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Surviving Caligula

Setting: Caligula’s Palace, the Palatine Hill, Rome

Date: 23 January 794 Ab urbe condita (41 A.D.)

The Matter: A Praetorian Guard contemplates Rome’s
future under the Emperor Caligula.

This gladius—this dagger of sharp steel—
Has been my closest comrade since the reign
Of Emperor Augustus. I can feel
It sheathed and waiting. Let it help me feign
Respect for the crazed jackal who now sits
On what was once an honorable throne!
Caligula: rank beast who’s lost his wits
And virtue; whose dark heart is blood-stained stone.

My rage is real. He killed my mother’s brother—
A priest to Jove. The Emperor was bored
So bashed my uncle’s head “and not another
Dreary bull.” He laughed. I gripped my sword
But knew the time was wrong. I held my breath,
Regained control and simply stared ahead
Resolved that this mad beast must meet his death.
My gift to Rome will be his severed head.

Four years ago, Caligula brought hope.
Tiberius had just died in Capri
Which freed Rome from his pedophilic grope.
We thought his nephew would bring sanity,
But then Caligula took gravely ill.
Reviving from his coma he was changed—
Obsessed with finding enemies to kill;
Perverse and vicious. Brutally deranged.

He feeds his lust by taking nobles’ lives;
Their villas, treasures, here and there a slave.
He’s bedded all the Senate’s trembling wives
And grabs whatever assets he might crave.
He often garbs himself as Alexander,
His silken togas glinting with gold dust.
He’ll use my men for rut-play or to pander
Fresh boys or women. Nothing curbs his lust.

His legions march where lunacy compels.
We crossed through Gaul to fight and conquer Britain.
The Channel reached, Caligula yelled “Shells!
We must collect seashells! Let it be written
These shells are spoils from conquest of the Sea!”
He then had Roman soldiers comb the shore,
Swords sheathed, their valor drowned in travesty.
Then back to Rome, abandoning the war!

He tried to have his statue as a deity
Erected in the temple in Judea.
He’s killed friends with demented gaiety
And slaughtered more relations than Medea.
His one unexiled sister, sweet Drusilla,
Became his lover staining both with incest.
In debt, he’s wont to grab some rich man’s villa
Then have him executed without inquest.

But all the madness and the strange abuse,
Including laws debased without remorse,
Was crowned by his attempt to introduce
The Senate’s newest member: a trained horse
Named Incitatus! Members of the Senate
Protested and convinced him to hold back.
But from that day we Guards held to the tenet
That he must die. But how should we attack?

The whispering within the Senate halls
Was no less frequent than among us Guards.
Discretion ruled—spies hid behind thin walls
And schemes to kill him broke apart like shards.
Conspirators all took their turn by lot
But the mad jackal simply would not die.
Caligula pierced through each well-laid plot,
And foes who hate him now despair to try.

O gods who rule our fates, give us our chance!
We have agreed the jackal’s final doom
Be signaled with raised knife and secret glance!
Then let him try to rule us from his tomb!
We’ve learned from failure. We are strong and ready
To save this Empire in its time of need.
My gladius unsheathed is sharp and steady—
It knows for Rome to live the Beast must bleed.

.

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Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals.  He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel  Bleeding Stone.  He lives in Wimauma, Florida.

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31 Responses

  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    This is an amazing piece — historically accurate, meticulously composed, and rhymed to perfection. Many phrases are truly memorable (“his pedophilic grope,” “for rut-play or for pander”), as are rhymes like Medea – Judea and Capri – sanity. And maintaining the high quality for 72 lines is a solid achievement.

    Caligula was the typical youthful psychopath, whose actions were inexplicable except as a reflection of his deep need to be seen as a full-fledged god. Murdering persons on sheer whim, commanding insane and useless things, deliberately outraging traditional Roman mores, wasting vast sums on pointless campaigns just to show his authority to do anything — one could only wish that the Praetorian Guard had acted sooner!

    There were others just as bad or worse — Nero and Elagabalus (the latter a young Arab lunatic with florid religious megalomania). But Caligula has always captured the most attention, because some of his deeds were so outrageously insane that they defied belief.

