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Incitatus was Emperor Caligula's favorite horse. He lived in Ancient Rome around 40 CE. His name means "fast-moving" in Latin.
There is a story that Caligula made his horse a senator, but it is probably not true. According to historian Mary Beard, no ancient historian who was alive at the same time as Caligula ever said Caligula really made Incitatus a senator, and it is likely that he only told a joke about doing it.[1]
Ancient historians do say Caligula gave his horse many gifts. In 121 c.e.,[2] in his book The Twelve Caesars, the historian Suetonius says of Incitatus: "Besides a stall of marble, a manger of ivory, purple blankets and a collar of precious stones, he even gave this horse a house, a troop of slaves and furniture, for the more elegant entertainment of the guests invited in his name; and it is also said that he planned to make him consul."[3][4]
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In Robert Graves' 1934 book I, Claudius, the fictional Caligula does make the fictional Incitatus a senator and gives him an ivory trough to eat out of.[5] This is one of the ways Graves shows that Caligula has become mentally unstable. After Caligula dies, Claudius treats Incitatus like a normal horse again.[6]
A talking version of Incitatus appears as a villain in Rick Riordan's 2018 young adult novel The Burning Maze.
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