What it says on the tin: could Caligula plausibly stay on the throne for as long as Domitian or Nero – essentially, through all or nearly all of Claudius’ OTL reign – and if so, what would Caligulan Rome look like?
The threshold question is whether this can happen at all: even if Caligula is competent and lucky enough to sniff out the conspiracy that brought him down in OTL, there would be another one and another after that, and if he alienated all the Roman power centers, one would eventually succeed. I’m assuming that the more extreme forms of insanity and perversion attributed to him by the senatorial historians are propaganda, but even if those are discounted, we’re left with a ruler who suffered from (justifiable) paranoia, grandiose fantasies, and a mean streak a mile wide. The aforementioned Nero and Domitian did last quite a while with similar personalities, but the imperial system was much more developed by Domitian’s time, and even Nero had the advantage of the Claudian bureaucratic reforms and a lack of intra-family rivals. Caligula might need a personality transplant – enough of one, at least, to avoid antagonizing the army – or else an unshakably loyal ally in the military or the Senate.
Either one would have its problems. It’s been suggested to me off-list that one way to achieve a personality transplant would be for Caligula to spend less time on Capri, but if he did that, would Tiberius single him out as heir in the first place? And if we go the loyal-ally route, such a man would face the temptation to become a Sejanus, and given the nature of early imperial politics, the emperor would almost inevitably start to suspect him even if he didn’t harbor such ambitions.
But let’s assume we can get past that, and that a relatively minor POD could keep the Praetorians loyal and keep Caligula on the throne into the 50s. One thing that’s fairly certain is that Caligula was engaged in a power struggle with the Senate: he was unwilling to continue the Augustan fiction of being first among equals, and wanted to be a divine king in the Egyptian or at least the Seleucid style. We can safely assume that this conflict would continue during a longer reign. Caligula would likely continue his administrative reforms of OTL, including the creation of a civil power base by appointing imperial freedmen to positions of responsibility, and given that even the senatorial historians credit him with administrative competence during the first two years of his reign, it seems likely that he could build an effective palace bureaucracy.
Another of Caligula’s reforms, according to Suetonius and Cassius Dio, was the restoration of popular election of magistrates, a function which Tiberius had shifted to the Senate. Presumably the idea was to shift power from the senators and equites to the remainder of the upper census classes, and to squeeze the Senate between imperial absolutism and electoral populism. Is this something Caligula would have dispensed with once he solidified his hold on power, or would he have wanted to keep elections as a permanent counterweight to aristocratic privilege and even encourage pre-Sulla-style anti-senatorial candidates? Would he even try to increase the voting power of the lower census classes, on the assumption that they would stay loyal as long as they were provided with sufficient panem et circenses? No doubt he would have found ways to keep any real opponents from being elected (as Augustus did), but his empire could become a bizarre mix of divine monarchy at the highest levels with popular participation at the lower levels.
Also, would the showdown between Caligula and the Senate end in large-scale restructuring of the latter? He would certainly eliminate any individual senator he didn’t care for – Caligula’s Rome wouldn’t be a nice place for senators – but would he go beyond that and eliminate the Senate altogether, or alternatively enlarge it and pack it with his supporters? Would he expand Roman citizenship as Claudius did, in order to turn provincial populations into his personal clients and elevate provincial loyalists to senatorial rank?
Finally, assuming Caligula dies in the mid-50s of either natural causes or a sufficiently stealthy assassin, who would succeed him? It probably wouldn’t be Claudius, who would be old by that time assuming that Caligula hadn’t offed him. Caligula’s own sons, if he had any that survived, would be too young - it would be another story if Caligula made it into the 60s or 70s, but in the 50s, any attempt to put one of his sons on the throne would result in said son going the way of Gemellus. Would he adopt Nero? Alternatively, might there be no remaining Julio-Claudian heirs at all, forcing him to make an adoption/marriage alliance outside the family? Or would the aftermath of Caligula’s reign be an early Year of the Four Emperors, leaving the way open for a dark horse (by which I don’t mean Incitatus) to emerge? What would this Caligula’s legacy be, and how would history view him?
