I know there have been several questions about Caligula and his madness.
I would just like to know, if the rumors or the myths about Caligula creating a brothel and forcing the wives of the senators to work for him in it are true ? Are there any evidence by Dio for example ?
I guess the way it is shown in the movie Caligula from 1979 is definitely not true.
Thanks.
"Caligula" is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty. Disgusted and unspeakably depressed, I walked out of the film after two hours of its 170-minute length. That was on Saturday night, as a line of hundreds of people stretched down Lincoln Ave., waiting to pay $7.50 apiece to become eyewitnesses to shame.
It's a powerful review and it damns society as much as it damns the filmmakers. Gore Vidal had a good laugh at how terribly that movie turned out.
Ok, on to the sources. The brothel thing is in Suetonius:
To leave no kind of plunder untried, he opened a brothel in his palace, setting apart a number of rooms and furnishing them to suit the grandeur of the place, where matrons and freeborn youths should stand exposed. Then he sent his pages about the fora and basilicas, to invite young men and old to enjoy themselves, lending money on interest to those who came and having clerks openly take down their names, as contributors to Caesar's revenues.
Nothing here about specifically senators' wives, but matrons and freeborn youths is outrageous enough.
Suetonius has a reputation for being a gossip, and as being unreliable. I think that is unfounded. He gossips, sure, but he tells us when he is gossiping. For instance, there is the oft-repeated claim that Caligula made a horse consul. That is not what Suetonius says. What he says is:
it is also said that he planned to make him consul.
Two things to note here. 1) he planned to make his horse consul; it was not a thing that actually happened 2) it is also said! He's upfront reporting a rumor. When Suetonius gossips, he tells you he's gossiping.
Suetonius is also special in that as Hadrian's secretary he had access to the imperial archive, and uses it, so that he tells us about some personal letters Augustus wrote, or the contents of a will; things of that sort. He sometimes quotes directly. There is no reason to think he's making those up.
So, with that information about Suetonius' method, we go back to the brothel statement. Suetonius gives this statement as fact, not rumor. Nothing about "it is said" there. Also, we get a report of records: clerks keeping notes on patrons as imperial revenue. Those records might have been available to Suetonius in the archive.
I would need a strong argument to disbelieve Suetonius on this point. Tacitus is lost for this period. I can't think of where else such an argument might arise.
Wow that’s a very detailed answere. Thanks very much.
Sadly there has been made several rumors about Roman emperors and Roman society by media and especially movies.