    Brian told me that he was working on this dramatic monologue, and I have been looking forward to it. I’m not disappointed. It’s a very powerful piece.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much, Joe, both for the appreciation and the inspiration. It was in the midst of a political exchange with you regarding the miseries one might experience living under a capricious, manipulative and amoral government that I was led to consider what it must have been like living under Caligula. Any similarities to contemporary politics are purely intentional.

      The competition for worst emperor — Caligula, Nero or Elagabalus — would make for a fun piece. I think Nero wins because his tyrannies were probably the most consequential. Despite Peter Ustinov’s brilliance in “Quo Vadis.” I vote for Caligula as the most cinematic. The horse proposed as senator has a unique flair. I remember Malcolm McDowell in an outrageously decadent “Caligula” as as frighteningly mad. I vaguely remember John Hurt in I, Claudius as only slightly less scandalous. No one has dared make an Elagabalus film… yet. And now, if it were to be produced in mainstream Hollywood, he would be presented as a lionized martyr.

      Reply
  3. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Great poem with enduring qualities delve into one of the most perverted and cruel eras of Roman history with factual information and lascivious detail. Once again you proved your worth at the pinnacle of poetic brilliance.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much, Roy. I do believe that Roman history has an enormous number of lessons to teach the modern world. There, too, honor collided with depravity. And in Rome a pagan civilization did its best to beat down Christianity into a mere memory. Fortunately — many martyrs later — things did not work out as the pagan Romans planned.

      Reply
  4. C.B. Anderson

    If this poem were any longer it would be a page-turner, but as it sits it delivers gut-shot after gut-shot. I cannot do the things you do, namely, carry out a narrative exhaustively and to the bitter end. Any story you care to tell is a story worth the reading and, therefore, worth my time.

    Reply
  5. Brian A. Yapko

    Thank you, C.B. I especially appreciate the “gut-shot after gut-shot” critique! In all candor, this length poem is about as long as far as I can take it without completely losing my attention span. I truly don’t know how poets who write epic works have the mental stamina to keep going!

    Reply
  6. Daniel Kemper

    Detailed meticulously and the flow, both rhythmically and narratively are well-enhanced by this form. It suits you to a T. Great to develop the story, great to slow the scene down with the key camera shots you give in these stanzas. Egad, my skin crawls!! Well… er… executed! (lol)

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Daniel! I love the cinematic way you describe the piece because I often think of poetry in cinematic terms — the close-up, the flash-back, the dialogue… And I appreciate the “well-executed” pun!

      Reply
  7. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Brian, I knew I was in for a treat when I read your enticing title and (as ever) your linguistic splendor lifted me to vivid scenes of breathtaking wonder. As I’ve mentioned before, you have the enviable ability of breathing life into characters.

    In “Surviving Caligula” the characters transcend the page to stand before me in all their gutsy glory or stomach-churning horror. I especially like the way that in few words, you are able to paint a sweeping picture of an horrific situation. This one line captures this skill perfectly: “Tiberius had just died in Capri / Which freed Rome from his pedophilic grope”. In one line we know exactly what Rome was going through… and at the same time that line speaks to all those watching the kiddy-sniffing clown in the Whitehouse grope (in more ways than one) his way through daily duties. Every stanza of this superlative piece sings to me and the closing stanza simply shines. For me, it captures the eggshell-treading, stark angst of today.

    Brian, I am going to steal a recent comment from James Sale to say: “When will we teach you in schools?” If every student had access to entertaining and eye-opening works such as this, I am certain our future would be brighter.

    Brian, very well done indeed and thank you!!

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Susan! I’m thrilled that you enjoyed this piece (loathsome as the subject may be.) I am even more pleased that you did notice the extremely veiled reference to what it’s like living under leadership which is a combination of incompetent and corrupt, if not full-on depraved. Caligula’s vile, deluded character and his ultimately sticky fate is a reminder that nothing is forever — not even tyranny.

      Reply
  8. Margaret Coats

    There is a most effective double “time scheme” in this poem, with a build-up of raging resentment against Caligula, working contrary to the accumulation of reasons that cause “a despair to try” assassination in his foes. The speaker contributes clear moral and personal emotion, but even he resorts to an almost despairing prayer in the final stanza, before going on to focus more sharply on the Guards themselves. This lifts him and them out of the shadows, to accomplish a deed long since determined, but which comes about only when a few men find the time right in themselves. The poem shows this just about to happen (the following day) in one individual.

