Kara

Hey everybody, this is Kara. This is Deja.

Ed

And this is Ed.

Kara

And this is your day's dumpster fire. One day. Oh, somebody click on it. Nope. Okay. All right. One day we're going to uh put the videos up and we're just gonna be goofing around dancing like weirdos. It'll be great. It's gonna be grand, especially for YouTube.

Ed

It's such a catchy little tune.

Kara

Yeah, it's solid.

Ed

And I I think you're the one that discovered it.

Kara

Like I I think so. I don't remember.

Ed

Well, because yeah, we were using a different website, and they had like all this royalty-free music on it and everything, and like we were trying to find like the best music possible for a show about dumpster fires. And then you're like, oh, wait a second. Here's this one, and it's been that way ever since.

Kara

Yeah, it was something like that. That sounds right.

Ed

So yeah. Um I think I have a good trash can fire.

Kara

Alright, let's hear it.

Ed

So we have Kara and I have spent the past 30, no, almost an hour and a half trying to get her microphone to work. And she's using my old mic, and I got her a a device called a cloud lifter, which is in theory supposed to improve the sensitivity of a mic, so you don't have to turn the gain all the way up to like 7,000%. It's not working.

Kara

Y'all, I was ready to plug in that $35 mic again.

SPEAKER_02

All reliable.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know how you haven't already.

Kara

Because this one's fancy and I like it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, I agree. Figure it out, but go crazy in the meantime.

Ed

Yeah, it I mean it it served my purposes very well, but I think my USB interface is very different than yours. And I think mine supports a cloud lifter, whereas Kara's may not. So we're gonna have to figure out the whole interface thing. But other than that, it sounds great.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. But now it's very clear.

Ed

So yes, good. But now it's like for those of you who have listened to our last episode, Kara Kara sounded like she was in the bathroom yelling through two doors into the microphone in her office.

Kara

Uh-huh. That's correct.

Ed

A little a little a little distant.

Kara

I was I was literally screaming at the top of my lungs. Wait.

SPEAKER_02

Wait, slow down. I'm confused.

Ed

Where am I? What am I doing? Are we talking about salmon the fish? What are we talking about? I love salmon. Not that salmon. I heard goats. Are we talking about goats? I like goat cheese. That is great.

Kara

Anyway, we'll get there. We'll get there. Speaking of that.

Ed

We'll get there. By the time we hit episode 2300, we'll we'll have this figured out.

Kara

Yeah, we'll we'll we'll get there. In the meantime, though. I have something in my eye. In the meantime, um I did promise you that I would tell you what my secret episode was going to be. And I'm going to take you back all the way back to God, ancient Rome.

SPEAKER_02

Kara's dying right now. Sorry.

Ed

Her left eye or her right eye is about ready to pop out.

SPEAKER_02

She's about to go summon Rushdie.

Ed

Oh, the glasses are off, so now she's got two little like periods for eyes.

SPEAKER_02

That's great.

Ed

I love how cartoons do that where they take off the glasses and their eyes are just gone.

SPEAKER_02

Two little dots. Are we okay? We back.

Kara

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. You sound optimistic about it. Let's go.

Kara

It's her fault. It's all her fault.

Ed

This is the quiet dog, right?

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

The quiet dog.

Kara

Quieter.

Ed

Because I think I made a promise on the last one. I was going to bring in my daughter's gay parrot and Tuco. Yeah. And just have both of them just honking and roaring behind me.

Kara

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And Malcolm.

Kara

Anyway, well, let's let's edit that tangent out. Anyway. Alright. I'm going to take you back to Ancient Rome. And today we are going to talk about the Emperor Caligula, who is an interesting human being.

Ed

Not the 1979 movie.

Kara

No, absolutely not the terrible 1979 movie that I will never watch again. It's such a waste of time.

Ed

I I learned a lot about humanity watching that movie when I was like 10. I'm like, oh, that's how it all works. Turns out it's not.

Kara

No, we're not doing that. Uh we're not doing that. So we're gonna start. We're gonna start with Tiberius. So we're gonna start with the guy before Caligula, the Emperor Tiberius. He had a bad time when he was emperor. He ruled from 14 till he died in 37. And from the get-go, the Senate hated him, the military didn't trust him, the people didn't like him. It was just not a good deal. He was not supposed to be emperor. I think the two or three people who were supposed to be emperor before him died under mysterious circumstances. It's fine. Eventually, he faced a lot of revolts. And on the eastern frontiers of Rome, people were rising up because they hated him, and he didn't want to deal with any of that himself. So what he did is he sent his nephew Germanicus to deal with this issue. And his nephew was actually really, really successful. He put the rebellions down, everybody loved him, the Roman people loved him, the military loved him. And for Tiberius, this was a problem. If you have studied Tiberius extensively, you will know that he was a very, very paranoid man. And he thought everybody was out to get him and his crown, and he could only be emperor, nobody else. So because he was super paranoid, even against his own nephew, he was afraid Germanicus was going to overtake him, overtake him. And eventually he stationed Germanicus in Germany, super far away from Rome, thinking, let's get this guy out of the way. I don't have to kill him. He's just going to be out there. It'll be fine. And unfortunately for Tiberius, Germanicus remained extremely successful, and he became beloved throughout Rome, even more so. He was like a big military hero. Just everybody loved a guy. In 19, Germanicus died under strange, mysterious circumstances. A very, very popular belief was that Tiberius killed him. And it was thought to be poison, if I remember correctly. Even historians today are pretty sure they're like, Yeah, we're pretty sure Tiberius had him killed, but we don't really know for sure, but that's like we could probably be confident in that.

Ed

That's like the most cowardice way to kill somebody in ancient Rome.

Kara

Oh, yeah. Like poison? Yeah. Poison.

