Talk:Caligula

LGBT?

I'm a little confused. Why is Caligula part of the LGBT Wikiproject?

This is not an attack on LGBT, in fact I am very for it. I just don't see the relevance between the two.

Hmm, it was auto-categorized as such by SatyrBot, as the article at that time (January 2007) was in the categories Category:LGBT people from Italy and Category:LGBT royalty (see [1]). These categories were removed on April 10 by User:Radiant! saying "LGBT predicate implies contemporary lifestyle and is rather meaningless when applied to ancient Romans" ([2]). Whether the article is still of interest to the LGBT studies Wikiproject is a question for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies I guess? --Stormie (talk) 10:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Confusing!

The paragraph giving Caligula's lineage starting "His father was son to..." is terribly, terribly confusing. Someone who's familiar with the dynasty should re-write this without all of the indirection. i.e. "His paternal grandmother was daughter to Marcus Antonius and Octavia" might become "His paternal grandmother's parents were Marcus Antonius and Octavia". Or perhaps trim the lineage down a bit to begin with.

The opening part says that Caligula was Nero's brother, while the Nero article puts him as a maternal uncle. The diagram at the bottom effectively makes hims Nero's grandfather. Either I'm missing something here, or somebody needs to clarify these statements. Grifter tm (talk) 06:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm.. OK, Caligula had amongst his siblings a brother, Nero Caesar, and a sister, Agrippina the Younger, mother of Emperor Nero. The problem is, about a month ago, a new user edited Nero Caesar to make it a redirect to Nero (the emperor), even though they're not the same Nero. I have reverted that edit. --Stormie (talk) 08:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It is time for someone to correct, combine or delete this entry!

This is, as stated in more than a few of the previous comments, rife with plagiarism, falsehoods and opinions. These atrocities aside WHO was Caligula? If it is Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus this is a ridicules redundant exercise as many Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus entries can be found elsewhere in Wikipedia! This is why so many people have a dim view of this website! It is a great tool in many ways, but then we have a very non-encyclopedic piece of work like this article as a slap in the face. This is the equivalent of having an entry for Ronald Reagan the 40th President of the United States and another for The Gipper the 40th President of the United States , hey let's throw one in for Dutch Reagan the 40th President of the United States and another for The Great Communicator sometimes referred to as the 40th President of the United States for gosh sakes! Earlier "drafts" of this article had also referred to Gaius Julius Caesar (born July 13, 100 BC)as the same person! Hopefully someone with some balls will actually take this separate article for Caligula, and combine it's few redeeming qualities (with credit given to the proper sources for the plagiarized material!)with existing material for Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.

I have NO DOUBT the idea to publish this sprung from some young college student who watched the movie and did the plagiarizing from sources he/she read. Just like a 20 something gent coming home to show the wife the new CD Pink Floyd came out with Obscured by Clouds and it was only 2 Quid! Only to find out later it is a 35 year old album...

BadMaxx (talk) 03:08, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Which "many Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus entries" are you talking about?

Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus and Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus both redirect to Caligula.

Gaius Julius Caesar is a disambiguation page listing Caligula alongside the many others of that name.

If there are other articles in Wikipedia on the same person that need to be merged with this one, how about you turn the rant down a notch and tell us where they are. Where is the "The Gipper" to Caligula's Caligula? --Stormie (talk) 03:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea what BadMaxx is talking about. I, along with many other hard-working users, have been contributing to this article for over a year and I can assure you that no part of it is plagarized. Also, I have never seen the movie Caligula, but the citations of every single line of this article clearly show that the information is not from that.Hoshidoshi (talk) 21:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Pardon the french, but this may be the shitiest article on Wikipedia. Every single modern historian in the 20th century and on has more than "debated" the aspersions on Germanicus as clear history muckracking by his enemies after his death, and it is all well documented, and yet those same falsehoods are still presented ALL over this article. Shitty shitty writing and why this site will never ever ever be an actual source for scholarship. Fuck all of you.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.85.128.217 (talk • contribs)

When you're done fucking all of us maybe you could add this "well documented" information. I like reading about corrupt leaders, but I like even more reading about corrupt historians. So name names if you can and remember to source the material. By the way, when it's my turn to get fucked, give me a call first so I can shower. 173.49.91.134 (talk) 17:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

New lead

I've expanded the lead to conform with Wikipedia guidelines regarding article length. Comments and suggestions are welcome here. I've also restructured his early life slightly by eliminating redundant headings. I just felt that the length of these paragraphs simply did not warrant separate subheadings of their own. --Steerpike (talk) 15:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. This is an excellent article, but some improvements to consider include some modern scholarship (i.e. on Caligula's boats) and the tidying of short sentences and other MoS checks. Otherwise, this might potentially make FA. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Jackyd101 (talk) 22:00, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Wives