    Providing the date in terms of AUC itself gives a sense of how far the city has fallen, as does the speaker’s reference to his own service under Augustus. There’s not really a direct concern with Rome’s future, only with the outstanding cancer of the present that needs to be removed–in the name of everything Rome should stand for, but in particular the military virtues of this one Praetorian Guard who has had so little opportunity to exercise them. The poem thus includes a stark realism about the unknown aftermath of the assassination. This Guard must be at the end of his career, age fifty or more. For a reader who considers this, the final tone of the piece is as much uncertainty, and maybe relief, as hope. All the evils of the past make one Guarded about the future! This is not easy to achieve in a poem that must tend toward the heroic. Well done, Brian, in this as in the details of history, and the easy reading of a longer poem that remains troubling even as it looks toward the conclusion of the story–tomorrow.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Margaret. Your perceptive reading very nicely grasps the timeline for this speaker. Augustus died in 14 AD and this poem takes place 27 years later, so it is indeed the tail end of this guardsman’s career. He watched Rome descend from the glory days of the Pax Romana into sheer degeneracy, and all within a short space of time. The blame, I believe, comes from the top. Augustus was a great emperor. Tiberius was said to be a reasonably good emperor until he left Rome to go live on Capri. Even Caligula was felt to be a good emperor at the beginning. But then he lost his mind and became the depraved brute we are all familiar with. Great achievement is not possible — or, at least, greatly hindered — under mad rule.

      The tone which you discuss was a difficult one for me to establish. The “gist” of the poem is not meant to be a log of indignities inflicted on Rome by Caligula. The gist of it is: how does one survive living under leadership that one finds to be loathsome? What does honor demand in such an instance? Confident submission to authority no matter how objectionable? Or, like the bumper stickers I see often in Florida (quoting Thomas Jefferson) “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.”?

      My speaker, sworn to the former but troubled by injustice, not only does not know what comes “after.” He doesn’t know if he’ll survive the event. But he knows that honor demands he not allow the status quo to continue.

      And brava, Margaret, for going the extra mile to look up the dates! Yes, Caligula is set upon by his Praetorian guards only one day after this poem is set. And I did indeed use the ab urbe condita calendar to emphasize the many centuries of a long and glorious Roman history up to this point.

      Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, James! A beautiful compliment! And you are indeed correct: I am most decidedly not Team Caligula. But I must say, this conversation makes me very much want to revisit “I, Claudius.”

      Reply
  10. Adam Sedia

    You’ve given us another brilliant dramatic monologue from an interesting perspective. Caligula is not viewed through the eyes of the aristocracy (like Suetonius), but through a soldier — who has the power to do something about it. I find it interesting how the “last straw” isn’t his murders or debauches, but the naming of Incitatus as consul. The dignity of the state is what at last motivates the soldier (which makes sense, given he’s probably seen his fair share of murder and rape and depends on the government for his pay).

    The subject of Caligula presents a minefield, since he’s a subject that has been treated seemingly exhaustively (e.g. Camus, “The Robe”), but I think you’ve given us something new. Thank you.

    Again, our interests in Ancient Rome intersect here. My grandmother came from an impoverished quasi-noble family from Abruzzo named De Lollis, which claimed descent from the Roman Lollii. If that’s true, it would include Caligula’s third wife, Lollia Paulina, so I read this with something of a personal interest, too.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much indeed, Adam. You have a fascinating family history! It sounds like great material for some writing projects!

      Reply
  11. Joshua C. Frank

    Brian, your persona poems really make history come alive! I always look forward to reading one more of yours.

    As others have commented, we can’t help but see in Caligula a trial run for today’s corrupt governments. I think the reason these corrupt leaders don’t get assassinated is because even their enemies know that their successors would be more of the same, if not worse (Biden and Harris come to mind).

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      I write this within minutes of learning that Donald Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies that apparently never even existed until dreamed up by a kangaroo court operating as a star-chamber branch of the Democrat Party in NYC. Josh, Caligula is alive and well and, like a demented puppeteer, trying to make sure the people do not get a chance to exercise their right to vote for the candidate of their choice. I’d rather have Caligula’s horse leading the country than that doddering, corrupt zombie with Obama as his regent.

