Episode IV Caligula - Filial Legitimacy
Caligula’s coinage returns to lineage — but this time maternal.
On denarii honoring Agrippina the Elder, the obverse often presents Caligula’s own portrait and titles. The reverse features his mother, sometimes with the legend AGRIPPINA MAT C CAES AVG GERM.
This is not sentimentality. Agrippina was the widow of Germanicus and a symbol of Julio-Claudian legitimacy. By elevating her image, Caligula anchors his rule in the memory of a beloved general and a persecuted matriarch.
It is legitimacy through memory — and through blood.