Ed

Yeah, you don't no. You go in with a spear and you poke him holes for like 15 times. Like you are like you disembowel him and hang him from his own intestines. Like that's a proper assassination of a high-ranking Roman official. Poison? Yeah. It's like, ugh. For real? Like that's all you can do?

Kara

Yeah. And and Tiberius was a guy too, he was like, he didn't want to do anything. So not only was he super paranoid, he didn't want to do crap, and he ended up spending most of his time at a fancy villa in Naples, and he just kind of let other people do his job for him. Oh. But he also didn't want people to take his role that he didn't want. It's very confusing. It doesn't make sense.

Ed

Yeah, he wanted other people to do his job, but he didn't want them to take his job.

Kara

Correct. That sounds right.

Ed

Okay, so it's corporate America. Got it. Okay.

Kara

Kinda. Anyway, uh, Tiberius continued to be ever paranoid, and the Senate hated him, highly disapproved of him, couldn't stand him. Uh, he began relying on an advisor named Sejanus that quickly took over Tiberius' job, essentially. So Tiberius is like, cool, I don't have to do my job anymore. I'm just gonna give it to this guy. It's fine. Meanwhile, the Senate's like, this guy sucks. And Sejanus convinced Tiberius to put into place numerous trials for treason, primarily to get money out of it. So they would like bribe people and execute people or get people, exile people, you know. And these trials were mostly shams, and many people were tried, they were found guilty for treason for minute or small offenses. Uh, and the Roman people became increasingly upset about this. The Senate was frustrated, it was a whole mess.

Ed

It sounds a lot like uh Worm Tongue from um the uh Two Towers, uh Second Lord of the Rings book.

Kara

Yeah, very similar to that.

Ed

Like he just kind of like came in and just poisoned the mind of the King of Rohan, and like nobody trusted this guy, but he just kind of had his way of just influencing the right person at the wrong time.

Kara

Pretty much. It was like, yeah, so this Sejanus guy took advantage of Tiberius, his paranoia. Tiberius was like, cool, he'll take care of it. Meanwhile, everything's burning. And by the time Tiberius was old, he closed himself off from Rome completely, and he just lived in Naples. So it was a good time. You can see why Rome was really upset by this. Like, this is not good.

Ed

All right, yeah, because you know, the Emperor of Rome doesn't need to be in Rome.

Kara

Technically, no, that that's what the Senate's for, right?

Ed

But I guess, yes. Maybe maybe they had teams back then and they could he could work remotely.

Kara

Hey, that's that's good. That's a good idea. Uh yeah, that's good. We're gonna jump backwards just a little bit. So, meanwhile, while all of this is going on, two years before Tiberius took the throne at 14, so we're talking 12. Sounds really weird not saying like 1453 or 1066. We're at 12.

SPEAKER_02

It's good. It's really hard listening to that. I'm like 19. I know.

Ed

No, it's just 12.

SPEAKER_02

12. 19.

Kara

In 12. We have a little boy born named Gaius Caesar Germanicus. And he was born in a small town near Rome, Italy. His father was Germanicus, the nephew of Tiberius, who we were talking about earlier. And Germanicus was the adopted son of Tiberius, which sounds like it's a good deal, but it's kind of an issue when we think about what happened to him. His father was considered a military hero. So, yes, Germanicus, a military hero. He's great. We all love him. His mother, her name was Vis Vis Vipsania. Oh, I can do this. It's it's like Vipsania Agrippina, and she's the granddaughter of Caesar Augustus. So she was the granddaughter of the very first Roman emperor. So um got a good good claim to the emperor position here. All right, so our guy Gaius, he grew up in military camps while his father was on campaign. They often went to Germany, as we know. Tiberia sent into Germany or Germania, if you want to call it by its Latin name, as young as three to five. So he would be like this little three to five-year-old running around military camps, and his mom would dress him up in like really cute soldiers' clothes. So he'd be running around in like little soldier boots and his his little helmet, and he'd be super cute. And all of the soldiers around him in camp would start calling him Caligula. Caligula means little boots, like just cute little look little boots. And it's adorable.

SPEAKER_02

That's very adorable.

Kara

He hated it.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that sucks.

Ed

Yeah, and like nobody knows his name other than Caligula.

Kara

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is that tells you a lot about uh Rome's PR system after he died. But yeah, like he he absolutely hated the name Caligula. Like when he was ruling, he would get super angry and frustrated, and he'd start like cursing people out, I'm sure. And he would always refer himself as Gaius Caesar, like that is my name. My name is Gaius. Don't call me Caligula, it freaks me out, and you know, the whole thing. But considering we still call him Caligula today, that didn't work out so well for him.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it does kind of sound like a body part that shouldn't be like exposed in public or something.

Ed

Hey bro, your uh your caligula's hanging out, your caligula's hanging out, your caligula showing. Or it sounds like a disease. Like, dude, I had the worst caligula last night.

SPEAKER_02

No, it sounds like an STD.

Ed

Yeah, like I can barely walk. It is horrible.

Kara

Well, we're gonna keep saying the word. Anyway, here we go. Even at even when he was really little, doctors and people around him, military officials, whatever, they were always recording uh something that Caligula was suffering from. He would suffer from epileptic seizures. So they would always write it down when something like this happened to him, which I think is interesting. So so like the earliest record of him having a seizure was like maybe six or seven. Um, today research is still being conducted to investigate whether these seizures would cause health issues and mental issues when he was older, which I will get into. It's actually rather interesting.

Ed

And in the show notes, well, it's also it's interesting to note too that Julius Caesar, he had real bad seizures.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

So, and nobody knows like what caused those seizures, but there were times where he had to like bow out of a public appearance because he was foaming at the mouth and couldn't talk and and all that kind of stuff. So I almost wonder if there's maybe like in the Caesar line, like a epileptic genetic gene, you know, issue somewhere along there that caused degenerative brain conditions. I I don't know. I just find it interesting that his great uncle had bad seizure seizures, and now here is Caligula, who is kind of a direct descendant and having the same problem.

