Greece & Rome, Vol. 47, No. 1, April 2000

CALIGULA'S SEASHELLS1

By DAVID WOODS

There can be no student of Roman history who has not, at one time or other, pondered the significance of the emperor Caligula's (A.D. 37-41) alleged command to his soldiers to gather seashells for transportation back to Rome as the spoils of war. It is with some trepidation, therefore, that I dare to offer yet another interpretation of an event which, as we shall see, has not lacked commentators.2

There are three ancient sources for this event. The earliest is by the imperial secretary Suetonius who included it in his account of Caligula in his Lives of the Caesars which he published c.A.D. 120:

Finally, as if he intended to bring the war to an end, he drew up a line of battle on the shore of the ocean, arranging his ballistas and other artillery (ballistisque machinisque dispositis); and when no-one knew or could imagine what he was going to do, he suddenly bade them gather shells (conchas) and fill their helmets and the folds of their gowns, calling them 'spoils from the Ocean, due to the Capitol and Palatine'. As a monument of his victory he erected a lofty tower, from which lights were to shine at night to guide the course of the ships, as from the Pharos. Then promising the soldiers a gratuity of a hundred denarii each, as if he had shown unprecedented liberality, he said, 'Go your way happy; go your way rich' (Calig. 46).3

The second surviving account of this event occurs in the Roman History which the Greek senator Cassio Dio published c.A.D. 229. To be more precise, the surviving account is merely an abbreviation of Dio's original text which John Xiphilinus composed in the 1 1th century: And when we reached the ocean, as if he were going to conduct a campaign in Britain, and had drawn up all the soldiers on the beach, he embarked on a trireme, and then, after putting out a little from the land, sailed back again. Next he took his seat on a lofty platform and gave the soldiers the signal as if for battle, bidding the trumpeters urge them on; then of a sudden he ordered them to gather up the shells (ra KoyXvAita). Having secured these spoils (for he needed booty, of course, for his triumphal procession), he became greatly elated, as if he had enslaved the very ocean; and he gave his soldiers many presents. The shells (ar KcoyxVAta) he took back to Rome for the purpose of exhibiting the booty to the people there as well (59.25.1.3).4

The final surviving account is that by Sextus Aurelius Victor in his On the Caesars which he published c.A.D. 361:

CALIGULA'S SEASHELLS

Similarly he concentrated his legions in one place with the expectation of crossing over into Germany, then ordered them to gather mussels and cockles (conchas umbilicosque) on the shore of the ocean. While he himself went among them at times in the flowing robes of Venus, at other times, in full armour, he would say that he was taking spoils not from men but from the gods, doubtless because he had heard that according to the Greeks, who love to embellish everything, fish of this kind are (called) Nymphs' eyes (Nympharum lumina) (De Caes. 3.11-12).5

It is generally agreed that we should date this event to the first months of A.D. 40, and most commentators accept that we should locate it on the Gallic side of the English Channel, probably near Boulogne, rather than, as some have argued, at the mouth of the Rhine.6 There is less agreement still as to the main purpose of his visit to this section of the coast. Some have argued that he had originally intended to invade Britain only to change his mind for one reason or another when he finally reached the coast. In contrast, others have argued that, whatever his plans for the future, he had not really intended to invade Britain at that particular point in time. The timing of his visit, when the seas were unsafe for travel, combines with the lack of evidence for the necessary scale of preparations to tell against any serious intention to invade Britain then. So other reasons for his visit have been adduced. One commentator has argued that the target for his intended campaign was not the Britons but the Canninefates who only lived across the other side of the mouth of the Rhine.7 Another has argued that he had intended no more than a series of military manoeuvres, training exercises for all concerned,8 while a third has argued that the main purpose for his visit was to receive the surrender of the British chieftain Adminius.9 Finally, one should acknowledge that if one accepts the broad portrayal of Caligula as a 'crazy' emperor by this point in his career, then one may doubt whether even he himself had any clear understanding of the reason for his visit to the Channel.10

Each of these different interpretations of the wider context of the seashell-incident has important implications for our understanding of the same. Broadly speaking, the different interpretations of this incident may be divided into two groups, those which accept that Caligula really did order his soldiers to collect seashells and those which argue that the historical tradition for this incident has been seriously corrupted, that he did not really order his soldiers to pick up seashells.

