Okayyyy

[DanM]

This is the waciest thing about rome ive heard! Caligual appointed his horse as a consul in the senate! I wonder if he was the patrician or plebian consul, although I would think he would be patrician because he was royal.

[Jona Lendering]

The story is exaggerated. Caligula threatened to make his horse consul, probably when he was angry at a group of senators. Imagine he shouted something like "You fools, even my horse would be a better consul than any of you!" Many of his sarcastic jokes were later taken as evidence for his madness.

Note, by the way, that the tension between Senate and executive (= emperor with beginning bureaucracy) played an important role during the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. The emperors found the senators impractical, and organized a second structure of government: bureaucrats, led by freedmen. The solution was found by Vitellius, who was the first to appoint knights as head of the departments.