Following the death of the reclusive Tiberius on March 16, the Roman Senate formally ratified 24-year-old Caligula as emperor by late March, 37 AD. Romans initially celebrated him as a breath of fresh air, the son of the beloved general Germanicus. Within a year, however, illness or unchecked power transformed him, and his short reign became a byword for cruelty, extravagance, and erratic tyranny before his assassination in 41 AD.
Caligula's accession triggered public jubilation rarely seen in Rome; ancient historian Suetonius wrote that over 160,000 sacrificial animals were slaughtered in three months of thanksgiving as citizens hailed him as 'our star,' 'our chick,' and 'our baby.' He was the son of the wildly popular general Germanicus and had spent his childhood in army camps, where soldiers nicknamed him Caligula, meaning 'little boot,' after the miniature military sandals he wore.
The goodwill did not last. Ancient sources, admittedly hostile and possibly exaggerated, describe a ruler who declared himself a living god, engaged in incest with his sisters, planned to make his horse Incitatus a consul, and staged extravagant, bankrupting spectacles including a two-mile floating bridge across the Bay of Baiae so he could ride his horse across it in mockery of a prophecy. Whatever the truth behind the lurid tales, his four-year reign ended in 41 AD when Praetorian Guard officers stabbed him to death, the first Roman emperor to be assassinated by his own guard.