There is not a mention of Caligula's wives at all, though I believe he had four; Junia Claudilla, Livia Orestilla, Lollia Paulina and Milonia Caesonia. Sources include Suetonius and Tacitus, as cited on the wives' pages. Eric B 13:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The name "Germanicus"

This name was posthumously given to Nero Claudius Drusus (Drusus the Elder) in 9 BC. Although the name was hereditary, it was possessed only by the head of the family. Hence when it awarded to Drusus, it simultaneously went also to his elder surviving son, who may have been originally called Nero Claudius Drusus or Ti. Claudius Nero, but is known to us as Germanicus. As I understand it, when Germanicus died in 19, the name was passed onto his eldest son, Nero Julius Caesar. When Nero died in 30, he had no issue so the name went across to Germanicus' second eldest son, Drusus Julius Caesar. Drusus Caesar died issueless in 33, whence the name was passed across to Germanicus' third son, Caius Julius Caesar (Caligula). Caligula thus only became Germanicus in 33, upon the death of his eldest survivng brother.82.44.82.115 (talk) 16:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly true, the emperor Claudius had the name Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus before his accession upon Caligula's death, undermining your point that it was merely held by the eldest surviving son. Claudius, brother of Germanicus himself was a second son of the aforementioned Drusus the Elder. As far as I know the name Germanicus was one given to Caligula at birth. -- fdewaele, 29 July 2008, 22:00 CET

Hiya. Yes, but Claudius (born Ti. Claudius Drusus) only received the name Germanicus (and Nero)in AD 4, when Germanicus, his elder brother, upon his adoption by Tiberius, became a member of the gens Julia (Tiberius was himself adopted by Augustus at the same time). Although he did not abandon it completely, at that point Germanicus went from using the honorific as an hereditary cognomen to using it as a praenomen (i.e. he became Germanicus Julius Caesar). Upon Germanicus' passing out of the Claudii Nerones and into the Julii Caesares, Claudius became Drusus the Elder's eldest legal son and thus head of the Claudii Nerones (and in doing so also took the name Nero which he did not previously carry), and as a result the honorific should have passed to him alone.

Germanicus' sons were all born after his transferance into the Julii Caesares, they never belonged to the Claudii Nerones. My problem is this: on what grounds were Drusus Caesar, Nero Caesar, and Caligula entitled to use the cognomen Germanicus if they were never Claudii Nerones? Maybe it's just safest to assume that by the time his sons were being born, Germanicus had sufficient clout to just ignore the original rule about the name going only to the senior male of that family. After all Claudius, as emperor, seems not to have worried about the rules when naming his own son Germanicus (later Britannicus)... 82.44.82.115 (talk) 17:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Caligula challenged a planet?

From the current article:

He focused much of his attention on ambitious construction projects, annexed Mauretania, and challenged Neptune in his campaign against Britain, but was prevented by Neptune from conquering it.

The word "Neptune" is linked to the Wikipedia entry for the planet Neptune. Surely this cannot be correct; I don't think a distant planet prevented Caligula from conquering Britain! However, I do not know what the correct link should be. Vocaro (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It should be (and now is) Neptune (mythology) - you can find that on Neptune (disambiguation), like wot it says on Neptune. -- Ian Dalziel (talk) 19:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The article said that there are few sources, but...

if that's the case, then why is this article so long? If there were only a few relevant sources on Caligula's rule, only a few that were written any time close to when he ruled, then why is this article so damn long? I think that we can reasonably conclude that much of this article is nothing more than educated guesses, which hardly seems worthy to be in an encyclopedia.206.51.184.198 (talk) 16:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Historiography

I think it might even be worse than that. A large number of the citations revolve around the writings of Tacitus's Annals. The oldest copy of that appears to be from the 11th century and it's written in latin. Also from the 11th century, the official birth date of [William I of England] is "around 1028". It appears there are hardly any primary sources for the first king of england a thousand years ago. It's hard to imagine what would have existed then for a thousand years before that. We need to unwind the fiction and sort out the reality here rather than rely on a potential history that might have been convenient to or invented by the catholic encyclopedia. Jeff Carr (talk) 11:06, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Cailgula or Victora Hesketh

Should Little Boots now go directly to the musician Victoria Hesketh rather than this page.

I would assume that with her impending stardom more users of Wikipedia will search Little Boots looking for her rather Caligula. In fact I didnt even know it was his nickname until i searched for the musician.--Footix2 (talk) 09:04, 15 January 2009 (UTC)