Commentators who accept that Caligula did order his men to collect these shells offer several explanations. The weakest, probably, is that Caligula had intended his soldiers to use these shells as makeshift missiles

81

CALIGULA'S SEASHELLS

during their military exercises on the beach. 1 A second possibility is that he had ordered them to collect shells in order to humiliate them for some reason, perhaps because they had refused to embark on the boats to Britain as instructed.12 The third possibility is that he had wanted the shells to be understood in an entirely symbolic sense, as symbols of his conquest of the ocean at least, if not of Britain also.13

Of those who believe that some serious misunderstanding lies at the heart of the surviving tradition, one has accepted that Caligula did use the term concha, but that he used it in its slang sense as a term for the female genitalia, and that he really dismissed his soldiers to enjoy themselves in the local brothels, not to collect shells.14 Hence the sources preserve the correct term, but have added many misleading details in their attempt to provide a context. In contrast, another commentator has argued that the sources preserve the correct context, but have changed the key term itself. According to this interpretation, Caligula did indeed order his soldiers to gather up some items from the beach, but he ordered them to collect some sappers' huts (musculz), not shells (conchae)."5 The sources, or their common source rather, seem to have misinterpreted Caligula's original use of the term musculus which could be used of several different things - a mouse or small rodent, the name of various sea-creatures including the common mussel, a muscle, a type of sappers' hut, or a kind of small boat even16 - to mean 'mussel', a type of shell-fish, and to have replaced it then with the term concha, meaning 'shell'. The fundamental problem with this interpretation, however, is that none of our sources actually preserve the term musculus, while the fact that the Latin sources preserve the term concha and the Greek source its Greek diminutive KoyXV;Aov suggests that Caligula did indeed use the term concha. Nor would it have made sense for Caligula to describe some of his own equipment as the spoils of war. Therefore, I would like now to suggest a third possibility, that our sources preserve both the correct term as originally used by Caligula, either concha or its diminutive conchyla, and much the correct context, but that concha had a sense which has escaped all notice since.

The Oxford Latin Dictionary records that concha had three main senses.7 First, it could be used to describe a type of mollusc or shell- fish. Second, it could also be used to denote the parts of a mollusc or shell-fish, the shell itself, however used, or a pearl. Finally, it could also be used to describe an object shaped like a seashell, i.e., with a shell-like cavity. In this sense, it was used to denote various types of vessels for holding or measuring a wide range of substances and, as we have already

82

CALIGULA'S SEASHELLS

noted, as a slang term for the female genitalia.18 I would like to suggest, therefore, that it could also be used in a derogatory sense of a type of small boat, because it was perceived to be small and fragile like a seashell, as well as hollow. The fact that the term for a particular type of shell-fish, the musculus, had come to be used of a particular type of boat proves that this sort of metaphor existed within Roman culture, of the boat as a type of seashell. Furthermore, one notes that the modern English 'cockle' is derived from the diminutive form of concha - conchyla - and that it has been used in a derogatory sense to denote a small, shallow boat.19 It requires no great leap of imagination, therefore, to believe that the Romans could have used concha as a derogatory term for a type of small boat in addition to the senses already noted. The fact that our surviving sources do not preserve such a use of the term is hardly surprising.20 It is a result rather of the relatively high literary style of the majority of our sources for the language of this period which are works of literature rather than records of how Latin was really spoken. This naturally affects the range of their vocabulary as much as it does their grammar and syntax.

There is an alternative possibility, however, which deserves to be noted at least, and that is that Caligula's use of the term concha in reference to these boats represented a genuine innovation on his part. One notes that when Suetonius describes how Caligula chose men to participate in his triumphal procession at Rome, he claims that Caligula described those he picked as alLoOpLtaLEvUirot '(men) worthy of a triumph' (Calig. 47). This is the only recorded use of this term in extant Greek which suggests that Caligula invented it himself. If so it is possible that a similar desire for linguistic novelty may have encouraged him to use concha in a previously unrecognized sense.

