Caligula (1979) quotes

View Quote Caesonia: They hate you now.
Caligula: Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.
Caesonia: They are senators and consuls. They are important men.
Caligula: So important that they approve all I do? They must be mad. I don't know what else to do to provoke them.

View Quote Caligula: That will be my wife.
Drusilla: Oh no! Not Caesonia.
Caligula: You're impossible!
Drusilla: She's the most promiscuous woman in Rome.
Caligula: Perfect!
Drusilla: Caesonia's been divorced. She's extravagant, always in debt.
Caligula: I want her.
Drusilla: But not for a wife.
Caligula: Send her to me now.
Drusilla: No, "Little Boots". I won't let you do it. It wouldn't be wise.
Caligula: Yet such is the will of the senate and the people of Rome.

View Quote Caligula: Did you see their faces when I told them they had to swear not only to me, but to you?
Drusilla: They were appalled.
Caligula: I do hope so!

View Quote Caligula: I want your honest advice. Should I make myself king of Rome?
Claudius: King? Well... But this is a republic, isn't it?
Caligula: Very well, then. I shall make myself king of the republic.
Longinus: But you're already greater than any king, Caesar.
Caligula: I am a god, or at least I will be when I'm dead.

View Quote Caligula: I'm going to marry you.
Drusilla: You can't. We're not Egyptians.
Caligula: I know. We are much more beautiful.
Drusilla: Rome is not Egypt, and stop looking at yourself like that.
Caligula: Let's go to Egypt then.
Drusilla: You are a fool.
Caligula: Caesar cannot be a fool.
Drusilla: But he's trying very hard.
Caligula: Caesar cannot be a fool!
Drusilla: "Little Boots", they'll throw you in the Tiber if you attempt to move the government. So, you're going to marry a respectable Roman lady of the senatorial class.
Caligula: No, I'm not.
Drusilla: Yes, you are! You've got to have an heir.
Caligula: Who will kill me when he grows up!

View Quote Caligula: I've told Caesonia that I would marry her
Drusilla: Don't...
Caligula: But only after she has borne me a son.
Drusilla: How will you ever know its yours?
Caligula: Don't worry. I've got her very well guarded.
Drusilla: Then you can be sure one of the guards will be the father.
Caligula: No, they're all homosexuals who've been castrated.

View Quote Caligula: Nerva, what's it like?
Nerva: Warm, no pain. Just drifting away.
Caligula: Do you see her?
Nerva: Who?
Caligula: The goddess, Isis.
Nerva: So you're one of those who believe.
Caligula: Do you see her?
Nerva: No.
Caligula: Are you sure? You're almost dead. What's it like? What's happening to you now?
Nerva: Nothing.
Caligula: You're lying. You can see her, I know you can. What is she like?
Nerva: No. Nothing at all. Just sleep.
Caligula: Liar!

View Quote Caligula: Tell me, how is the emperor?
Nerva: Old, like me.
Caligula: I mean, how is his mood?
Nerva: Like the weather.
Caligula: The weather is good today!
Nerva: Changeable. I've heard that during the last month, seven of my colleagues in the senate have been put to death for treason.
Caligula: Nine, to be exact. Five of them cheated. They killed themselves. That wasn't playing fair. Don't you agree, Nerva?
Nerva: They were all good men.
Caligula: If they were good men, how could their beloved emperor find them guilty?
Nerva: You have a gift for logic, prince.

View Quote Proculus: Divine Ceasar, PLEASE! What have I done? Why am I here?
Caligula: Treason!
Proculus: Treason? I have always been loyal to you!
Caligula: [laughs insanely] That IS your treason! You're an honest man, Proculus, which means a bad Roman! Therefore, you are a traitor! Logical, hmm? Ha, ha, ha!

View Quote Tiberius: [seeing Nerva has cut his wrists] Cretins... why did you permit him to do it? Bind his wrists... BIND HIS WRISTS! [to Nerva] You must not go, you must not leave me, you are my friend, my only friend.
Nerva: I've lived too long, Tiberius, I hate my life.
Tiberius: [to the slaves] Leave us! Both of you!
Nerva: For a man to choose the hour of his own death is the closest he will ever come to tricking fate, and fate decrees that when you die, Macro will kill me.
Tiberius: I'll arrest him and have him executed.
Nerva: You can't. He controls you. [Looks at Caligula] Anyway, even with Macro dead, how could I go on living with this reptile?
Tiberius: [To Caligula] You will respect my friend always, won't you, reptile?
Caligula: I've always respected him, lord.
Tiberius: [To Nerva] You hear?
Nerva: Tiberius, you were wise once.
Tiberius: Ah, don't taunt me. I am old.
Nerva: I've watched you grow into a monster! One by one, I've seen you murder your whole family, your friends, the noblest men in Rome.
Caligula: That is treason!
Nerva: No, it's the truth.
Tiberius: I am and I always have been surrounded by enemies. In my own family, in the senate... You are cruel!
Nerva: No, honest. Old men can sometimes see the future. So, from evils past, and the evils yet to come, I now choose to escape.

View Quote Tiberius: Help me, Nerva. Help me transform this young barbarian into a Roman Caesar.
Nerva: There have been three Roman Caesars; Julius, Augustus and yourself. Which do you want him to be?
Tiberius: The best.
Nerva: That would be your father Augustus.
Tiberius: You see, Caligula? I'm insulted to my face.

View Quote Tiberius: I'm old.
Caligula: Yes, lord. But you will live forever.
Tiberius: All my family are dead but you, the child Gemellus, and that Claudius, that uncle. They were struck down by fate, and it is fate, "Little Boots", that rules us, not any god.
Caligula: You are a god, lord.
Tiberius: No I'm not, not even when I am dead.
Caligula: Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar, they are gods.
Tiberius: So say the senate, and so the people prefer to believe. Such myths are useful.

View Quote Tiberius: Serve the state, Caligula, although the people in it are wicked beasts.
Caligula: But they love you, lord.
Tiberius: No, they fear me, and that is much better. I have no choice, you see. No choice.
Caligula: No choice?
Tiberius: All I wanted was private life. I did not truly want to become emperor, but I had to.
Caligula: Had to?
Tiberius: If someone else had become emperor, I would have been killed, as you will be.

View Quote As if there ever could be an antidote against Caesar!

View Quote At the insistence of the senate and the people of Rome, I accept humbly the highest office of our great republic.