'There seems to have been a really naive notion,' Barrett says, 'that Caligula would follow in the footsteps of his father.' The Roman belief in strong bloodlines, which proved so problematic over the centuries, made Caligula emperor. He also set a precedent for inexperience: the adopted grandson of his political predecessor, Emperor Tiberius, Caligula was actually the son of the popular soldier Germanicus. As Barrett writes in Caligula: The Corruption of Power, Caligula enjoyed a complacent Senate and the support of the military, both of which set a pattern for power that lasted for centuries. But he also broke ground for the imperial system. How he got power: Caligula is Rome's most famously perverse emperor, in part due to popular portrayals that were fantastically salacious. 'He also consecrated himself to his own service and appointed his horse a fellow-priest and dainty and expensive birds were sacrificed to him daily.' – Cassius Dio The best gossip: 'He lived in the habit of incest with all his sisters and at table, when much company was present, he placed each of them in turns below him, whilst his wife reclined above him.' – Suetonius 1) Caligula had sex with his sisters and gave his horse a marble houseĬaligula: not as bad as you think.

What's more, emperors themselves had good incentives to argue that individual nutty emperors of the past were Rome's biggest problem - rather than the imperial system.Įven so, the tenure of the craziest emperors illuminates the big flaws in the Roman system - not least the fact that it relied on a succession system that rarely rewarded the best leaders. Ancient historians often sought favor with a new emperor by slandering old ones. To sort it out, I spoke with two historians: Clifford Ando, a professor of classics and author of Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, and Anthony Barrett, a professor of classics and author of Lives of the Caesars.īoth cautioned that the most outrageous stories about Rome's emperors should be taken with a grain of salt. The weird fixations of Caligula and Nero made them household names.īut these stories have always raised a difficult question: If these emperors were really so deranged, how did they become leaders of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known?

Some of the most famous Roman emperors were perverted, megalomaniacal, or just plain crazy.

Famous rulers