Kara

Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah. We're gonna throw that phone on the floor.

Ed

Yeah, good times.

Kara

All right, sorry if anybody heard my phone vibrate. Um, my father is texting me at 10 o'clock at night. Anyway. Hey dad. Hey, hey, hey dad. Uh, when Caligula was seven, his dad left for Antioch on like some military mission or whatever, and he died there under mysterious circumstances, as we said before, probably due to poison. Historians think it was probably Tiberius. It's a bad deal. After his father's death, Agrippina took Caligula and her five kids back to Rome. And Agrippina is actually pretty cool. So, what she was doing was she was playing the game a little bit like what Cleopatra did. And she's like, Look, here are my five sons. We are directly descended from the Emperor of Rome, the very first emperor of Rome. These boys should be the ones to be ruling Rome. These are your successors. Tiberius didn't like that. That was a no-go for Tiberius. Um, but she did her best to put her sons up on a pedestal, and it did get her in trouble. Considering, like I said, she was the grandfather, she made a good point, but he was like, No, you're threatening my life. Like he he he goes from talking about succession to you're going to murder me. So this this guy's real special. Anyway, in 29, the year 29, I know it sounds youird. The year 29, Tiberius put Agrippina and her children under exile for her, you know, push to get her kids on the throne. And despite the complicated relationship with Agrippina, Tiberius actually took great interest in Caligula. So even though like mom was being crazy, air quotes crazy.

Ed

She's like, I would say she was she was ambitious.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

And it sounds like she was also kind of practical.

SPEAKER_02

Like, yeah, she was logical. Yeah, logical thinking.

Ed

Well, yeah, she's like I am a direct descendant of the original emperor of Rome. Therefore, my kids are direct descendants of the original emperor of Rome. Correct. And Tiberius, you're kind of a douche.

Kara

He is. And remember, he wasn't supposed to be Emperor of Rome. He was like third or fifth or whatever in line.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

Kara

He's special. Anyway, so Caligula was said to be very intelligent, super smart, observant, really clever. Historians generally agree that Caligula took advantage of Tiberius's interest in him. So Caligula really did not like Tiberius, but he knew if I get close to the Emperor, it will put me in a better position. And he was smart enough to understand that he could capitalize on it even if he didn't like him.

Ed

So he actually playing the game.

Kara

He's playing the game, and he's playing it hard, and he was good at it. Tiberius loved this guy. Like he was good at it. And the guy's only like 16. So he actually, so Caligula was sent to live with Tiberius on his via in Naples off the coast. And if you actually look at it today, it's still there. And it's very pretty. It's gorgeous. Yeah. I'd like to live there. Yeah, you should look at it. It's called um Lar the His Large Imperial Via Jovis in Capri, Italy, off the south side of Naples. It's nice. You should look it up. Everybody look. I didn't put a picture in here. I'm sorry.

Ed

Large villa.

Kara

Sure. Word by word.

Ed

And where is it? Uh Capri, Italy. Capri.

Kara

Uh-huh. Good.

Ed

I tally. Perfect. Oh wow.

Kara

It's pretty.

Ed

Holy crap.

Kara

We all want to live there. You can't really blame the guy. Holy crap. Yeah. It's like a really nice resort for retirement. My god. So Caligula lived there with him for six years. Can you imagine living in a place like that? Gorgeous. But also living with this crazy old guy who's super paranoid all the time, like doting on you. You can't stand him having to you know suck up to this guy. I mean, props to Caligula on that. And he's crazy himself, but props to him on that.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

Kara

And then yeah. And then in 33, the year 32.

SPEAKER_02

Not 1933.

Kara

I really, I really feel like I have to make sure that we all understand like it's the year. Because it it can come off just really like on the day 33.

Ed

Well, what was throwing me off is that it it it sounds like it's their age. Yeah, that's what I'm throwing. Oh yeah, like when Caligula was 33, like no, this is double O33.

Kara

Yeah. Yeah, 0033. Yep, so he was 21 in 33. So by the when he was 21 in the year 33, Agrippina died of starvation in exile. So his mother died in exile of starvation. And then not long after that, his two older brothers died. Um, and I believe that they were murdered or assassinated. His two sisters, however, did survive, and in the same year, Caligula was arranged to be married, and the marriage was arranged by the emperor himself. It was to a daughter of a high member of the Senate. So this was a big deal. And then the next year, after they were married, she got pregnant, and unfortunately, uh, she and the child both died in childbirth. So lots of death happening in his early 20s. Poor dude. Kind of sucks. In 35, the year 35, when he was 23, doing Saturn 23. Uh, Tiberius named Caligula a joint successor of the emperor uh with Tiberius' grandson, Lord help me, Gemelis? Gemelis, something like that. G E M E L L U S. Anyway.

Ed

Janellus?

Kara

Yeah, he's not that important. It's fine. He's going to die soon. Anyway, so they had a joint partnership for a little bit. And according to the historian, the contemporary historian who was writing about Caligula at the time, his name is Setonius. He writes that Tiberius knew that Caligula had a bad temper and at times a really cruel nature to people around him. Even before he was Emperor Caligula, he began to show signs of what made him really scary. Tiberius knew this, according to this historian, and he is trying to kind of surpass Caligula, who's starting to get really cocky by doing this joint rulership thing. So hopefully buy him some time to figure out how to get rid of Caligula and just have his grandson rule. It didn't work. Didn't work. It didn't work. Anyway, so once Tiberius claimed Caligula and his grandson as successors, the Senate captured his longtime advisor, Sejonus. So we all remember good old Sejonus. The Senate captured him once, as soon as the successors were decided. They strangled him and then they dumped his river, his body. Sorry, they dumped his body in the Tiber River.

