(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Conqueror of the Seas [1] ['Thom Hartmann', 'Greg Dworkin', 'Momma O'] Date: 2026-09-09 Our Glorious Leader’s recent quirk of laying claim to large bodies of water puts me in mind of another emperor who dared to challenge Neptune himself. His father, Germanicus, was a general under the Emperor Tiberius and when he was little, he and his family accompanied his father on campaigns His father gave the tyke a little Roman uniform to wear, and he used to march around the camp in his little army boots shouting “Sinister! Dexter! Sinister! Dexter!” All right. I made that last part up. But regardless, the soldiers of the camp thought he was adorable, and they called him “Caligula”, or, “Little Boots”, a name which stuck with him the rest of his life. This was probably also the last time in history that the name “Caligula” would be regarded as a term of affection. Little Caligula quickly grew from an adorable toddler into a spoiled brat and pretty much stayed that way for the rest of his career. His mother had been the granddaughter of Emperor Augustus, and so he became involved in the Imperial family pastime: not a Game of Thrones as much as a game of Musical Heirs in which the last man standing when Emperor stopped breathing got the throne. That man was young Caligula, not as cute as he once was, but still a brat on wheels. Once he became emperor, he could do anything he wanted. He could appoint his favorite horse, Invictus, to the Imperial Senate. He could put statues of himself in every temple in the Empire. He could cosplay as gods and demand that everyone address him as such. And no one could tell him “No”; not nasty Granny Livia, not dead Uncle Tiberius, not those doddering old fools in the Senate, nor those stupid Woke, PC, DEI generals of the SPQR. Not even his Uncle Claudius, but then, Claudius was a fool and nobody paid any attention to him anyway. Caligula was the most important person in Rome, which meant that he was the most important person in the world. There was one honor, however, which Caligula lacked. He did not have a Triumph, a public ceremony to honor generals who had won important battles, or conquered new territories or defeated significant enemies. The triumphant general would ride through the city in a chariot pulled by four horses and wearing a crown of laurel leaves and a purple robe like a real Big Shot, leading a procession of his soldiers carrying all the gold and valuables and stuff they had seized as tribute which would be donated to the temples. But he couldn’t just award himself a Triumph and hold a parade; he had to first win a battle. He set his sights on a territory none of his predecessors had been able to beat: Britannia. Julius Caesar had considered it during his conquest of Gaul, and even had it penciled in on his calendar for sometime after the Ides of March, but one thing and another and he never had enough time. Grandpa Augustus was too busy crushing the civil war which followed and consolidating the Empire, and Uncle Tiberius… well… Uncle Tiberius was too busy enjoying himself on Epstein Island to bother. Caligula assembled his legions on the northern coast of Gaul, along the English Channel, along with ballistas and war machines and a few triremes to prepare for battle; and then… he stopped. According to the Robert Graves novel, I, Claudius, he had his men wade out into the surf and attack the waves with their swords. And then when he got tired of watching them stab the water, he declared victory against Neptune and told his men to gather up as many seashells as their helmets and the folds of their tunics would hold to serve as the tribute from the defeated foe. So Caligula go his parade, and the seashells enriched the treasury of the City of Rome. To be fair, our source for this story is the Roman historian Suetonius, who lived some generations after Caligula and who belonged to the Senatorial class and had a strong bias against him. They never forgave Caligula for the whole Invictus thing. And although Suetonius does say that Caligula marched his soldiers to the coast and have them gather sea shells, the part about them smiting the surf with their swords and spears is an exaggeration. Makes a funny picture, though. Historians have suggested that Caligula’s soldiers had threatened to mutiny and that the attack on the sea was meant to shame his troops for their cowardice. Or that once Caligula had reached the Channel, he changed his mind and came up with the “War on Neptune” as a way to save face. Or that he never really intended to attack Britannia and the whole thing was a piece of political theater done of P.R. Purposes. I don’t know if any of these explanations are much better for his reputation than “He was a psycho-puppy and did this kind of stuff.” But they do make him sound even more like Trump. Ave Caesar. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/9/9/800095989/community/conqueror-of-the-sea/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/