Caligula flouted many expectations of how a Roman aristocrat ought to conduct himself in public. His decision to dispense with elaborate ceremonial greetings was welcomed, certainly, and made it easier and simpler to encounter him in the streets and squares of the city. Yet he behaved more informally than suited the tastes of the upper classes. Macro’s admonitions to the young emperor about not showing too much enthusiasm at Circus games or theatrical performances were in vain. Caligula became an active supporter of one of the four factions at the Circus Maximus. His passion for chariot races was such that he built his own stadium, called the Gaianum, in the gardens on the Vatican Hill, where he could drive chariots himself. Aulus Vitellius, son of a man of consular rank, who would later become Roman emperor himself for a few months, shared the same passion, acquiring the special favor of Caligula and also, if Suetonius is to be believed, a limp as the result of an accident. Caligula’s enthusiasm for gladiatorial combat, both between men and against animals, went so far that he trained and fought with gladiators, and is even supposed to have used real weapons. The emperor also had a great love for the theater. He surrounded himself with stars of the stage, including the actor Apelles, who became part of his retinue for a while, and the famed mime Mnester, with whom he spent so much time that it was later claimed the two had a homosexual relationship.
In his passion for chariot races, gladiatorial games, and theatrical performances Caligula shared the interests of contemporary young aristocrats. Since Augustus, the youth of the noblest families in Rome had sometimes participated in chariot races, athletic competitions, and combat with wild animals at the Circus, together with gladiators from the equestrian order. The sons of senators who took part in a gladiatorial game put on by Caligula must have had some training in this kind of combat. Games in Rome were by no means just entertainment; they had a political dimension. It was significant that the emperor presented games, and also how he did so. The city’s arenas were the most important spaces for direct communication between the emperor and the urban plebs. Approval or criticism was communicated to the emperor during games through cheers or booing. Quite frequently chanting choruses of sports fans pressed demands that direct confrontation made it hard for the emperor to reject. Attending the contests, he showed solidarity with the people and allowed them to observe him at close quarters. When Augustus attended games at the Circus “he gave his entire attention to the performance, either to avoid the censure to which he realized that his [adoptive] father Caesar had been generally exposed because he spent his time in reading or answering letters and petitions; or from his interest and pleasure in the spectacle, which he never denied but often frankly confessed” (Suet. Aug. 45.1).
Throngs of young Romans were devotees of Circus games and the theater, and the people liked it when the emperor attended. Caligula, however, seems to have offended notions about proper public behavior for an emperor. He took sides himself for or against certain actors, and grew angry if the audience didn’t join in or applauded performances of which he did not approve. He was “so carried away by his interest in singing and dancing that even at the public performances he could not refrain from singing with the tragic actor as he delivered his lines, or from openly imitating his gestures by way of praise or correction” (Suet. Cal. 54.1). From the perspective of the aristocracy his conduct meant that the young man who had become their ruler behaved “like one of the crowd” (Dio 59.5.4).
Caligula’s organization of his household and his behavior in public were thus inconsistent with the role he played in institutional politics. While the latter showed moderation and skill and was generally praised, in the former he presumed upon his special status to the full. His displays of extravagance relegated the opulence of aristocratic houses to second class, and his unconventional manners at home flouted aristocrats’ preference that distinctions of rank be respected. His enthusiasm for the Circus and personal ties to actors and charioteers further violated aristocratic proprieties. At home he exalted himself above his fellow aristocrats, whereas in public he fell short of the dignity befitting an aristocrat, let alone an emperor. Various reasons can be suggested for this conduct: The years on Capri had removed him from senatorial society and provided too little aristocratic socialization, while the years of oppression and danger led him to savor his imperial possibilities, which must have seemed virtually unlimited. Last but not least, the role his predecessors had bequeathed to him was only imprecisely defined. The question now was, how would the Roman aristocracy react to Caligula’s behavior in the long term? There had never been a young, extravagant emperor with a passion for the arena in Rome before.
On 10 June 38 Drusilla died unexpectedly — the sister who had always been Caligula’s favorite and whom he had named as sole heir. He found her loss so extraordinarily painful that he could not bring himself to attend the elaborate public funeral with which she was honored. Seneca wrote critically that just as he was unable to show joy or pleasure in a manner suitable for an emperor, he was unable to mourn appropriately. Caligula shunned human company in Rome and withdrew to his country estate in the Alban Hills, where he tried to distract himself with dice and board games. Then he traveled aimlessly around the region, letting his beard and hair grow in grief.
Caligula granted Drusilla unusual posthumous honors. On top of all the honors Livia had received after her death, the Senate passed a measure deifying Drusilla, an honor previously granted only to Julius Caesar and Augustus. A gold portrait of her was placed in the Curia, and in the Temple of Venus on the Forum a statue of her was erected the same size as the statue to the goddess herself. Drusilla was also to receive her own temple, for which a new college of priests would be established. When women took an oath, they were to use her name, as the emperor did from then on, swearing by the divine Drusilla. Great games would be held on her birthday. In the cities of the Empire she was to be venerated as Panthea, the “All-Goddess,” and we know from inscriptions in the Greek part of the Empire in the East that these instructions were carried out. In Rome, the regulations on mourning were enforced with extreme rigor. Visits to the thermal baths and banquets were prohibited. One man who sold water to mix with wine is supposed to have been executed for the crime of maiestas. The senator Livius Geminus declared under oath that he had witnessed how Drusilla rose to heaven and conversed with the gods, vowing that he wished to be struck dead along with his children if he were lying. In contrast to similar attempts when Caligula was ill, the flattery succeeded and the senator was rewarded with a million sesterces.
Seneca writes that people were uncertain whether the emperor would prefer for them to mourn his sister or to worship her, and he describes Caligula’s actions as immoderate in the extreme. Modern authors have also declared his behavior strange, and even speculated that he may have suffered a nervous breakdown. Without any doubt he was very deeply affected. The claim that his grief was excessive may be unwarrantable, however, since the deification of a male ruler had precedents and Drusilla was Caligula’s designated successor. Her deification was the first time a woman from the imperial family was added to the Roman pantheon, but not the last. The same distinction was granted to Livia under Claudius and to Poppaea Sabina during the reign of Nero.