Ed

So they dumped his river in a body.

Kara

They dumped his river. It's late. Anyway, during his time with Tiberius, he befriended the commander of the Roman Guard. So Caligula befriended the commander of the Roman Guard. His name was Marco. And oh sorry, Macro. His name was Macro. Like small. Anyway, Macro was rather fond of Caligula. And he was super eager to help with the succession. And at 37, after Tiberius died, Macro, along with the army, named Caligula Soul Emperor at the age of 24. So they were like, screw your grandson. You're dead now. We don't care. Caligula is going to be emperor. And contemporary historians living at this time, so the dude I just talked about, plus another guy who I don't remember his name at the top. They write about rumors of Caligula and Macro suffocating Tiberius with a pillow. So like there were some rumors going around that Caligula may or may not have murdered Tiberius. But it's still debated because at the same time, Tiberius was really old. I think he was in his 70s. Which is really old for a Roman. Yeah. Good for him. Yeah, I I guess.

SPEAKER_02

But it's it's not the best situation.

Kara

It's not ideal for the Roman people, but it's a wild. Yeah, it's crazy. For sure, a wild. Agreed.

Ed

Emperor's gone wild.

Kara

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Number one.

Kara

So the Roman people in the Senate were extremely excited about Caligula being the new emperor. As you can imagine. He's the son of Germanicus, this big war hero. Everybody loved Dramanicus. And he's the grandson of Caesar Augustus, the great first emperor of Rome. Right? Super promising. This is gonna be great. This is gonna be awesome. We're stoked.

Ed

Yeah. What could possibly go wrong?

Kara

What could go wrong? It's gonna be great. This is gonna be good. It's gonna be good. So when he first started, so like the first six, seven months of his rule, and even like after just a little bit, it kind of bleeds into the first year. He builds a whole bunch of new palaces and a whole bunch of new buildings. He refurbishes older buildings, he makes aqueducts and harbors and theaters and temples. He's building all these grand buildings, and the Roman public freaking love it because they're like, hey, look at these real cool like stadiums and all these cool things. Like it's great.

Ed

And then on top of that, like he actually adhered to Tiberius' will.

unknown

Yeah.

Ed

Yeah, for the most part, like he honored Tiberius's will, and he's like, Okay, the Praetorian Guards, uh, you're supposed to get like 200, whatever the currency was, like, you're supposed to get 250. I'm gonna double it. And so for the whole Praetorian Guard, like he doubles up on everything, and then like every head of household received like a hundred and twenty-five or something like that, like all over the the city of Rome. And what the people didn't realize is that was all coming out of the taxpayers' fund.

Kara

Well, then there's a problem with that too, because he also abolished sales tax.

Ed

Yep.

Kara

Great for the Roman people. I don't know how we're gonna pay for it. And then uh Caligula began holding super lavish and extravagant games for Romans to enjoy. So he loved, loved, loved. He's famous for this. He loved gladiator games, he loved, loved chariot races. Those were his two loves, his two faves. Um, so he would always, always, always hold these like grand, expensive, huge pieces of entertainment for all the Romans to enjoy, but especially for him to enjoy, because he's emperor. Anyway, uh Caligula also brought back the people who were exiled by Tiberius and Sejanus. He burned a lot of records from the trials that they held, and he freed a lot of people from being in treason. So, I mean, we're we're getting going on a pretty good start. I don't know where this money is coming from. But when we're starting out, it looks pretty great. Seven months after becoming emperor, Caligula became very, very ill. Historians still don't know what the illness really was. They don't know what happened to a great extent, but they have it down to two leading theories. There are more theories, but these are the two leading ones, and they kind of work together. They think it's it's probably a little bit of both, but one of them is lead poisoning. So the wine that Roman royalty drank was usually sweetened by sugar and wine boiled in lead pots, and the quantity of lead is extremely high, like they would boil it to a point where the sugar you could you could see like lead pieces on the bottom by the time they're done boiling it. It was a good thing.

Ed

Now that's that I did not know. Yeah, the theory that I grew up listening to was that Caligula was one of the first emperors to have running water in the palace, and they used lead pipes to get the water in there, and in order to make hot water, they would light fires underneath the lead pipes, which would then soften it and release lead into the water and all that stuff. Um, I could now see where that theory would fail because wouldn't everybody living in that palace go crazy?

Kara

Yep.

Ed

But having wine in lead containers, which only he would be drinking from, yeah, that makes a lot more sense.

Kara

Yeah, and this was always just for royalty, and they've done studies where the quantity of lead is extremely high in in royal Romans, but it's very, very low in slaves or common people. Because they can do those cool genetic studies now where they can see the different kinds of stuff and bones, and it's awesome. Anyway.

Ed

If you want, if you if if if the listeners out there, if you want a little more uh detail into the whole lead poisoning thing, we do have like a two-part uh series on leaded gasoline from the 1920s, um, and uh the effects of lead on the human body. Oh, yeah, during that time.

Kara

Go ahead and listen to that if you're interested and you want to read further or listen further. So, yeah, that's a good one. We highly suggest it. The other theory along with the lead is his epilepsy. So we touched on it a little bit. It is considered to be a historical fact that Caligula suffered from epilepsy, and one episode in particular that he had in 37 was especially bad, and it actually kind of lines up with the illness that is described in writings and histories. So after this episode, Caligula had a constant mood swing. He was irrational, he would laugh for like no reason, kind of like the Joker, you know, walking Phoenix laughing on the train. That was him. He had a lack of impulse control, he showed perverse behavior, hypersexuality. He was terrified by thunder and loud noises. It was really weird. And I found a super cool resource. I'll I'm gonna put it in the notes, it's on the top, actually, um, from the National Health Library, I think it was, where those are all signs of um epilepsy and psychosis working together. And that is something that does happen with people who have epilepsy that's not controlled or treated. So they're thinking that that is a uh a very strong contender in um time as emperor. Um, but yeah, you should check it out. The links on top of the page here. I really do suggest you read it. It's cool.

