Incitatus Dio (155-235 AD) indicated that the horse was attended to by servants and was fed oats mixed with gold flake, and that Caligula made the horse a priest. The accuracy of the received history is generally questioned. Historians such as Anthony A. Barrett suggest that later Roman chroniclers such as Suetonius and Dio Cassius were influenced by the political situation of their own times, when it may have been useful to the current emperors to discredit the earlier Julio-Claudian emperors. Also, the lurid nature of the story added spice to their narratives, winning them additional readers. One suggestion is that
Roman emperor he turned down supreme authority in exchange for a collection of various powers and offices, which in itself was a demonstration of his "auctoritas" ("authority"). As holding "princeps senatus", the emperor declared the opening and closure of each Senate session, declared the Senate's agenda, imposed rules and regulation for the Senate to follow, and met with foreign ambassadors in the name of the Senate. Being "pontifex maximus" made the emperor the chief administrator of religious affairs, granting him the power to conduct all religious ceremonies, consecrate temples, control the Roman calendar (adding or removing days as needed), appoint the vestal