Caligula's tomb found after police arrest man trying to smuggle statue

[Joanne98]

The lost tomb of Caligula has been found, according to Italian police, after the arrest of a man trying to smuggle abroad a statue of the notorious Roman emperor recovered from the site.

After reportedly sleeping with his sisters, killing for pleasure and seeking to appoint his horse a consul during his rule from AD37 to 41, Caligula was described by contemporaries as insane.

With many of Caligula's monuments destroyed after he was killed by his Praetorian guard at 28, archaeologists are eager to excavate for his remains.

Officers from the archaeological squad of Italy's tax police had a break last week after arresting a man near Lake Nemi, south of Rome, as he loaded part of a 2.5 metre statue into a lorry. The emperor had a villa there, as well as a floating temple and a floating palace; their hulks were recovered in Mussolini's time but destroyed in the war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/17/caligula-tomb-found-police-statue

[Turbineguy]

1. OK, maybe he was crazy.

But he knew how to put on some great orgies!

[somone]

2. Cambridge prof not so sure:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2011/01/this-isnt-caligulas-tomb.html

... Caligula was assassinated in his palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome in 41 AD. According to Suetonius' Life (chap 59), his body was taken to the horti Lamiani, the site of an imperial pleasure gardens on the Esquiline Hill. There he was quickly cremated and buried a light covering of turf. Later on his sisters returned, to cremate and bury it properly.

There is no suggestion whatsoever, so far as I know, that this burial was at Nemi, or that it was a grand tomb (the Latin just says "buried", sepultum). True, Caligula had a big villa there, but it is almost inconceivable that this assassinated symbol of imperial monstrosity would have been given a grand monument, plus a big statue there.

Besides there is no evidence for that whatsoever.

Much more likely is that he had a modest burial in or near the horti Lamiani, or -- as some people think -- that he was slipped into the big Mausoleum of Augustus (where many of the imperial family ended up).

[Joanne98]

3. Time will tell.

:hi:

[thaddeus_flowe]

4. i was under the impression all prominent romans were cremated,

and no one was buried within the city walls.

but don't ask me i'm just a classics major.

[Tutankhamun]

5. He started out as a sensible ruler with a knack for good PR.

He freed a bunch of political prisoners, restarted a large building project that his predecessor, Tiberius, had stopped, and was adored by the Roman people. This after he sweet talked the senate into giving him absolute power.

Then he vanished from public view, was rumored to be near death and finally emerged after several months, to the delight of the Roman people. But he came back apparently insane. He was still well liked by the public when he died.

[cliffordu]

6. My kind of party monster

:rofl:

[bluedigger]

7. They could both be right.

He could well have built a tomb and due to the manner of his disposition never occupied it.