Ed

When when he got like really, really ill, was there any mention of him running a fever?

Kara

Not that I remember, okay, but it's possible. I don't remember though, truthfully.

Ed

Because I do know, like, if you run, say like a a crazy fever, like 104, 105, that can really cause like permanent damage to the brain.

Kara

Yeah, yeah. I don't remember, but I'll look later. That's a good question. One year after being named Soul Emperor, and three months, no, four months, I don't remember. A number of months after getting ill, Caligula had both Macro, the guy who helped him become emperor, and his um co-emperor put to death. So he sent Macro to Egypt and he promised them all these cool things, like you're gonna have a really high position, you're gonna have all these advisors, uh, you're going to be living in Alexandria, and I want you to control the port there. It's gonna be great. You're gonna be welcomed with open arms. He gets there and he's met with a huge military force. They capture him, put him in a prison, and execute him. Good deal. It's great.

Ed

As as you do.

Kara

As you do. And after that, Caligulus began to gain a reputation in the empire amongst the Senate, as well as some of the people of uh being a little bit off his rocker. Cruel, angry, having really weird demands, and again the mood swings, like all of those symptoms that I listed earlier after the epilepsy thing. That, that, that, all of that, all of that. Um, so just to kind of list a couple things that made him so fun. Caligula was a really pale guy, like super white, super hairy. He was really hairy, dude. And it's a it's it's like a really weird known historical trivia party thing. Like, hey, did you know Caligula was hairy? And then if you mention a goat, it's really weird. And if you mention a goat in his presence, he'll freak out and it's a capital offense. You could get killed for mentioning a goat in his presence because it made him uncomfortable.

Ed

So he was so saying he looks like a Persian rug.

Kara

Yeah. So don't mention goats, just say rug.

SPEAKER_02

There are some words that I'd like, like lubricant. I don't like that word. I would right be like uh get in the pen, sorry, buddy. Moist oh, I could take it one step further, Deja.

Ed

What about if it was moist hair?

SPEAKER_02

So moist isn't like a bad I is I don't care. You know, but like lubricant or claggy. That's not my favorite.

Kara

Yeah, that's not great either. I don't like discharge either, but but yeah, for Caligula was goat. If you mentioned goat, he would get really upset because he would think about how hairy he is. You're welcome. He was also known to work on making himself look angry or ugly by practicing different faces and expressions in the mirror. So he'd like to get up in the morning, find a mirror, and be like, How bad can I make myself look? It was great. In his off time.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly.

Kara

In his fun time, in his leisure time, it was said that he enjoyed spending time literally rolling in money, earned gold coins while drinking precious pearls or gemstones dissolved in vinegar. That's a fun one, kind of like a Scrooge McDuck.

Ed

That's what I do in my free time.

Kara

I mean, don't we all? No. We're teachers, we do. He would also dress up in strange clothing.

Ed

We just pour pennies all over the place and roll around in that. They're close enough.

Kara

Melt them in some zinc, it's fine. So he would also dress up in strange clothing. He'd put wigs on, he'd wear women's shoes, he'd wear really gaudy or expensive jewelry or accessories, like you do you. I don't judge, I don't care. But when you're the Roman emperor surrounded by servants, and they're all looking at you in a society that's pretty much anti-woman, you're gonna have a bad time.

Ed

So it's like J. Edgar meets Buffalo Bill.

Kara

Yes, exactly. Yes. Interesting. Okay.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

So you can imagine why people were like, this guy's a little this guy's a little weird.

SPEAKER_02

Interesting. He's making some choices.

Kara

Yeah, I mean the the gladiator games are fun, but yeah.

Ed

But the real is a little weird.

SPEAKER_02

It's like just the the behavior, the erratic behavior is what's the problem.

Ed

Yeah, well, I think it is how fast it changed. Yeah, like I feel like it's almost like an overnight change. Like, oh, this guy's pretty cool. He's standing up for the average guy, he's building all this stuff, like, really cool. And then, like, all of a sudden, like, ever since last Friday, man, homeboy hasn't been right, like rocking high heels and doing some weird Ed Geen stuff, and just like, yeah.

Kara

Uh-huh. Uh, we're gonna talk about something a little bit boring. After all the building projects and expensive games, he uh eventually realized that he squandered away all of his money. So Tiberius, for all of the weird, not weird, but for all of the things that he was, he was good with his finances. Caligula ruined all of that. Eventually, to try it to get the money back, he put the the trials back on that he initially did away with that people loved him for. He put those back up, and people were being tried for treason again for doing absolutely nothing. They were exiled or put to death, depending on how he was feeling that day. Uh, he would use these trials usually for financial gain. So he would find somebody, usually, instead of executing them. He'd be like, You owe me this much money. If you can't pay it, I'll kill you. Or he'd blackmail people to try to get the money back. So that's primarily what he used the trials for. Obviously, these people were not happy because they were like, Hey, you just did away with this like two months ago. What happened? Now we're all dying again. Great, thanks. He would also raise taxes again after abolishing sales tax. He he just raises them again or he creates them. Uh, Roman people would later describe it as shameful. So he would tax taverns, artisans, slaves, and people who wanted to hire slaves. Taxing the slaves themselves kind of seems like a bit much considering they didn't have anything. But like, okay. And but what I think that really means is like there was an extra tax to own or keep a slave, so like a tax to own one for the slave owners, as well as buying a slave outright. Does that make sense?

