Caligula

Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus (AD 12–41), known as Caligula, was the third Roman emperor, ruling 37–41. The son of the general Germanicus and Agrippina, he followed his father's campaigns as a boy in a miniature soldier's outfit, and the soldiers nicknamed him Caligula, 'little boot'. After Germanicus's death he joined Tiberius.

When Tiberius died in 37, the Praetorians hailed the 24-year-old and the Senate gave him in one day all Augustus's powers. He doubled the Praetorians' payment, gave every citizen in Rome 150 sesterces, built theatres and aqueducts, annexed Mauretania and abandoned an invasion of Britain.

Ancient writers, mostly senators, portrayed him as a tyrant who demanded worship as a god and planned to make his horse Incitatus consul; modern historians doubt many of these stories. In January 41 Praetorian tribunes killed him beneath the palace, with his wife and daughter. The Praetorians made his uncle Claudius emperor.