Caligula: Emperor of Rome

This is a nice introductory text to the third Roman Emperor Caligula. Ferrill does not mince words. He labels Caligula a crazy man. I think historians sometimes look at all angles and miss the clear cut focus of what some people are. Ferrill does not do this. In his opinion, Caligula had few redeeming qualities and it was fortunate he was murdered in his 3+ year rule. This is a nice short read of this infamous man. Ferrill does a good job on the analysis of the man. It is too bad some want to find a redeeming characteristic in this individual.

Arther Ferrill's main purpose seems to refute modern authors like Balsdon and Barrett who have whitewashed Caligula. In that he is successful. Even if Caligula did not do everything Suetonius says, he seems to have been capricious, tyrannical and at least unbalanced. Tacitus's version is lost, but elsewhere in his writings he constantly refers to Caligula as "mentally disordered", of a "horrible character" and whose impulses "shifted like a weather-cock". Balsdon and others probably went too far in discounting Suetonius and Tacitus, and Ferrill restores the balance, but goes too far. It is absolutely impossible to determine whether, for instance, Caligula committed incest with his sisters or not, and it is as futile for Ferrill to say categoricallly "yes, he did" as it was for others to say, "no, he did not". Ferrill also says categorically that Caligula was "mad". Caligula was probably unbalanced, not surprising given the events of his life, something that Ferrill correctly emphasizes. But who can say that he was "mad" in a clinical sense? Ferrill should be a little more skeptical. But altogether this book was necessary to challenge the whitewashers.