Ed

Slavery in general, it's it's like a no-go, but I mean well, actually, it it was not uncommon for slaves, like even gladiators, they would they would see some percent of the money that they earned for their dominance.

Kara

Okay, that makes sense.

Ed

So like they they it would only be like a like a one or two percent commission. But yeah, if you went to the gladiatorial games and you came up victorious and you won all this money, that slave would actually get a part of those proceeds that he could then use to pay for his freedom down the road.

Kara

Got it. That makes sense. So then tax crap out of it, which means that Caligula probably just took all of it.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Okay, cool, good deal. Uh Caligula also made it his favorite pastime to embarrass the Senate any way he possibly could. So, one story, Caligula makes a remark about making his horse part of the Roman consular government. This one's super famous. This story is blown way out of proportion, it always has been throughout history. He never actually made his horse consul. His horse was never in the Senate. He just made a joke about it, or he made like an off-handed comment about it, but his reputation blew it way out of the water. Um, it is a fun story though.

Ed

I think his taste in the Senate kind of got a little tarnished when he first became emperor because he wanted, as the new emperor supposed to do, you're supposed to build a monument of the old emperor. And so he went to the Senate and like, hey, we need to make a statue for my predecessor, Tiberius, and the Senate's like, screw you. Considering we're not doing that, and so I think he took it in stride when he was like sane, but I felt like that was like the first precedent of his experience as an emperor dealing with the Senate.

Kara

But also to be devil's advocate, the Senate really hated Tiberius, so I can't blame him.

Ed

Yeah, I know. Like I said, I don't I don't blame the Senate at all, but like here's this guy who like the Senate voted to make him like supreme commander, leader, all that stuff, but we're not gonna let him build a statue. Yeah. Which kind of kind of starts things off on an awkward footing in a way.

Kara

Yeah, but then at this point, I don't think it matters.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

So you you have the horse joke, but then you also have like he would force the Senate men or members to run at the front of his chariot for fun. Like going a pretty quick pace on a chariot with Senate members in front of him, like giddy up horsey go. You run. It was also rumored that Caligulus slept with a number of Senate members' wives. And there are some accounts. Oh yeah. He's killing it. He's doing great. There are even accounts that are. That was common.

Ed

I mean, Julius Caesar, he hooked up with like the entire Senate.

Kara

Well, yeah, but the thing is, he's just doing this at this point just to be sure.

SPEAKER_02

Just to be petty.

Kara

Yeah. He's just doing it to be petty.

Ed

Hence the 1979 movie. Correct.

Kara

There are even accounts of Caligula forcing Senate members to fight in gladiator games, which I thought was interesting and I kind of liked. Considering he was a person who loved gladiator games and the Aridans, I wouldn't be that surprised if this was true. Um, and you know, it's like one of those things where when when you talk about Caligula, you have to take a lot of it with a grain of salt. And a lot of it is rumors or through the grapevine or word of mouth, and historians today are still trying to figure out what's true and what's not. So just grain of salt, but they're funny stories. We're gonna go with it.

Ed

And there's and and like any other myth or legend out there, there is a grain of truth. Like there's it's based on something. Uh granted, it it it could be very, very small, but if he's making senators fight in the arena, there was probably a legit situation where he's like he's like the Joker in the Dark Knight movie where he like snaps the the pull cue and he's like, Alright, you two duke it out, and you know, one person makes it out and all that kind of stuff.

Kara

Yeah, I wouldn't be that surprised if he did something like that.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

It is also well known and documented that Caligula had a very close relationship with his two sisters. Like a very close relationship. When one of them died, he gave his sister like a I don't remember, but like a really fancy title after she died that was never given to any other woman before. And there were rumors going around, and I think I think these are just rumors.

Ed

Where's my banjo?

Kara

I think these are just rumors, but there were rumors going around, probably started by the Senate and the Roman people, who we made extremely upset that it was an incestuous relationship.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I was gonna ask, was it like an incest? Relationship. Yeah, so that would make sense.

Kara

A lot of rumors, even throughout history, claiming that he was having an ancestuous relationship with his sisters, but the only evidence historians can find to back this up is the idea that Caligula was shooting for a Hellenistic type of role modeled after the Ptolemy dynasty in Egypt. And we can confirm that that was very uh very confusing. Yeah, very confusing to follow that family line.

Ed

The whole family tree looks like the Olympic symbol.

Kara

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they're a straight line for two days for me after trying to figure it all out.

