Judge Cal - Parallels With Caligula

Parallels With Caligula

The primary inspiration for the character seems to have been John Hurt's portrayal of Caligula in the 1976 BBC TV serial I, Claudius (he even looks vaguely like him in some frames). The parallel was made more explicit when the story was collected together under the title Judge Caligula when it was reprinted by Titan Books in 1982. Suetonius' story that the Emperor Caligula suggested his horse be appointed a senator is parodied with Cal making his goldfish deputy chief judge. There are many other parallels too, for example forcing people who had pledged their lives to him to commit suicide (see below) and gigantic and impossible building projects. At one point Cal orders a one mile wall to be built around the city within three weeks: this neatly ties in with this quote from Suetonius:

Caligula seemed interested only in doing the apparently impossible-which led him to construct moles in rough deep water far out to sea, drive tunnels through exceptionally hard rocks, raise flat ground to the height of mountains, and reduce mountains to the level of plains; and all at immense speed, because he punished delay with death.

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, translated by Robert Graves, Caligula para. 37.

Another point of comparison is the Kleggs, the alien merceneraries who bolster Cal's rule and who are the equivalent of Caligula's German body-guard.

There are many other bizarre kinds of behaviour that could be parallels, such as sentencing people to death in the bath, holding conversations with the dead chief judges, and pickling people in giant vats of vinegar. There are also some things that one would expect more from a parody of Nero, such as reading bad poetry to his judges and planning a feature film with Dredd played by a midget. John Wagner seems to take great delight in making Cal even madder than his progenitors.