Teaching Ancient Biography
by Dr. Margaret Cotter-Lynch, Southeastern Oklahoma State University
Original text © 2005. Margaret Cotter-Lynch.
Discussion Section: Caligula: Suetonius vs. "I, Claudius"
- What did you think of the movie?
- Did it cause you to think of Caligula differently than the book, or did it reconfirm what you already thought?
I start off by asking students to identify differences between the book and the movie. I point out that the differences can be divided into three broad categories:
1) factual differences, e.g. Drusilla’s role
2) the order and structure of the story
3) perspective (what difference does it make for the story to be told by Claudius?)
I ask students to talk about how these categories of differences work, and what they do to our perceptions of the story and the character of Caligula.
Next I turn to the topic of insanity. The movie leans on the idea of Caligula’s insanity significantly more than the book does. This raises two important questions for the consideration of character, which I use to start a student discussion:
1) is Caligula responsible for his actions?
2) does his level of responsibility influence whether or not we can call him a villain?
Finally, from this discussion, I move on to asking students to develop a definition of villainy. Caligula is the first of several characters we will read about who are often cited as examples of villainy: Nero and Medea are both coming up in the syllabus. When we read the Iliad, there was some debate as to the heroism or villainy of people like Agamemnon and Achilles, but Caligula, Nero, and Medea would seem to be in a clearly different category. What the difference between someone who may be villainous in certain ways or in certain actions, and a clear villain?
