots.
"Little Boot" in Latin is the name he is better known by today: Caligula. (They also sometimes called him the plural form Caligulae or "Little Boots.")
After the death of the much-resented Emperor Tiberius (who was on the throne when Jesus was crucified), Caligula became emperor, and at first he was very popular as people thought it was a fresh start after Tiberius’s interminable reign of cruelty and depravity. Caligula even publicly burned the secret dossiers that Tiberius had kept on prominent citizens (though rumors were that he held back a secret copy of them).
Caligula’s popularity came to a screeching halt when he had a sudden illness that gave him terrible headaches and seemed to alter his personality. Afterwards, he was incredibly cruel, spiteful, and in the view of many, insane.
He even at times appears to have demanded to be a worshipped as a god, and became a forerunner of the Beast of Revelation by demaning to have a statue of himself placed in Jerusalem for the veneration of the Jewish people, an act that would have certainly sparked civil war. (Notable Jewish figures such as Philo the Jewish philosopher and King Herod Agrippa were able to dissuade him from this plan.)
Eventually, the Romans got so fed up with Caligula that–three years, ten months, and eight days into his reigh–they murdered him. Members of his own guard killed him (as well as his wife and his infant daughter).
It was in the wake of his death that his uncle, the lame, stammering scholar Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus was dragged by the Praetorian Guard from where he was hiding behind a curtain (lest he also be killed, as the whole royal family seemed under attack) and proclaimed emperor (so that the guard could stay gainfully employed). Despite his typically prodigious Roman name, he is known to us as the Emperor Claudius.
It was a Roman holiday.
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