it was typical after a failed assassination attempt to execute the
pretender
to the throne and execute, humiliate and publicly torture his accomplices.
what would YOU do as an autocrat if an assassination attempt went awry?
sleep with their wives in public? bankrupt the economy and force the
senate
to serve as your lackeys in collecting taxes. turn a prosperous state to
ruin as revenge for being poisoned? how pissed off would you be?
especially
if a majority of the senate had been involved in the attempt? one account
of
a young emperor's 'sudden illness'. that's a little suspicious in itself.
of
course. there may have been an edict against mentioning it.... but in a
sect
that already faced persecution... that may not have held much authority.
at
bare minimum, if you consider caligula's 'illness' as a failed
assassination
attempt, his subsequent actions become more understandable if the
political
logic of the times is used. or maybe he was just wackykookashoobie and
learned nothing after 20 years in the confidence of the imperial family
and
several years in the favor of tiberius. why besides an attempt at
accession
to power would a 'beloved' emperor (as he was at that time) face
assassination, he attempted to reform taxes and pardoned some taxation
victims, that's bound to piss some people off.