Kara

Yeah, it's a good time. Um check out uh Cleopatra's episode, episode three. But but that's the only thing historians can find to really back that up. So that one's probably not true and just propaganda. In the summer of the year 39, not when he's 39, the year 39, Caligula ordered his men to create a bridge across the Bay of Naples out of different boats from two sides of Italy and like some other place. And it's about three miles long. Okay, so he made a giant bridge out of moats, boats that was three miles long. That's impressive. That's awesome. The weird thing is that he rode his beloved horse in the console horse. Yes, the console horse. In English, his name is Swift or Swifty. So for our younger female listeners out there, you're welcome. And so he rode his his lovely horse that he loved so much, from one end to the other. And then the next day he rode back with his chariot, accompanied by soldiers and his personal guards. So he made a big show out of it. So he went from one end to another for no reason, gets his guys, comes back, and he's wearing like a really fancy breastplate. It's gold just for the occasion. It and he's trying to look like Alexander the Great going across this giant bridge, and a huge crowd of people come and watch this great display, and they drank and they partied for two days, and they partied and drank so much that it said that several people fell in the water and drowned, that they were so drunk. It was a good time. We don't know why he did this. Like the motivations are just they're even still today, they're being debated as to why he did this. He did do it. It has been confirmed that he did do this. We just don't know why. One theory is that Caligula wanted to disprove a prophecy that was going around Rome, that he had no chance of becoming emperor, just as no emperor riding a horse could cross the bay or something of that nature. And so there's that theory. But I mean, either way, well, the motivations are confusing and not very clear. We can at least jack it up to the fact that it's a pretty cool feat of engineering. In late 39 or early 40, Caligula had a desire to go to Germania and the surrounding areas, which is now present-day Europe, just as his father did. At least that's what we think he wanted to do. Maybe we think that's why he wanted to go to Europe. Anyway, he also wanted to expand the Roman Empire into Britain. We do know that was something he wanted to do. He marched his army to Gaul, which was France, and arrived on the shores of the Upper Rhine River, the Upper Rhine River, pronounce it how you want. The story is that Caligula ordered his men to slash at the water and collect the she shells found into the shore in their helmets. They say that he said the shells were the spoils of the conquered ocean, and this story is lovely called Caligula's War on Neptune, or Caligula's War on the Ocean. And that story's fun too. I like that one. However, now it's believed that Caligula demanded his men to build huts or collect material to build huts, because the Latin term for hut is very close to the Latin term for shell or seashell or crustacean. So that's that's more likely what it was. And it can be argued that the story is also propaganda for those who were done wrong by Caligula. But again, I like the story. I mean, it's funny to think about Roman soldiers slashing at the ocean and collecting seashells. It sounds like a really nice afternoon. Yeah. Yeah. Caligula believes like to spend that time. Yeah. I guess sounds fun. I I can't knock it. Caligula believed that he was a god on earth. So this is another another fun thing about Caligula. He thought he was just God's gift to earth, and he was a god, and everybody needed to treat him as such. He had a really nasty habit of forcing people around him and every Roman subject to treat him as a god, worship me, all that. And in the summer of 40, this was a bad deal. He tried to erect a statue of himself in a Jewish temple, making it a place of Caligular worship without the regard of the Jewish faith. Got it. He was like, This is my temple now, you will worship me. Here is my statue. That's what he wanted to do. He did not do it. He wanted to, he tried. The plans didn't go through. He was talked out of the idea by uh Herod Agrippa, the king of Judea, and that that area Judea is uh present-day Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, that area. Um, that kingdom doesn't exist now, but I just found that. That was a rabbit hole I went through. Anyway, by the late 40s, Caligula's overspending is starting to become something that cannot be ignored. He spent way more than he could make back in taxes, fees, and extortion. And eventually a conspiracy against Caligula was planned in late January of 41 between the Praetorian Guard and the Senate and the Equestrian Order. We had a lot of people after him. And, you know, he was stabbed. He was stabbed, kind of like Julius Caesar. He was stabbed at the Palatine Games by multiple people. The people that we know were there were Cassius Terraria, uh, he was the tribune of the Praetorian Guard, Cornelius Sabinus, and other people who were close to him in the Senate. Caligula's wife and daughters were also put to death shortly after to avoid any issues of successions. They wanted to avoid any loose ends. And uh to end it with this lovely quote that I really enjoyed. A contemporary historian who wrote about Caligula's four-year reign, four tumultuous years. He wrote, Oh, this guy's name is Cassius Dio, if you want to look him up. He's an interesting dude. But he wrote, Caligula learned by actual experience that he was not a god. So on that note, thank you, Cassius Dio, for the wonderful quote.

SPEAKER_02

You learn that four years. Four years, that's it. That felt like I went through Salmon Rushdie's entire life plus the history. Yeah. I feel how four years. That's wild.

Kara

I know, dude.

SPEAKER_02

I think you're on mute.

Kara

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You pulled a Deja.

Ed

There we go.

Kara

Yeah, there you go.

Ed

I felt like that was a rather interesting, uh tumultuous four-year time period.

Kara

Yeah, yeah. It was actually fascinating to look at all of the different weird things about him. Cause I knew like I knew he was going to be like outlandish. Because you hear the stories, right? Oh, he named his horses council, and he built this giant bridge and went across it a billion times on his council horse. But like then you get into the the epilepsy and you get into all the all the the nitty-gritty. I didn't know about how he tried to put his statue up in a Jewish temple. I had no idea that happened.

SPEAKER_02

That's wild, right? That's wild stuff right there. That's horrible.

Ed

Well, and on top of that, it's generally considered like a faux pas to erect a statue of yourself while you're still alive.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

Ed

Generally speaking, you die and then they make a statue.

SPEAKER_02

It's like giving yourself your own nickname.

Kara

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You don't.

Kara

He was so full of himself.

Ed

Well, yeah, he sure was. And to kind of put it into context here, the Praetorian Guard was the one that like killed him. That would be equivalent to today the Secret Service killing the president. Like, that's what the Praetorian Guard was for was to protect the palace, protect the Emperor and the family, and all that stuff. So for the Praetorian Guard to like turn and do something like that, that's yeah, that would be the equivalent to like our Secret Service going after our own president.

Kara

Yeah, it was it it was a member of the Praetorian Guard, a member of the Senate, and a member of uh I remember like the uh the Calvary, if you will. Yeah, the equestrian order. So it's like a House of Representatives for Yeah, it's like a member of the Senate, a member of the Secret Service, a member of like the military, like the Marines or something. It's just so bad. It's so bad.

SPEAKER_02

Vote who's gonna who's gonna be the chosen one.

Kara

Well, I think it was more like a Julius Caesar issue where everybody had a knife. Let's just go at him.

SPEAKER_02

Let's just do this.

Kara

Let's just Yeah, let's just do it.

Ed

But and to me, when I hear like Caligula's wife and daughters, they were also put to death. This has a very um what is it? Was it Nicholas Romanov, the last czar of Russia?

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah.

