Abstract

On 24 January 41 the emperor Caligula was murdered. Modern scholarly interpretations mainly focus on the alleged attempt by the senate to restore the republic. Taking a different point of view, this paper focuses on the act of murder itself. Caligula’s assassination was, after all, an act of violence against an emperor - unprecedented in the principate so far. It is argued that, by portraying the killing as justified, the narratives of the conspiracy fulfilled two main functions. On the one hand, they can be viewed as immediate responses to views which questioned the violence against Caligula. On the other hand, they develop mechanisms on how to deal with an emperor who was no longer deemed acceptable.