Caligula’s assassination

The Palace on the Palatine, with its colonnades and shadowed corridors, had become a theater for abrupt reversals. By early 41 CE, Caligula’s costly spectacles, conflicts with the Senate, and unpredictable edicts had sapped the loyalty of those who guarded his doors. The Praetorians were the hinge. Their prefects and tribunes, men accustomed to reading the room, now counted threats rather than honors [3][4].

On a winter day, as the emperor left a performance—Dio names the theater; Suetonius pictures the scene—the conspirators struck. The sound was intimate and brutal: the thud of bodies against stone, the rasp of blades, a cry that vanished into the thick air of torch smoke. Caligula fell; blood slicked polished floors the color of pale honey. The princeps’ voice ended mid-gesture [3][4].

What followed was improvisation. Courtiers scattered through the Palatine’s gardens; senators tried to reconvene, to reclaim initiative in the Curia. In the Praetorian camp near the Viminal, tribunes rallied their men, uncertain whether to seize power, sell it, or restore the old res publica at last. Rome had not seen a day like this since Antony and Octavian contended in the Forum [4][14].

Suetonius preserves the whispers and accusations; Dio supplies the structure: a ruler who had alienated pillars of support, a Guard that could end a reign in a hallway, a Senate quick to debate and slow to decide. The rhythms of government dissolved into a chaos of shouted orders and clattering sandals on stone [3][4].

By nightfall, the city knew two things. Caligula lay dead. And the real question was not whether emperors should exist, but who would be emperor tomorrow. In a nearby room, behind a curtain, a man was found—Claudius—who would answer that question with the Guard’s help [3][14].