ABSTRACT
The assassination of Caligula was the prelude to a blissful, if short-lived, period of illusion. The senators, convinced that the republic had been restored, were assembled by the consuls on the Capitol (the senate building was shunned because its name, the Curia Julia, evoked the memory of the Julian house). Here they charged Caligula with unspecified crimes, and some even demanded that they delete the legislation of the imperial period from the record and destroy the temples dedicated to the Caesars. They were brimming with confidence. They were also totally out of touch with reality. In particular, they had little sense of the mood of the people, who were less than enthusiastic about the prospect of a return to the republican system, with its privileges for the old nobility.