The threshold question is whether this can happen at all: even if Caligula is competent and lucky enough to sniff out the conspiracy that brought him down in OTL, there would be another one and another after that, and if he alienated all the Roman power centers, one would eventually succeed. I’m assuming that the more extreme forms of insanity and perversion attributed to him by the senatorial historians are propaganda, but even if those are discounted, we’re left with a ruler who suffered from (justifiable) paranoia, grandiose fantasies, and a mean streak a mile wide. The aforementioned Nero and Domitian did last quite a while with similar personalities, but the imperial system was much more developed by Domitian’s time, and even Nero had the advantage of the Claudian bureaucratic reforms and a lack of intra-family rivals. Caligula might need a personality transplant – enough of one, at least, to avoid antagonizing the army – or else an unshakably loyal ally in the military or the Senate.
Either one would have its problems. It’s been suggested to me off-list that one way to achieve a personality transplant would be for Caligula to spend less time on Capri, but if he did that, would Tiberius single him out as heir in the first place? And if we go the loyal-ally route, such a man would face the temptation to become a Sejanus, and given the nature of early imperial politics, the emperor would almost inevitably start to suspect him even if he didn’t harbor such ambitions.
But let’s assume we can get past that, and that a relatively minor POD could keep the Praetorians loyal and keep Caligula on the throne into the 50s. One thing that’s fairly certain is that Caligula was engaged in a power struggle with the Senate: he was unwilling to continue the Augustan fiction of being first among equals, and wanted to be a divine king in the Egyptian or at least the Seleucid style. We can safely assume that this conflict would continue during a longer reign. Caligula would likely continue his administrative reforms of OTL, including the creation of a civil power base by appointing imperial freedmen to positions of responsibility, and given that even the senatorial historians credit him with administrative competence during the first two years of his reign, it seems likely that he could build an effective palace bureaucracy.
Another of Caligula’s reforms, according to Suetonius and Cassius Dio, was the restoration of popular election of magistrates, a function which Tiberius had shifted to the Senate. Presumably the idea was to shift power from the senators and equites to the remainder of the upper census classes, and to squeeze the Senate between imperial absolutism and electoral populism. Is this something Caligula would have dispensed with once he solidified his hold on power, or would he have wanted to keep elections as a permanent counterweight to aristocratic privilege and even encourage pre-Sulla-style anti-senatorial candidates? Would he even try to increase the voting power of the lower census classes, on the assumption that they would stay loyal as long as they were provided with sufficient panem et circenses? No doubt he would have found ways to keep any real opponents from being elected (as Augustus did), but his empire could become a bizarre mix of divine monarchy at the highest levels with popular participation at the lower levels.
Also, would the showdown between Caligula and the Senate end in large-scale restructuring of the latter? He would certainly eliminate any individual senator he didn’t care for – Caligula’s Rome wouldn’t be a nice place for senators – but would he go beyond that and eliminate the Senate altogether, or alternatively enlarge it and pack it with his supporters? Would he expand Roman citizenship as Claudius did, in order to turn provincial populations into his personal clients and elevate provincial loyalists to senatorial rank?
Finally, assuming Caligula dies in the mid-50s of either natural causes or a sufficiently stealthy assassin, who would succeed him? It probably wouldn’t be Claudius, who would be old by that time assuming that Caligula hadn’t offed him. Caligula’s own sons, if he had any that survived, would be too young - it would be another story if Caligula made it into the 60s or 70s, but in the 50s, any attempt to put one of his sons on the throne would result in said son going the way of Gemellus. Would he adopt Nero? Alternatively, might there be no remaining Julio-Claudian heirs at all, forcing him to make an adoption/marriage alliance outside the family? Or would the aftermath of Caligula’s reign be an early Year of the Four Emperors, leaving the way open for a dark horse (by which I don’t mean Incitatus) to emerge? What would this Caligula’s legacy be, and how would history view him?
