Did Emperor Caligula Really Make His Horse A Roman Senator?

Emperor Caligula

Caligula was a Roman Emperor from 37AD to 41AD. All in all he was considered to be a pretty rubbish Emperor too! People thought he was mad, cruel and generally very unpredictable. This made him a very dangerous man to cross and he spent a lot of time putting people to death. Some historians think that his madness may have been brought on by an illness he suffered early on in his reign. Either way, Caligula was known for doing some rather peculiar things during his time as Emperor.

An illustration of Caligula toasting his horse - Courtesy of Victor Adam

A Pampered Pony

The award for Caligula's top peculiarity goes to his relationship with his horse, Incitatus. The Emperor adorned many lavish gifts on his pet. He apparently gave the horse a marble stall to sleep in, a jewelled collar to wear and an ivory manger to drink from. The horse was so pampered that he even had real gold in his diet!

Politics Is Horseplay

But the oddities didn’t stop there. Rumour has it that Caligula tried to make Incitatus into a consul. If you’re not sure what a consul is – it’s one of Rome’s highest political leaders! As you can imagine, the other Roman politicians were pretty insulted by the whole affair. But that was probably Caligula’s plan all along.

A Sticky End

Luckily for the Roman politicians, Caligula died before he could successfully make his horse a consul. Nobody knows what happened to the horse after that.

Less lucky for Caligula though, who was murdered by members of his own body guard. But then he did spend much of his time mocking them. So he probably had it coming!