Last time: 23) Harmodius and 24) Aristogeiton were killed rebelling against 25) Hipparchus (whose father-in-law, 26 Charmus of Kollyton had been sexual partner, at different times, to his brother 27 Hippias and father 28 Peisistratus) during the ritual torch relay to the Parthenon, whose main architect also created the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, which was particularly admired by 29) Caligula (12-41 AD).
29) Caligula (12-41 AD) has become one of the most notorious and eccentric of all the Roman Emperors. Among his sexual eccentricities were dating a Senator and a male actor at the same time, and allegedly committing incest with his sisters. The Senator even complained often about being exhausted by Caligula’s bedtime activities.
A lot of Caligula’s eccentricities can be misinterpreted. For example, the famous story of him making his favourite horse a senator could easily be thought of as a sign of madness. But it could also be interpreted as a jibe against what he thought was the standard of the debate and actions of the then Senate. He thought his horse would do a better job. I’m sure you’ve even made comments yourself that a horse or something could do a better job than your local politician.
Like many Roman Emperors (and a couple of Presidents in 2026), Caligula had an over-inflated opinion of themselves. One of his egomaniac projects was to have all the statues of Greek gods and heroes transported from Greece to Rome. There they would have their heads removed and replaced with carved portraits of his own head. One of these statues was that of Zeus at Olympia.
However, the statue of Zeus, or maybe Zeus himself, who knows, made it known that it thought of Caligula’s plan. The Greek writer Suetonius writes that scaffolding was erected around the statue and workmen were preparing to disassemble it for transportation to Rome. It was at this point that the workmen heard the sound of laughter coming from the statue. The laughter was so loud and hard that the scaffolding collapsed. The workmen ran off in terror and swore never to return to finish their task. This is probably one of those apocryphal stories that were popular at the time.
After Caligula’s assassination his successor and the Roman Senate wanted to make sure that he was erased from history. In Rome there was a process called “damnatio memoriae”, which means “damnation of memory”, a kind of ancient “cancel culture”.
Modern cancel culture has led to many statues and memorials have been defaced of removed from public sight because of that person’s supposed link to an issue that goes against the personal beliefs of an activist. In the instance of Caligula’s “damnatio memoriae”, all his statues, portraits and inscriptions were to be defaced and his properties seized by the state. The Senate wanted to ensure that that no-one ever heard about him again. Luckily, there are many surviving records, like the writings of Suetonius mentioned above, and things like coins across the Roman Empire and beyond that testified to his existence.
A lot of the statues and busts of Caligula were simply thrown in to rivers. Many of them were re-cut in order to change the resemblance from Caligula to another emperor. Above is one of many examples of Caligula’s face being re-sculpted into that of his successor, Claudius (currently in the archaeological museum at the site of Carsulae, Umbrio, Italy; photos by Eric R. Varner, “The Digital Sculpture Project”, 2013). The front view is obviously more successful than the side view.
How ironic. The emperor who wanted to removed the heads of gods from statues and replace them with sculptures of his own head, ended up having his face removed from his own statues and replaced.
Other regimes throughout history have tried to erase the evidence of a person’s existence or presence purely because of a difference of opinion or politics. Not all of them went as far as complete obliteration from the records as attempted by Rome. You’ve probably seen footage of statues to dictators being knocked down following a coup.
The USSR, of the Soviet Union (1922-1991), was one of the most notorious regimes for removing people from their records. One of the most famous cases was that of 30) Nikolai Yetzov (1895-1940).
Nikolai Yezhov was the People’s Commisar (Chairman) of the Party Control Commission of the Central Committee, or NKVD (what preceded the dreaded KGB). In effect he was head of the Soviet secret police.
In 1937 he became responsible for what is known as the Great Purge, or Yezhovshchina (the Age of Yezhov). He became one of those gay men who should never become a role model.
The Great Purge was called by Soviet leader Josef Stalin to deal with any opposition or criticism of his leadership. Any member of the Communist Party could be arrested and executed at Yezhov’s command, including their wives and children. Ethnic groups and the Russian Intelligentsia were also targeted. Most of the non-political prisoners were sent to the Gulag labour camps. During the first year of the Purge over half a million people were sent to the Gulags. When the Gulags became too overcrowded Yezhov ordered prisoners to be executed.
Eventually, but only after about 1.2 million people were killed, did Stalin think that Yezhov had over-stepped his authority and was doing more harm than good for the Communist Party. Yezhov’s undoing was his attempt to arrest the leader of the Georgian branch of the NKVD. The suspect convinced Stalin to help him overthrow Yezhov. Yezhov knew that his days were numbered and he resigned in November 1938. He was arrested five months later.
Yezhov confessed (probably by force) to incompetence and that the Great Purge had led to crimes against the state. He even confessed to being gay and having a string of homosexual partners, despite being married. He was found guilty and executed on 4th February 1940.
What connects Nikolai Yezhov to Caligula is what happened after his death. Because Yezhov has no statues erected to him, the only method available at the time to remove his image was to remove him from all official photographs, particularly ones which showed him with Stalin and other senior Soviet politicians, like the “before and after” example below.
During his arrest and confession to homosexual activity he admitted to having an affair with another leading Soviet figure, 31) Filipp Goloshchyokin (1876-1941).
Like Yezhov, Goloshchyokin has been named as the man responsible for the deaths of over a million of his own countrymen. He was from Kazakhstan, at the time a constituent “republic” of the Soviet Union. By 1925 he had become the virtual dictator of Kazakhstan. Stalin introduced his policy of collectivisation of agriculture, effectively forcing all peasant families to stop producing food for themselves and making them work for state-run farms with dozens of other families. The theory behind this was that it produced more food for equal distribution around the Soviet Union, in particular for the growing industrial urban centres. The actual effect was that it deprive rural peasants of their livestock and not producing enough food for them to live on. The result was widespread famine.
Under Golshchyokin’s zealous implementation of this policy an estimated 2 million Kazakhs died of starvation, 40% of the population, because most of the food they produced went to the cities.
It was at the beginning of this policy that Goloshchyokin met and had an affair with Nikolai Yezhov. During the Great Purge Goloshchyokin was sure he was safe as long a Yezhov was running the NKVD. Not long after Yezhov was arrested and admitted to their affair Goloshchyokin was also arrested. He, too, was executed.
Yet, the general public are unaware of the Kazakh Famine, or of Goloshchyokin’s role in it. What they might know more about is a previous massacre that he was personally responsible for – the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II and the imperial Romanov family. Goloshchuokin’s role in the massacre was as the principal captor of the Tsar and his immediate family in Tsarskoye Selo. In fact, he was the man in charge of arranging the killings and disposal of the bodies.
This event is well-known, but what people often forget is that some Romanovs survived, and some were murdered even before the 1917 Russian Revolution by previous revolutionary assassins. One of the victims was 32) Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov (1857-1905).
Next time: Pride and prejudice in Moscow.
