Imminent bloodbath was prevented by a well-known, wealthy auctioneer named Arruntius Euaristus. He entered the theater — at whose behest is not reported — in mourning attire and announced the death of Caligula in a loud voice. That put an end to the uproar among the Germani, since there was no emperor left for them to defend. With much pushing and shoving the theater emptied out.
Now Rome was without a ruler. At first the situation appeared to be in flux, but that impression was rapidly contradicted. Caligula belonged to the past, but the experiences and structures he left behind continued to determine behavior. The aroused populace streamed to the Forum, where popular assemblies took place, vigorously demanding that the murderers be punished. Despite the recent conflicts Caligula’s popularity with the common people of Rome had remained intact. The senators attempted to take advantage of this favorable moment. The consuls called a session of the Senate in the Capitol and gave instructions for the contents of the emperor’s treasury to be carried there immediately. The cohortes urbanae, who functioned as the city’s police force, obeyed their orders and took up positions around the Capitol and Forum. In an agitated debate the senators fought over the future of Rome. Voices were raised calling for the end of imperial rule and the restoration of “freedom,” meaning rule by the Senate in the style of the late Republic. Some senators even wanted to expunge the memory of all previous emperors and to destroy their temples. One of these was the consul Sentius Saturninus, who delivered a stirring speech. He portrayed Caligula as the culminating figure in a despotism that had been expanding since the days of Julius Caesar, declaring that imperial rule was tyranny and replaced freedom and law with the arbitrary will of an individual. He also recognized the senators’ own role in all this, however: “This tyranny was fostered by nothing but indolence and our failure to speak in opposition to any of its wishes. We have succumbed to the seduction of peace and have learned to live like conquered prisoners. Whether we have suffered incurable disasters ourselves or have only observed the calamities of our neighbors, it is because we are afraid to die like brave men that we must endure being slain with the utmost degradation” (Jos. Ant. 19.180–81).
Saturninus had in fact been conspicuous for his servility to the emperor, since otherwise he would hardly have been serving as consul at the time. Josephus reports that after this speech another senator leaped to his feet and pulled from Saturninus’s finger a ring with a likeness of Caligula on it, which identified him as a man in particularly high favor with the tyrant who had just been murdered. The rhetoric of freedom could little avail against the existing structures of power and modes of behavior that directed even the action of senators. In reality ambiguous communication within the aristocracy, which Caligula through his cynical behavior had allowed to run out, celebrated a joyous resurrection, and the debate was actually about who would become the new emperor. Three aspirants are mentioned by name. All three came from the group of senators who had maintained close contact with Caligula to the very end and who would also number among the favorites during Claudius’s rule. Valerius Asiaticus’s ambitions to succeed to the throne were thwarted by Annius Vinicianus, who had the same end in view for himself and tried to achieve it a year later: He was one of two central figures in the first great conspiracy against Claudius. The third aspirant was Marcus Vinicius, Caligula’s brother-in-law. His move was blocked by the two consuls, Saturninus and Pomponius, who according to Dio had kissed Caligula’s feet at a banquet only the day before. Presumably Saturninus’s speech on freedom was aimed to position him as a possible candidate for emperor. The Senate debate encapsulates the paradox of the era, which had dominated Caligula’s brief reign and that he had set himself against in a new fashion: No one wanted an emperorship, but everyone wanted to be emperor.
If even senators could come to no agreement about “freedom,” then others were even less able to do so. As the Senate session dragged on and on, new facts had long since been created on the ground. The regular soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, who had known nothing about the conspiracy, had rushed here and there excitedly for a while hunting the emperor’s killers, and then gathered to discuss further steps. This was probably the moment the two prefects had been waiting for, when they would take center stage. Understandably the Guard had no interest in rule by the Senate, nor did they want to wait for the Senate to choose a claimant to the throne. Their own importance would increase if they created the emperor themselves. They quickly agreed on Claudius, who benefited from the soldiers’ loyalty to the dynasty. The guards discovered him hiding on the Palatine Hill, where he had sought safety in the uproar; they proclaimed him emperor in the Area Palatina and then took him to the Praetorians’ camp. The idea of Republican “freedom” was rejected in the Forum as well, for the people also backed Claudius, hoping in that way to avoid a battle over the succession and the threat of civil war.
Envoys were sent back and forth between the Senate and the Praetorians’ camp, and it is said that King Agrippa of Judaea, Caligula’s close associate, skillfully advocated Claudius’s cause. In the middle of the night the balance of power tipped definitively in his favor. Only one hundred senators were present in the Senate; the others had cautiously retreated to their homes. In the end the urban cohorts joined the Praetorian Guards and backed Claudius, too. The few hours in which the senators had believed they had power were over, and now their fear of the new emperor was beginning to grow.
The next morning Claudius was escorted into the palace. He announced a donative of 15,000 (or 20,000) sesterces for every Praetorian. The Senate recognized him as emperor and awarded him the customary rights and honors. Cassius Chaerea, Lupus, and the centurions who had participated in the assassination were executed, and Sabinus committed suicide. Reportedly it was Agrippa who disposed of Caligula’s badly mutilated corpse, taking it to the Lamian Gardens and interring it in a makeshift grave.
CONCLUSION:
Inventing the Mad Emperor
“The histories of Tiberius and Caligula, of Claudius and Nero,” writes Tacitus at the start of his Annals, “were falsified through cowardice while they flourished, and composed, when they fell, under the influence of still rankling hatreds” (Tac. Ann. 1.1.2). The denunciatory devaluation that followed the emperors’ deaths formed a perfect counterpart to the servile adulation they enjoyed during their lifetimes. But this alone does not mean that the Roman aristocracy was made up of morally inferior people. Or to put it more precisely: Moral categories are unsuitable here — just as in the case of the emperors also — to explain what occurred. The senators were victims of a clash between new circumstances and their old ways of behaving, which no longer fit. The few who were unwilling to come to terms with imperial rule — or who wished to be emperor themselves — tried their hand at conspiracy and only made matters more complicated. Those who were most successful at adapting the traditional aristocratic striving for power and honor to the new circumstances acquired a bad reputation as opportunists. Occasionally the same people managed to stand out in both groups. Once someone had set flattery on the path of runaway inflation, the others had no choice but to join in and go along.