      Thank you for the kind words, Josh, which I don’t mean to ignore in the heat of my disgust at the willingness of so much of our country to go full-on Banana Republic to keep their pet social engineering projects alive. God help us.

      Reply
  12. Patricia Allred

    Wow Brian! A magnificemt piece. And I am in sync with your reply to Joshua! I have been an American for a long, long time. But the current POTUS is another mad, insane leader that cannot ambulate , speak or think in a coherent fashion. Thus, he’s out to kill his opponent by hopefully putting a guiltless, fine man, Trump , behind bars. My Lord, L AOC wants him imprisoned for life, I was answering your email when I got hit with a deluge of mail. How very strange that his conviction is on the very same day Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. My message to Trump supporters is,,,contact Republican HQ in your city, donate. And Trump supports Israel not that part of our world that seeks its destruction.
    Superb job for this day!

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much, Patricia, for the kind words regarding the poem and for your thoughts on the dire events of this day. This is one time when words fail. I believe that this was as corrupt, Kafka-esque trial brought solely for political purposes. I generally resist the idea of conspiracy theories but find it highly improbable that there would be guilty verdicts on all 34 counts. Do you know how statistically improbable that is? Usually when multiple charges are brought the strategy is to maximize the number knowing that only the strongest “beyond-a-reasonable-doubt” charges will actually result in a conviction. Maybe 3 or 4 will stick out of 10. So for 34 out of 34 charges to result in convictions is so statistically improbable as to strongly evince collusion. The verdict was predetermined. The jury didn’t care what the charges were or what the evidence was — they were going to get Trump. And equally so for the judge who should have recused himself, who should have changed venue, who should have done a dozen things differently. Trump’s appeal will no doubt be successful, but the reveral won’t occur until after the election when it can’t hurt Biden anymore. If lawfare can be manipulated in this way against a political candidate, it can be manipulated against anyone. Whether you love Trump or whether you hate him, this is a Rubcon which should never have been crossed. It is a terrifying moment in our nation’s history for what it bodes for the future.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Brian, we now live in a country where the judicial system and the administration of law are hopelessly corrupted and politicized.

        If this kind of utterly unjust and politically rigged kind of lawfare can be successfully used against someone as rich and powerful as President Trump, it can be used against anybody.

        I no longer have any respect for or loyalty to a government where such things can happen. This was exactly like the 1930s Moscow purge-trials in the Stalinist Soviet Union, or the Volks-court sham 1944 trial of the von Stauffenberg defendants under the fanatical Nazi judge Roland Friesler.

        We are now living in a Soviet-Nazi totalitarian state. All bets are off.

      • Brian A. Yapko

        Joe, I know you’re right. But since last night I’ve been thinking about Pearl Harbor and the Japanese thrill at having beaten the Americans. They sorely miscalculated. And as Admiral Yamamoto famously said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

        I think there are many whose eyes have been opened and who face this new day filled with a terrible resolve.

  13. Yael

    This is a most enjoyable poetic history lesson, thank you Brian, I enjoyed reading it very much.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much indeed, Yael. History certainly has much to teach us!

      Reply
  14. Jeff Eardley

    Brian, history and entertainment once more. You are a master of this genre. The great John Cleese once remarked, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” They certainly inspired some wonderful literature, such as the English “Gladiator” song with the observation that “The favourite sport of the Roman rogue is, A few pink gins and off with your togas.” Just off to Wikepedia to see if Caligula was as bad as you say. Thanks for a great read.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Than you very much for this kind comment, Jeff! I’ve never heard of this cheeky “Gladiator Song” and must find it! “What have the Romans ever done for us?” I’m figuratively rolling on the floor laughing. As for your “Caligula” research, I think you’ll find him every bit as loathsome as I’ve described. And don’t be surprised if he gives you a slight case of nausea.

      Reply
  15. Michael Vanyukov

    Human history, onto which your poem, Brian, shines brilliant light, shows the weakness of the argument of progressives that morality we have so imperfectly achieved can be arrived at without a religious foundation. Once G-d is out of the picture, a Beast comes in, a human conferring divinity upon himself and terrorizing the rest.

    Reply
  16. Brian A. Yapko

    Thank you so much, Michael. On assessing the source of so much of the world’s depravity I could not agree with you more.

    Reply

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