Basing Caligula on a new assessment of the ancient sources, the author sets the emperor's story into the context of the political system and the changing relations between the Senate and the emperor during Caligula's time and finds a new rationality explaining his notorious brutality. In this accessible narrative, he investigates why contemporaries chose to assassinate Caligula's reputation as well as his person. By Aloys Winterling and Deborah Lucas Schneider. University of California Press. 229 pages.