It is my argument, therefore, that when Caligula ordered his soldiers to collect the conchae, he was referring to some small boats, not seashells. The surviving tradition is simply mistaken. We ought not to forget that ancient authors were quite capable of misinterpreting their sources despite their relative proximity to the events in question.21 As for modern commentators, their disagreements continue to prove that the correct interpretation of a text is not always an easy matter. In one famous instance, to quote a single relevant example, commentators cannot agree whether Juvenal uses the term concha to denote a small container of some sort, for oil or perfume, or a larger basin, a bath.22

So whose were these boats that Caligula ordered the soldiers to assemble? In so far as our main sources all agree that Caligula thought

83

CALIGULA'S SEASHELLS

of these conchae as the spoils of war, it is clear that they must have been enemy boats, probably British. Hence Caligula merely ordered his soldiers to gather together some British boats which they had captured in the English Channel. The advantage of this interpretation is that it makes good sense also of the ballistas and other artillery which Caligula had apparently had arrayed upon the shore at this time. These have sometimes been misleadingly described as 'siege engines',23 but as the late Roman author Vegetius reveals, artillery played an important role in naval warfare also:

Land warfare requires many types of arms; but naval warfare demands more kind of arms, including machines and torsion engines (machinas et tormenta) as if the fighting were on walls and towers.... Besides drags and grapnels and other naval kinds of weapons, there are arrows, javelins, slings, sling-staves, lead-weighted darts, mangonels, catapults (ballistis), and hand-catapults, shooting darts and stones at each side (ERM 4.44).24

So the line of equipment which Caligula allegedly had arrayed upon a beach was not a battle-line at all. It was a mixed line of equipment, both Roman and British, arrayed for his inspection. It consisted of the Roman ships, and their larger artillery pieces which had been unloaded besides them, and the captured British ships. Indeed, one seriously doubts whether Caligula really did order all this equipment to be arranged for him in the manner alleged. He simply inspected all the boats and equipment which had already been drawn up in a line on the beach anyway. Because of the season, the vast majority of the Roman fleet had been beached and pulled up above the tidal mark for safekeeping and their artillery had been unloaded in order to facilitate this process. This brought them up alongside the captured British shipping. Hence Caligula reviewed his forces on a beach because it was a fleet which he was reviewing, and a line because this was the natural formation in which to beach any fleet, captured or otherwise.

It may be objected at this point that while it is easy to envisage the transport of some seashells to Rome, it is difficult to believe that even Caligula would have ordered the transport of some captured enemy ships such a long distance overland. Yet Suetonius reveals that he did order several triremes to be transported overland to Rome in order to participate in his triumph there:

Then turning his attention to his triumph, in addition to a few captives and deserters from the barbarians he chose all the tallest of the Gauls, and as he expressed it, those who were 'worthy of a triumph.'... He also had the triremes in which he had entered the ocean carried overland to Rome for the greater part of the way (Calig. 47).25

84

CALIGULA'S SEASHELLS

Since it was his purpose in transporting these triremes overland to parade them in a triumphal procession, it is difficult to credit that he did not also send some of their victims with them. Indeed, it is important not to exaggerate the magnitude of this task, since those responsible probably took advantage of various river systems, to conclude their journey by sailing down the Rhone into the western Mediterranean.26 Nor was this the last time that an emperor sent ships to Rome in order to parade them in his triumphal procession.27 But why did he transport the triremes to Rome anyway? What sort of triumph had he planned to celebrate? The obvious answer is that he had been planning to celebrate a naval triumph. To be more specific, I would argue that he had been planning to celebrate the success of his northern fleet in clearing the English Channel of enemy shipping, a necessary precursor to an invasion of Britain. He had never planned to invade Britain itself at this time, nor had he intended his planned triumph to celebrate the capture of Britain itself yet. As for the reason why he eventually agreed to forego his triumph and celebrate a mere ovation instead, one suspects that the Senate managed to persuade him that it would only detract from his achievement in finally conquering Britain if he were to celebrate a full triumph for what was only a small precursory action to the great event itself.

