Next Caligula renounced honors for himself or any acknowledgment in public of his unique status. He forbade statues of himself to be erected within the city of Rome, and abandoned Tiberius’s custom of sending letters to the Senate and people; such letters had long before acquired the force of official directives, so that to continue them would have belied Caligula’s stated intention to share power. Finally he let three months pass before assuming the consulship on 1 July 37. Despite depleted political significance, the consulship remained the highest regular office in Rome, and had been held several times by Augustus and Tiberius during their rule, for the distinction it conferred. By postponing his entry upon the consulship Caligula prevented the two men in office from having to resign. His stint in office, which lasted only about two months, enabled the two senators who had been next in line for the honorific positions to fill them for the remainder of the year.
When he did take up the office of consul, Caligula used the occasion to deliver a policy speech in the Senate, for the first time explicitly distancing himself from Tiberius. He criticized all the actions that had earned his predecessor the enmity of the aristocracy, and announced a number of provisions for his own rule, including concessions. These corresponded so closely to the senators’ own wishes that, as Cassius Dio reports, “the Senate, fearing that he might change his mind, issued a decree that this speech should be read every year” (Dio 59.6.7). Otherwise Caligula’s brief first consulate consisted largely of magnificent festivities, which reached a climax with the formal dedication of the temple the new emperor had completed for his great-grandfather, the deified Augustus. All the senators and their wives along with the people of Rome were invited to a banquet in the city, and games were held on an unparalleled scale. Four hundred bears and the same number of beasts of prey from Libya were killed in combat in the arena, and chariot races allowed young aristocrats to display their most dashing form. Caligula himself appeared driving a triumphal chariot drawn by six horses, “something that had never been done before” (Dio 59.7.4). The emperor also took advantage of his first consulate to simplify the rules of protocol. He abolished a ritual that had upheld the ruler’s unique status, the customary greeting to an emperor in the city, and from then on appeared in the role of a simple citizen — at least as far as ceremonial greetings were concerned.
The first few months of Caligula’s reign can be clearly seen as an attempt to copy the Augustan Principate — a development that his contemporaries in the aristocracy no doubt registered with satisfaction. On the level of official politics his sole rule was not in evidence; rather he insisted that power was shared between the princeps and the Senate. He paid strict attention to the proper forms of communication between the emperor and the aristocrats in the Senate, which had traditionally symbolized their equality. He avoided any display of honor due to his position of political power in everyday social encounters. Within the city Caligula insisted upon forms of address befitting an ordinary (aristocratic) citizen; the Romans praised this as an example of civilitas, civic and unassuming behavior. On the other hand Caligula was unmistakably the sole ruler. He alone commanded the armed forces, a fact that every senator could observe when the Praetorian Guard went through its drills. He used his financial means, far superior to everyone else’s, to make gifts of money and hold games, fostering a sense of obligation among soldiers and the common people in general. He found clever ways to augment the family prestige accruing to him through his descent, which helped to solidify his position as emperor.
All this meant was that Caligula resumed the ambiguous form of communication that had been established under Augustus (and later collapsed under Tiberius) to disguise the simultaneous existence of an aristocratic republic and autarchy. The Senate resolution requiring that Caligula’s speech as consul be recorded and read aloud annually reveals tellingly how aware the senators were of the situation and how complex all communication became as a result. It shows that they knew power was shared at the emperor’s pleasure and the arrangement could be rescinded at any time — in other words, that power was not really shared at all. Yet they could neither directly express their distrust of the emperor’s declaration that he would share power, nor openly try to force him to keep his word, since either action would imply that his promise was empty. They had to take the indirect form of awarding him an honor. On its manifest level the Senate resolution said: The emperor has given such a momentous and important speech that it deserves to be read aloud every year. At the same time, however, the honor latently revealed that emperor had not truly shared power, for otherwise it would not have been necessary to remind him of his obligation in this way.
That the senators were adept at this form of communication is not surprising. But where did Caligula learn it? How could someone without the least experience in institutional Roman politics have possessed such a perfect command of it from the start? How had his ability to present himself as an Augustan princeps developed? Clearly the role had been well thought out, and Caligula played it well. Who advised him on the matter?
Philo identifies Macro and Marcus Junius Silanus as the men behind the young emperor. As Praetorian prefect Macro held the highest office possible for a knight, and Silanus, Caligula’s former father-in-law, had the highest standing in the aristocracy because of his seniority among the senators. Both men had advanced to their positions under Tiberius; they belonged to the inner circle of power, and their management had smoothed Caligula’s elevation to the throne. Dio reports that Macro arranged the Senate’s approval in advance with the two consuls and “others”; Silanus’s status must have ensured that he was included. We may safely assume that the configuration of Caligula’s rule had been discussed in this circle and concessions made to any men or groups who were reluctant.
Macro and Silanus are also supposed to have guided the young emperor after his elevation. Of the former Philo writes: “Knowing… that he had saved Gaius over and over again when within an ace of destruction [i.e., on Capri], he gave his admonitions frankly and without disguise, for like a good builder he wished his handiwork to remain proof against destruction or dissolution either by himself or by another” (Phil. Leg. 41). Macro advised Caligula how an emperor should behave at aristocratic banquets or at theatrical performances for the common people, and also gave him lectures on the art of governing: “The fittest contribution for a ruler is to put forth good proposals for the benefit of his subjects, to execute these proposals in the best way possible, and to bring forth good gifts with a bountiful hand and will” (Phil. Leg. 51). Silanus played a similar role: “In all his discourse, he talked as a guardian, concealing nothing that might tend to improve and benefit Gaius’s character, conduct, and government. He had, indeed, strong inducements to speak freely in his preeminently noble lineage and his close connection by marriage. For his daughter had died only a short time before; the rights of her kinsfolk had grown faint… but some last remnants of their vitality still existed” (Phil. Leg. 63).