Caligula

"You think you’ve had it bad? I grew up as a hostage in my Uncle Tiberius’s palace. Do you have any idea how evil that man was? I woke up every day expecting to be assassinated, just like the rest of my family. I became a consummate actor. Whatever Tiberius needed me to be, I was. And I survived. But you? Your life has been golden from start to finish. You don’t have the stamina to be mortal."

- Caligula to Apollo in The Burning Maze.

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known as Caligula, was a Roman Emperor and a current god-emperor. He is a Triumvirate Holdings leader alongside Nero and Commodus.

History
Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus was accompanying his father, Germanicus, at the age of three for military campaigns. After seeing how cute he looked in his miniature legionnaire's outfit with caligae, Gaius earned the nickname "Caligula" which meant "Little Boot" by his father's soldiers, he grew to hate the nickname. During his time of youth, he received a prophecy from Tiberius' soothsayer, a Roman astrologer named Thrasyllus. He told him he had as much chance of becoming emperor as he did of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae, meaning it was impossible.

Emperor Tiberius adopted him as a teenager, it was believed that Tiberius killed Germanicus. Frustrated Caligula grew to enjoy watching torture, he was essentially a pampered prisoner. He escaped and took Tiberius' place at age twenty-four when he was killed by Naevius Sutorius Macro upon Caligula's orders. Macro used Tiberius' own pillow on the dying emperor, the previous emperor was said to have been dead many times before but he turned out to be alive.

Caligula became the new emperor the next day but then fell ill several months after taking the position, he grew to distrust Macro and had him arrested, before the execution could be commenced he committed suicide. After that, Caligula killed his rivals and forced parents to watch their sons' executions without fair trials. He ordered a bridge to be built between his palace and the Temple of Jupiter. He even dressed his right-hand horse, Incitatus, in senatorial purple and tried to make him a consul, he trusts him more than anyone. To prove what Thrasyllus said was wrong, Caligula lined up boats across the Bay of Baiae forming a massive pontoon bridge and rode Incitatus across. It was the biggest floating construction project ever attempted. His favorite sister Julia Drusilla, he loved her so much that she died at a very young age from that suffocating love. One of his favorite titles was Neos Helios (Greek meaning new sun), wished to be worshiped as a living god before he died, he was represented as a sun god on Egyptian coins.

One day, Caligula opened a palace at the base of Palatine Hill, making a daring architectural statement by knocking out the back wall of the Temple of Castor and Pollux and using it as his front entrance. The party was on the level of those for the Super Bowl, Apollo and some other gods disguised themselves to join. Caligula took someone dressed as a slave named Cassius Agrippa into an actual slave, he took all his money and property but let his family go. He was also insulted about how Marcus Philo described him as a rabid dog, so he had his tongue cut off, dipped in molten silver and displayed in the Forum. When he noticed Apollo as a gladiator, the disguised god gained his trust by killing the nearest praetorian guard.

Then one night in a tunnel after a sporting event, the emperor was on his way to sailing to Egypt, a land where people understood about living gods, to make a new capital there. But suddenly, Caligula was ambushed by his own praetorian guards and stabbed thirty times with flashing and blood glistening knives, though he was reborn as a god. His uncle, Claudius, was declared the new emperor by the praetorian guard.

In the Series
Caligula, alongside Nero and Commodus, influenced many events throughout history via Triumvirate Holdings -- using the company to fund Luke Castellan during the Second Titan War, and Octavian during the Second Giant War. At some point in time, he bought fifty super-yachts and used them all as a palace sailing near California, each was named after Julia Drusilla. He managed to capture Herophile, the oracle of Erythaea, and lock her into the Labyrinth inside a room filled with lava only available to those wearing his adult-sized caligae. He recruited Medea to help gain the faded essence of her grandfather, Helios, so he can become the new sun god. Caligula also called Naevius Sutorius Macro and Incitatus back to life. The emperor originally had Automatons replace praetorian guards, but since they malfunctioned so many times he exiled them to Palm Springs with Macro, they were replaced by human mercenaries, Strixes and Pandai.

Using his N.H. Financials, a division of the triumvirate, Caligula spent years and tens of millions of dollars filing many legal papers against Tristan McLean, the famous film star, to destroy his credit, assets and reputation with the studios. McLean's former personal assistant, Jane, was in on the plan along with his financial manager, accountant and film agent. He and his daughter, Piper McLean, lost everything except their house Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the one is Malibu was getting repossessed with all things inside being taken to the triumvirate.

