Mediations of Caius Caligula IV
Moving from the affairs of Venus, we arrive in more Jovian climes, to the daily grind and toil of
my days, the governorship of the Roman state. I would do well to enter some of the central facts of my
reign as it began, and proceed therefrom to a general philosophy of government, that you may
understand my choices.
I came to power, as I said, in my 25th year, hailed as the instrument of fortune by Senate and
People alike. It tickles to think of it now. Well, not too much. The people still adore their Chick, and the
legions are mostly loyal to the son of Germanicus. The Senate is different, but I expected nothing else.
Tiberius was not the only one I observed as I grew to manhood.
In any case, my reign began with housecleaning. In my triumph I took the step that Tiberius was
unwilling to take and named the month of September for my father Germanicus. I quite understood
Tiberius' logic in refusing the offer at the beginning of his reign to have that month named for him - his
riposte of "what will you do when you have thirteen Caesers?" is the closest he ever came to wit - but I
would have been a poor son not to push Tiberius' wit aside.
I pushed his will aside in other matters. I have mentioned the reading of Livia's will. I also
restored a great many exiles, not merely pardoning them but undoing their trial verdicts and restoring
their fortunes. The various male prostitutes that Tiberius had allowed to flourish, not just on Capri but
within the city, I expelled. Indeed, I went so far as to sentence some of them to death by drowning,
only to relent on this point upon public entreaty. I published the breviary of the empire that Tiberius
had allowed to lapse. I reviewed the equites and I added a fifth decurion of judges. I remitted the
ducentesima (a cruel, squeezing tax, of the kind the people justly hate) and I restored the property of
me whose lives were lost to fire.