An Unconventional Love: Modern Interpretations of Caligula and

Drusilla’s Incestuous RelationshipEmma Southon

IAA

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus

31 August AD 12 – 24 January AD 41 [http://www.apollonius.net/Images/caligula.jpg].

‘He lived in habitual incest with all his sisters... Of these he is believed to have violated Drusilla when he was still a minor, and even to have been caught lying with her by his grandmother Antonia... The rest of his sisters he did not love with so great affection, nor honour so highly.’

• Suet Cal 24

‘When she died, he appointed a season of public mourning, during which it was a capital offence to laugh, bathe, or dine in company with one's parents, wife, or children. He was so beside himself with grief that suddenly fleeing the city by night...he went to Syracuse and hurriedly returned from there without cutting his hair or shaving his beard. And he never afterwards took oath about matters of the highest moment, even before the assembly of the people or in the presence of the soldiers, except by the godhead of Drusilla. ’

• Suet, Cal 24.

• Childhood incest.• ‘Reliquas sorores nec cupiditate tanta nec

dignatione dilexit’• Mourning and honours.

Robert Graves I, Claudius (1934)

Albert Camus, Caligula (1944)

• Jack Pullman/Herbie Wise, 1976 I, Claudius (BBC TV series).

• Bob Guccione/Tinto Brass/Gore Vidal 1979 Caligula. (pornographic film).

• Eric Svejcar, 2004 Caligula: A Glam Rock Epic (musical).

• Douglas Jackson, 2008 Caligula (novel).

I, Claudius BBC TV Series (1976)

Bob Guccione Caligula (1979)

• ‘The great love of his life is his sister, Drusilla, and so it needs to be shown. And when she died, I think he began to change.’

• Gore Vidal in Lui, 1980. The Making of Caligula.

Eric Svejcar Caligula: A Glam Rock Epic (2004)

The only one who has ever made me feel right

Now that I have you, This much I know

When you’ve found love

You got to take it,Protect it,

Don’t let it go.

Hold it as tight as you can.”

“I may not be perfectI may not be smart

But I know what I have in you.

You are my rescue my port in a storm

The reason that I make it through.

You’re the only whose still here in the darkness and

the light

Douglas Jackson, Caligula (2008)

‘”Had anyone ever suffered as he did? Had anyone ever been more alone? Drusill was gone. His only friend. His sister, The only one he ever really trusted. How could she leave him? “ He sniffed, blinking away a tear.’

– Jackson, 2008: 270

‘Euan and Brooke do such a terrific job of playing a convincing (if thoroughly unconventional) romantic pair that you often forget it was incestuous. That was my intention – what’s important is not that he’s in love with his sister, but that he’s in love, period.’

– Svejcar, 2005 [email] Personal email 26/10/05