The House of Hades
Hazel Levesque mentions him and Nero when Jason is talking about Diocletian, she says that the nuns at St. Agnes Academy for Colored Children and Indians told them they were evil for murdering Christians.

The Hidden Oracle
Caligula makes a small cameo in the penthouse terrace of the building in New York City with Nero and Commodus. Rachel Elizabeth Dare managed to take a picture of them but couldn't see their faces.

The Dark Prophecy
Meg mentions meeting him once, but does not remember his name. She says even Nero fears him, he calls Caligula his "kinsman" as they are related.

The Burning Maze
Before meeting the emperor on Julia Drusilla XII, Apollo dreams of two flashbacks of him. Caligula greets Apollo and Piper after they are taken to his throne room by Incitatus. He taunts Apollo and orders the Pandai they subdued to be executed. Just as he orders Meg and Jason to be executed, he is stunned when Apollo threatens suicide because then he wouldn't be able to become the sun god. Moments later, a Pandos messenger named Flange informs him that the attack on Camp Jupiter that night has failed and the emperor kills him with his own sword. He tells his guards to sail north, Apollo uses this moment to stab himself. Medea tells Caligula that they must perform the ritual before Apollo dies. Unknown to them the tornado prisons start to weaken. He fights Jason, riding Tempest the Storm Spirit, on Incitatus and manages to defeat and kill the son of Jupiter using many arrows and his spear, then he stabbed him with his spear again to make sure he is dead. After the heroes flee, he sails north to the Bay Area.

Personality
Caligula is considered one of the most (if not the most) malevolent Roman emperors in history. Indeed, he is so cruel and ruthless, that even his nephew Nero is said to fear him. Caligula shows little to no concern at all to his subordinates, regularly ordering the execution of anyone who displeases or fails him, Incitatus being the only exception, as he is the only follower whom the god-emperor views as an equal.

Caligula is also extremely power-hungry, always seeking to achieve more power. Back to his reign as emperor, he would disguise himself as several major Olympian gods, such as Mars, Jupiter, or Apollo, and he even gave himself the alias "Neo Helios", which meant "New Sun". His hunger for power made Caligula the first Roman emperor to ever try to become a living god, as he plans to absorb the power of Helios and Apollo in order to become the new god of the sun. Additionally, Caligula is extremely confident, showing no fear that the gods' wrath may fall upon him, even after he profaned a sacred temple of Castor and Pollux, and started to compare himself to the gods. In fact, Caligula has so much confidence, that even Apollo himself became intimidated by him. Caligula was also notorious for his pleasure barges that included huge floating palaces with bathhouses, theatres, rotating statues, racetracks, and thousands of slaves. Despite owning super-yachets, Caligula can't swim, but that didn't faze him.

Appearance
Caligula was young, slender and lithe. He was handsome in a thin angular way, though his ears stuck out a bit too much and were too prominent. His smile was twisted and too thin, and his placid brown eyes that were too far apart had "all the warmth of a barracuda's".

In Apollo's first dream, after Macro killed Tiberius, Caligula wore white robes and sandals. In Apollo's second dream, when Caligula pretended to be him, he was buck naked, painted in gold from head to foot, with a spiky crown of sun rays across his brow.

When the heroes encountered him on his Julia Drusilla XII yacht, Caligula was dressed in white slacks, white boat shoes, a striped blue-and-white shirt, a blue blazer, and a captain's hat. With Medea, it made him look like Daryl Dragon of Captain & Tennille.

Abilities
As a God-Emperor, Caligula can be assumed to be a considerably powerful being.
 * Immortality: Caligula became immortal after becoming a God-Emperor.
 * Fighting Prowess: Caligula is an exceptionally skilled and experienced fighter, displaying great fighting prowess with his spear, as he proves capable of competing against Jason Grace himself, an extremely skilled demigod on par with Percy Jackson, and even managed to eventually defeat and kill him. However, is worth noting that Jason was also trying to protect his friends, while fighting Caligula at the same time.

Trivia

 * Caligula is the first and so far only major antagonist to successfully kill a main character, in his case Jason Grace. While Gaea did manage to kill Leo Valdez near the end of The Blood of Olympus and Surt killed Magnus Chase early in The Sword of Summer, both were revived soon after and Magnus' later deaths were all within Valhalla where he was also rapidly revived. All other characters killed, such as Zoe Nightshade, Michel Desjardins, or Gunilla, were secondary characters.