In conclusion, Caligula did not order his soldiers to collect seashells for transport back to Rome as the spoils of the ocean. Rather our main sources for this event are heirs to a hostile tradition which misinterpreted Caligula's original instruction to assemble some captured enemy ships, to which he derisively referred as conchae 'shells', for transport to Rome. This is not to claim that the author of the original source which lies at the root of our surviving accounts of this event - Cluvius Rufus? - deliberately misinterpreted this term.28 He made a genuine mistake. It is not difficult to see why, in the context of a discussion of events on a beach, he should have immediately have assumed that the conchae were seashells. However, the wider context ought to have alerted him to the possibility that he was misinterpreting this term. He ought to have recognized the inherent improbability that any emperor would ever have ordered his soldiers to collect seashells, but his prejudice against Caligula was such that he was prepared to believe almost anything of him, however improbable. He, or perhaps some of those who used him later, then added to the original tradition on the basis of this misinter- pretation. So, for example, Suetonius' claim that Caligula ordered his soldiers to collect the seashells in their helmets and gowns surely

85

CALIGULA'S SEASHELLS

represents a late addition to this original tradition, whether or not by Suetonius himself. Similarly, Victor's explanation that the Greeks used to call the shellfish in question 'nymphs' eyes' probably represents another late addition also. The result was a very colourful story which has played a large part in the continued denigration of Caligula even to the present day.

NOTES

1. This note is a shortened version of a paper which I first delivered at the annual conference of the Classical Association at the University of Wales, Lampeter, in April 1998.

2. Z. Yavetz, 'Caligula, Imperial Madness and Modern Historiography', Klio 78 (1996), 105- 29 now provides a good review of the treatment which Caligula has received at the hands of various 20th-century scholars.

3. From the Loeb translation by J. C. Rolfe, Suetonius I (Cambridge, Mass., 1913), 477. 4. From the Loeb translation by E. Cary, Dio Cassius, Roman History VII (Cambridge, Mass.,

1924), 339. 5. From the translation by H. W. Bird, The Liber de Caesaribus of Sextus Aurelius Victor

(Liverpool, 1994), 3-4. 6. See full references in the recent commentaries by D. W. Hurley, An Historical and

Historiographical Commentary on Suetonius' Life of C. Caligula (Atlanta, 1993), 166ff.; H. Lindsay, Suetonius: Caligula (London, 1993), 147ff.; D. Wardle, Suetonius' Life of Caligula: a Commentary (Brussels, 1994), 315 ff. All three agree on the date A.D. 40 and the location near Boulogne.

7. P. Bicknell, 'The Emperor Gaius' Military Activities in A.D. 40', Historia 17 (1968), 496- 505.

8. R. W. Davies, 'The "Abortive Invasion" of Britain by Gaius', Historia 15 (1996), 124-8. 9. A. A. Barrett, Caligula: the Corruption of Power (London, 1989), 136ff.

10. In this specific context, A. Ferrill, Caligula Emperor of Rome (London, 1991), 128 strongly objects to any attempt 'to find a semblance of order in the acts of a crazy man'.

11. Davies (n. 8), 127. 12. J. P. V. D. Balsdon, The Emperor Gaius (Caligula) (Oxford, 1934), 90-2 raises this as one

possibility, making the comparison with the soldiers of the emperor Claudius who would initially refuse to embark on their ships to Britain in A.D. 43 (Cassius Dio 60.19). Supporters of this interpretation include, e.g., E. J. Phillips, 'The Emperor Gaius' Abortive Invasion of Britain', Historia 19 (1970), 369-74.

13. E.g., Barrett (n. 9), 138 accepts their suitability as the symbols of a serious military victory. In contrast, M. B. Flory, 'Pearls for Venus', Historia 37 (1988), 498-504, at 501, interprets them as the symbols of military failure to be contrasted with the pearls which Julius Caesar had dedicated to Venus Genetrix in Rome in 46 B.C.