Ed

And 1917 during the Bolshevik revolution, uh Lenin's cronies like basically told the whole uh czar family that they're gonna go down to the basement and take a family portrait, and instead of taking out a camera, they all pulled up machine guns and mowed down everybody for 30 minutes straight.

SPEAKER_02

Nice. Yeah.

Ed

It it's one of those things like, oh, um history repeats itself.

SPEAKER_02

You'd think, but that's crazy. Yeah, that's boring, Kara. You're welcome.

Ed

I like how this is the palate cleanser. Hey, and then he got stabbed, and then his wife and children got killed.

SPEAKER_02

And his kids. Yeah. No, but it was it was this was kind of like um, I don't know, when you're like, now we're gonna get into the boring stuff. I was like, wait, this is kind of juicy though.

Kara

Like the taxes and the finances.

SPEAKER_02

I'm like, wait, what else did he do? Tell me more. Yeah, it's great. That was good. That was good.

Ed

Thanks, Steve. Yeah, oh and Kara, you and I were talking earlier today, like how it's really, really funny how you take something that happened just 50 years ago that's absurd, that is crazy, and it's almost like, yeah, too soon. Like, we really can't joke about that. But if we go back 2,000 years, yeah, then it's easier, and we find a guy who did the same exact stuff, maybe even a little more over the top. That that stuff's funny.

SPEAKER_02

That is hilarious, right?

Kara

Like, he's a really hairy guy looking at himself in the mirror and making stupid faces. How can you not laugh at that? Probably wearing women's shoes and really gaudy earrings.

SPEAKER_02

Jewelry, yeah. I'm just thinking of like these big chunky circle earrings that his lobes are like three inches long because they're so heavy.

Kara

Yes, exactly.

Ed

Or he's standing in front of a mirror just wearing like a robe, like all Buffalo Bill like.

Kara

He's like, This is what my statue will look like in the temple.

SPEAKER_02

He's like, and then I want I want my nope, I want it to be a little bit lower. Yeah, just like that. You guys can't see me, butt.

Ed

Yeah, as he's yelling at somebody to put lotion on, like he's got he's got the little wicker basket, he's just handing it down.

Kara

All right, so before we go, just some quick housekeeping. If you have an episode idea or a trash can fire, or you just want to say hi, you can visit our website at thedaysdumpsterfire.com and send us a message there. You can also email us at thedaysdumpsterfire at gmail.com or you can message us on Instagram. Either way, we don't care, come say hi. We would love to hear from you. If I forgot what I was gonna say. If if we're just gonna go with if it looks like a fun movie, I can't wait to see it. Um, do you guys have anything?

Ed

I'm working on our Patreon.

Kara

Oh, thank you. There's there's a good housekeeping subject.

Ed

That's good. Yeah, that's good. Good segue. Um I am working on setting up our our Patreon account for like donations. So um, it's not one of these things like I'm I'm gonna set it up where you're gonna be restricted to certain episodes and uh unless you give us money. No, like basically it's gonna be set up as a donation. Uh, if you like what we're doing, want to support what we're doing, uh you can opt to you know pay what you can when you can, as often as you want. Yeah, if you want to throw us like $10,000 starting, I mean we can figure that out.

Kara

Yeah, maybe it'll help with my mic issues.

Ed

Uh probably, yes. Most definitely subtly throw 10 grand.

Kara

I was just, yeah, it's fine.

Ed

But uh, yeah, no, I'm I'm currently working on that. I have no idea what I'm doing. So uh that will eventually pop up at some point in time.

SPEAKER_02

Sweet. Yeah, sounds good. I I also know anything.

Kara

Okay, cool. I also know that we're trying to get uh YouTube up.

Ed

Yeah, yeah, no, that's they they they changed that around. So um that that that's that's a little weird.

Kara

Yeah, that's okay. Uh Ed, what do you got in the pipeline? I know you're next.

Ed

So I I've been kind of racking my brain here, but I'm I'm really intrigued into because we're teaching the age of exploration for history. I I kind of want to dive into stories where these explorations, whether it is in the age of exploration, so 1500 to 1700, or even recent stuff like climbing Mount Everest. I want to get into some of these crazy stories where these expeditions start off like, hey, we're gonna find you know Indochina and all that kind of stuff, and they they find turkeys in some weird land instead. And I kind of want to dive into the uh the idea of the botched exploration.

Kara

Sweet.

Ed

Because if you really think about it, like these guys had to really, really plan, like you hop on these wooden sailing ships and you're committed for like the next six months to a year. Everything goes wrong, nine times out of ten. As soon as they as soon as they pull anchor and they're heading out, it like their boat sinks. So that's kind of what I want to dive into. I would kind of want to I I don't know which botched exploration I want to get into. I don't know if I want to do something more recent, like these guys that tried to find the North Pole or the South Pole, so they could put like a flag down and said that they landed there, um, only for the wind to blow the flag out of the ground and nobody can find it ever again.

Kara

Yeah, it's a good time.

Ed

Yeah. Um, or if I want to do something more like Age of Exploration, where these guys try to set out to find the new world and they find the wrong world, and the only thing they do is cause massive cultures of Native Americans to die from smallpox. Or like Alvar Nunez, Cabeza de Vaca, who landed in Florida and got stranded, and they ate all the horses, and then they made rafts out of the horse skins, tried to go around the Gulf of Mexico, they all sank, they all ended up on some island naked, where they were then abducted by Native Americans and almost killed, and then they somehow got out of that, and they spent the next 10 years of their lives trying to get to Mexico City by taking the longest route known to mankind. So that that's a good one, too.

Kara

Discovery Channel Naked and Afraid XL.

Ed

Yeah, conquistador style.

Kara

Like perfect. All right. Well, if you guys don't have anything, I think uh we're good to go until the next one.

Ed

All righty.

Kara

See you all later. Thanks for listening. Bye.