George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

when the crowd applauded a charioteer who wore a different color, Caligula cried out, "I
wish the Roman people had but a single neck." At one of his state dinners Caligula burst
into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, and when a consul asked him what was so funny, he
replied that it was the thought that as emperor Caligula had the power to have the throats
of the top officials cut at any time he chose. Caligula carried this same attitude into his
personal life: whenever he kissed or caressed the neck of his wife or one of his
mistresses, he liked to remark: "Off comes this beautiful head whenever I give the word."
Above all, Caligula was vindictive. After his death, two notebooks were found among his
personal papers, one labelled "The Sword" and the other labelled "The Dagger." These
were lists of the persons he had proscribed and liquidated, and were the forerunners of the
enemies' lists and discrediting committee of today. Suetonius frankly calls Caligula "a
monster," and speculates on the psychological roots of his criminal disposition: "I think I
may attribute to mental weakness the existence of two exactly opposite faults in the same
person, extreme assurance and, on the other hand, excessive timorousness." Caligula was
"full of threats" against "the barbarians," but at the same time prone to precipitous retreats
and flights of panic. Caligula worked on his "body language" by "practicing all kinds of
terrible and fearsome expressions before a mirror."
Caligula built an extension of his palace to connect with the Temple of Castor and Pollux,
and often went there to exhibit himself as an object of public worship, delighting in being
hailed as "Jupiter Latiaris" by the populace. Later Caligula would officially open temples
in his own name. Caligula was brutal in his intimidation of the senate, whose members he
subjected to open humiliations and covert attacks; many senators were "secretly put to
death." "He often inveighed against all the Senators alike." "He treated the other orders
with like insolence and cruelty." Suetonius recites whole catalogues of "special instances
of his innate brutality" towards persons of all walks of life. He enjoyed inflicting torture,
and revelled in liquidating political opponents or those who had insulted or snubbed him
in some way. He had a taste for capital executions as the perfect backdrop for parties and
banquets. Caligula also did everything he could to sully and denigrate the memory of the
great men of past epochs, so that their fame could not eclipse his own: "He assailed
mankind of almost every epoch with no less envy and malice than insolence and cruelty.
He threw down the statues of famous men...," and tried to destroy all the texts of Homer.
Caligula "respected neither his own chastity nor that of any one else." He was reckless in
his extravagance, and soon emptied out the imperial treasury of all the funds that old
Tiberius had squirreled away there. After that, Caligula tried to replenish his coffers
through a system of spies, false accusations, property seizures, and public auctions. He
also "levied new and unheard- of taxes," to the point that "no class of commodities was
exempt from some kind of tax or other." Caligula taxed all foodstuffs, took a fortieth of
the award in any lawsuit, an eighth of the daily wages of the porters, and demanded that
the prostitutes pay him a daily fee equal to the average price charged to each individual
customer. It is rumored that this part of Caligula's career is under study by those planning
George Bush's second term. Caligula also opened a brothel in his palace as an additional
source of income, which may prefigure today's White House staff. Among Caligula's