Incitatus, Political Ineptitude, and Senators

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. – attributed to St. Augustine

The Roman Empire lasted over a period of 1,000 years, beginning with the 27 B.C., and ending in the East with the Byzantine Empire. The Roman Empire is the post-Republican period of ancient Rome, and it stretched around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. It was ruled by emperors, with the capital Rome in Latium until 476 A.D.

The imperial insignia was sent to Constantinople (the Eastern Empire eventually became the Byzantine Empire) after the capture of the Western Empire capital in Ravenna by Germanic barbarians when the last Emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed by the barbarian leader Odoacer.

The end of classical antiquity is considered 380 A.D. when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. According to historians, the Middle Ages began after this significant event.

There were approximately 185 emperors in the Western and Eastern Empire throughout its tumultuous history, some better than others.

The Roman Empire died slowly for many reasons, i.e., greed, political ineptitude, criminality, imperial insanity, murder, immorality, expansion across the globe, far and wide colonization mismanagement, severe political corruption, military campaigns, lead poisoning causing severe debilitations, sexual perversions and depravity, barbaric tribal invasions, and more.

Historians, often writing years and decades after specific emperors had died, with prejudice and often minimal and biased sources, have been considered as the ultimate source of information for that period.

Suetonius wrote in the Lives of the Twelve Caesars (121 A.D.) about Caligula’s (third Roman Emperor) alleged deeds and intentions during his reign (37-41 A.D.).

Caligula planned, derisively perhaps, to make his beloved horse, Incitatus (Fast Moving in Latin), a consul. The equine Incitatus would welcome politicians and patricians to dine with him in a house where servants fed him in a marble stable with an ivory manger and imperial purple blankets. Incitatus was purportedly adorned with a collar of precious gems.

Cassius Dio (155-235 A.D.) wrote that Incitatus was fed oats mixed with gold flakes and Caligula had made him a priest.

These accounts were discredited by some historians who believed that the current emperors were perhaps discrediting previous emperors, or the writers were after more readership indulged by sensationalism. Some historians wrote that perhaps Caligula had intended to provoke the Senate staffed initially by 100 senex (“old men”) from the patrician class, whose jobs were so easy to perform that even a horse could do it.

There is no solid evidence that Incitatus was ever made a consul. The story of Incitatus seems to exemplify political ineptitude.

There is a record via Josephus, writing under his emperor-patron Vespasian, that the “mad” Emperor Caligula tried to have a statue of himself installed in the Temple of Jerusalem in 39 and 40 A.D. Had he not been murdered in 41 A.D., this desecration would have started a war as the Jews would not have taken kindly to such an insult.

The history of the Roman emperors is brutal, as the use of violence was a typical method to obtain and to keep power. For example, the reigns of both Claudius and Caligula had been blood-soaked.

According to the World History Encyclopedia, there were initially 100, then 300 members of the Senate chosen from the patrician class during the 3^rd century B.C. During the reforms of Sulla in 81 B.C., the number increased to 500 senex. Julius Caesar increased the number to 900, some of whom came from non-patrician classes, important individuals from cities. Augustus reduced that number to around 600. Roman Senate - World History Encyclopedia

Roman Senators served for life and their rank “carried certain privileges such as the right to wear a toga with Tyrian purple stripe (latus clavus), a senatorial ring, special shoes, an epithet (later with three ranks: clarissimi, spectabiles, illustres), certain fiscal benefits, and the best seats at public festivals and games.” Senators could not leave Italy without the entire Senate’s approval, could not own large ships, or bid for state contracts. Roman Senate - World History Encyclopedia

How things have changed over the centuries! All it takes today to become one of the 100 powerful Senators, often for life, is an ignorant populace who votes by mail because they might get sick with a virus they are vaccinated and boosted against, swayed by a brainwashing and disingenuous main stream media, the deep pockets of a few elites interested in the election of the candidate they support, and sufficient boxes of ballots “cast” for Democrats by dead Americans and illegals, found miraculously in dark hidden places, and then counted weeks and weeks after election day.