When Caligula made his men fight the ocean

There's an old story about Caligula, the Roman emperor from 37 to 41 AD, that he had his men line up and attack the sea one day, complete with infantry stabbing the ocean. And some older accounts even say that he made the catapults and other siege engines line up for the attack as well.

We hadn't originally planned on discussing it much in our podcast on the stupidest wars, but in typical Blake and Logan fashion, we ended up talking about it for 10 minutes when I hadn't read up on the details in 10 years.

So I thought I should go and refresh myself on the details and do a post here with more of the info.

So, Caligula. First of all, he had a short and contentious reign, and many of the stories from his life were written after his death by writers who either had an issue with him or else had patrons who did. So it's hard to know if the craziest stories about him, like that he tried to make his horse a consul of Rome, are true. Could just be all the haters got free reign to write his obituaries uncontested after his assassination in 41 AD.

One of the crazier stories about him is the aforementioned battle against the sea, sometimes described as a war against Neptune (Rome's Poseidon, for anyone who has trouble keeping track of the Roman gods, like yours truly. We used the Green names in the podcast.).

The potential battle took place in Europe in 40 AD. The young emperor had originally headed north to fight Germanic tribes, but found that his lieutenants had successfully dealt with the border issues before his arrival. So he basically led some exercises, maybe led a tiny expedition across a river, and then found himself with little to do.

But then a British prince gave him a real chance at glory. Adminius fought with his father and brothers and slipped to the continent to seek Roman assistance. In Gaul, he entreated Caligula for help.

Caligula then sent his troops to the coast.

What happens next differs by account. Maybe Caligula sailed out on a trireme for a little while, maybe he didn't. Maybe he climbed to the top of a large platform to watch the operations and give orders, maybe he didn't.

But regardless, the accounts agree that Caligula ordered his men to line up on the coast. He prepared them for the attack, even though they were still an entire English Channel away from Britain, and then ordered them to...collect seashells.

As a monument of his victory, he erected a lofty tower, from which lights were to shine at night to guide the course of ships, as from the Pharos.​ Then promising the soldiers a gratuity of a hundred denarii each, as if he had shown unprecedented liberality, he said, “Go your way happy; go your way rich.”

Yup, seashells, as a trophy of conquest. And then he paid his men a 100 denarii bonus for their work (called a donativa), established a lighthouse, and screwed off.

Or maybe he ordered his men to attack the sea with swords.

Again, the whole story could be bullshit dropped on the world by his haters after his death. And, even if true, the accounts differ on many of the details.

Side note: wouldn't it be great if, at the end of a campaign, you got a bonus if it went well? In Rome, the donativa became common and eventually could triple or quadruple a soldier's income.

To be fair to Caligula, he wasn't the only ancient leader accused of attacking the ocean. Xerxes reportedly ordered men to whip the ocean 300 times. (Or he might have done the whipping himself.) Apparently, he'd ordered some nice bridges for an attack on Greece with 300,000 men only to find the bridges destroyed by sea swells. So he ordered the whipping, executed the engineers, and got himself some new bridges. Once he was on the continent, he got his ass kicked and had to retreat, only to find that the bridges were, once again, broken. Waves must've been pretty pissed off about all the whipping.