14. See Wardle (n. 6), 313 on G. J. D. Aalders, Caligula zoon van Germanicus (Assen, 1959). 15. Balsdon (n. 12), 92 presents this as second possible interpretation of the seashell incident,

and manages to avoid committing himself to either interpretation. 16. OLD s.v. musculus, 1148. 17. OLD s.v. concha, 386. 18. ThLL s.v. concha, col. 29 provides further examples of its use of the apse of a basilica. The

Greek original KOtYX? was also used to denote the hollow of the ear and a seal-case. 19. OED (2nd ed.) s.v. cockle, 417. 20. On the wide variety of terms used to denote various types of small craft, see L. Casson, Ships

and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Baltimore, 1971), 329-43. 21. See, e.g., D. Woods, '"On the Standard-Bearers" at Strasbourg: Libanius, Or. 18.58-66',

Mnemosyne 50 (1997), 479-80 on Libanius' misinterpretation of the term vexillarius as used in one particular context.

86

CALIGULA'S SEASHELLS

22. See E. Courtney, A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (London, 1980), 316 on Juvenal, Satire 6.419.

23. E.g., Balsdon (n. 12), 92. Davies (n. 8), 125 translates the key passage: 'Finally, as if to bring the war to an end, he ... arranged his artillery and other siege equipment in position.' The Penguin translation by R. Graves, Suetonius: the Twelve Caesars (Harmondsworth, 1957), better translates it: 'In the end, he ... moved the arrow-casting machines and other artillery into position... .'

24. From the translation by N. P. Milner, Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science (Liverpool, 1996), 149.

25. Translation by Rolfe (n. 3), 477. Barrett (n. 9), 138 fails to note that Caligula sent more than one trireme to Rome which invalidates his attempt to identify the 'ship' sent to Rome with the ship on which Caligula ventured into the Channel for a short distance (Cassius Dio 59.25.2), to receive the surrender British chieftain Adminius according to his theory.

26. Hurley (n. 6), 171 draws attention to the fact that they probably followed the same route that the emperor Claudius was to travel on his way to Britain in A.D. 43 (Cassius Dio 60.21.3: 'advancing partly by land and partly along the rivers').

27. Josephus, Bell. Jud. 7.147 records that Vespasian and Titus paraded some ships in their triumphal procession at Rome in A.D. 71 when they celebrated their defeat of the Jewish revolt. These were probably used to commemorate a relatively minor naval engagement on Lake Gennesareth (Bell. Jud. 3.522-31).

28. On Suetonius' sources, especially the lost Historiae of Cluvius Rufus who was consul before A.D. 41 and governor of Hispania Tarraconensis in A.D. 68, see Wardle (n. 6), 30-54. Despite a great deal of investigation and speculation, we do not know the exact nature of the relationship between the works of Suetonius, Cassius Dio, and Victor, to what extant the later authors used the earlier or had continued access to the same sources. H. W. Bird, Sextus Aurelius Victor: a Historiographical Study (Liverpool, 1984), 22 concludes that Victor used Suetonius, Tacitus, and several unidentifiable sources for his account of the early principate and that he hopped from one to other of these throughout this account.

87

Article Contentsp. [80]p. 81p. 82p. 83p. 84p. 85p. 86p. 87

Issue Table of ContentsGreece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Apr., 2000), pp. 1-147Front MatterThe Bimillennium [pp. 1 - 2]Achilles, Patroclus and Parental Care in Some Homeric Similes [pp. 3 - 18]'Lighting' the World of Women: Lamps and Torches in the Hands of Women in the Late Archaic and Classical Periods [pp. 19 - 43]At Home with Cicero [pp. 44 - 55]The Tears of Marcellus: History of a Literary Motif in Livy [pp. 56 - 66]Inspirational Fictions: Autobiography and Generic Reflexivity in Ovid's Proems [pp. 67 - 79]Caligula's Seashells [pp. 80 - 87]Animal Passions [pp. 88 - 93]Ammianus Marcellinus on the Empress Eusebia: A Split Personality? [pp. 94 - 101]Subject Reviews [pp. 102 - 132]Books Received [pp. 133 - 144]Back Matter [pp. 145 - 147]