Caligula

After the death of his sister and lover Drusilla, the Roman emperor Caligula disappears. When he returns, he says he has understood that people die and are not happy. He decides that ordinary limits are lies and demands the impossible, symbolized by his wish to possess the moon.

Because Caligula is emperor, his private conclusion becomes public terror. He humiliates senators, confiscates property, forces families to disinherit their children and kills without a stable charge. The patrician Cherea begins organizing a conspiracy while the poet Scipio remains drawn to Caligula despite the murder of his father.

The palace waits for Caligula to return after Drusilla's death. When he appears, he tells Helicon that the world as it exists is intolerable because death makes happiness impossible. He chooses to use imperial power to expose that truth by making everyone insecure.

Caligula orders arbitrary executions and economic measures that turn murder into state policy. He stages humiliating performances, enters a poetry competition he controls and dares the patricians to oppose him. Cherea explains that he is not defending virtue so much as a livable world in which action has some stable meaning.

Caesonia and Helicon remain near Caligula, while Scipio's mixture of hatred and sympathy shows the attraction of Caligula's honesty. The conspiracy closes in, and Caligula refuses opportunities to stop it because he wants his experiment carried to its conclusion.