Some of the most famous Roman emperors were perverted, megalomaniacal, or just plain crazy. The weird fixations of Caligula and Nero made them household names.
But 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?
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.
Both cautioned that the most outrageous stories about Rome's emperors should be taken with a grain of salt. Ancient historians often sought favor with a new emperor by slandering old ones. 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.
Even 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. It includes some great gossip, too.
1) Caligula had sex with his sisters and gave his horse a marble house
The emperor: Caligula (AD 12–AD 41)
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
"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
How he got power: Caligula is Rome's most famously perverse emperor, in part due to popular portrayals that were fantastically salacious. But he also broke ground for the imperial system. 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.
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. The Roman belief in strong bloodlines, which proved so problematic over the centuries, made Caligula emperor. "There seems to have been a really naive notion," Barrett says, "that Caligula would follow in the footsteps of his father."
In many ways, Caligula seems more incompetent than malicious. "My inclination with Caligula is to think of him as a young guy totally out of his depth," Barrett says. "It was the system that was wrong — Caligula was probably no better or worse than 99 percent of Romans."
It doesn't help that our perception of Caligula's incompetence is exaggerated by myth. Contrary to popular belief, Caligula did not make his horse consul or senator. Even the most extreme early historical sources are clear on this. Yes, he threatened to make his horse consul, but it was a commentary on his low opinion of the Senate — not his high opinion of his horse.
2) Nero was like Justin Bieber controlling an army
The emperor: Nero (AD 37–AD 68)
The best gossip: "He at last invented an extraordinary kind of diversion; which was, to be let out of a den in the arena, covered with the skin of a wild beast, and then assail with violence the private parts both of men and women."
"He likewise sang tragedies in a mask; the visors of the heroes and gods, as also of the heroines and goddesses, being formed into a resemblance of his own face, and that of any woman he was in love with."
How he got power: Nero illustrated, once again, the overreliance in Roman culture on familial connections. "When he was a boy," Barrett says, "I don't think anybody would have imagined he'd become an emperor." But Nero benefited from the work of his mother, Agrippina, a talented manipulator who became the fourth wife of Emperor Claudius and masterminded promotions and appointments to pave Nero's path.
To be clear, Nero's early reign as emperor actually wasn't so bad. "About Nero, people in the ancient world were somewhat divided," Ando says. "There's a judgment later historians made after his death that his reign had ... an early good phase with two advisers [Seneca and Burrus]."
"But," Ando adds, "once he became in charge himself, his various idiosyncrasies became more obvious." Among other things, Nero seemed more obsessed with being an artist than a politician. "We are told he was a competent poet," Barrett says. That just wasn't the right skill for a leader.
Even so, Nero's later incompetence is often exaggerated. Contrary to popular belief, Nero did not actually fiddle while Rome burned. "When we look at the sources," Barrett says, "Nero's conduct seems to be quite exemplary." During the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, Nero actually acted prudently. He had buildings torn down to help stop the movement of the fire, and after the blaze had subsided, he instituted stricter building codes.
So where did the myth about the fiddle come from? Soon after the fire, Nero's plans for a palace in the center of the city cemented his reputation as a decadent and out-of-touch leader — and that reputation survived long after the real story behind the fire was forgotten.
3) Commodus played gladiator and thought he was Hercules
The emperor: Commodus (AD 161–AD 192)
The best gossip: "He actually cut off the head of the Colossus, and substituted for it a likeness of his own head; then, having given it a club and placed a bronze lion at its feet, so as to cause it to look like Hercules."
"He descended to the arena from his place above and cut down all the domestic animals that approached him and some also that were led up to him or were brought before him in nets. He also killed a tiger, a hippopotamus, and an elephant."
How he got power: You may be familiar with Commodus from the movie Gladiator. In reality, he probably didn't come to power by murdering his father, Marcus Aurelius. Instead, he became emperor because his father was overly sentimental.
"One of the emperors most beloved and admired is Marcus Aurelius," says Ando. "And when Marcus Aurelius died, he had to know his son was unsuitable. But as soon as the first emperor to have a son had one, he turned around and gave it to his son." The binds of family were powerful in Roman culture, even though the ability to find good leadership through "good blood" had been disproven many times. Even before Rome became an empire, noble families were a painstakingly preserved tradition, and that culture was hard to break away from.
From there, bad advisers didn't help. "One aspect of each of their reigns," Ando says, "is that their reign went bad more or less in lockstep with the speed with which they shed intelligent officers and replaced those with people who enabled their weirdness."
4) Caracalla massacred his people
The emperor: Caracalla (AD 188–AD 217)
The best gossip: "There were many others, too, formerly friends of his, that he put to death."
"One day he slew a hundred boars at one time with his own hands."
"While claiming to be the most pious of all mankind, he indulged to an extravagant degree in bloodshed, putting to death four of the Vestal Virgins, one of whom he had himself outraged — when he had still been able to do so; for later all his sexual power had disappeared."
How he got power: Caracalla was a military leader — he savvily raised Roman soldiers' pay — who had some measure of competence in his job. And to some degree, Caracalla simply kept power through brutality.
"He does seem," Ando says, "to have had an extraordinarily bad temper and be willing to exact terrible massacres of his own people." However, the leader wasn't completely irrational in his savagery — some of his brutality helped him to consolidate power.
Ando also notes that Caracalla, while brutal, wasn't necessarily insane (by a Roman emperor's standard) — one judicial proceeding we have, for example, shows that Caracalla had sane and cogent observations. "Caracalla was in many ways quite able," Barrett agrees. "There's a lot of sound legislation with respect to Roman citizenship."
5) Elagabalus was a pervert for the ages
The emperor: Elagabalus (AD 203–AD 222)
The best gossip: "I will not describe the barbaric chants which Sardanapalus, together with his mother and grandmother, chanted to Elagabalus, or the secret sacrifices that he offered to him, slaying boys and using charms, in fact actually shutting up alive in the god's temple a lion, a monkey, and a snake, and throwing in among them human genitals, and practicing other unholy rites, while he invariably wore innumerable amulets."
"For he wished to have the reputation of committing adultery, so that in this respect, too, he might imitate the most lewd women; and he would often allow himself to be caught in the very act, in consequence of which he used to be violently upbraided by his "husband" and beaten, so that he had black eyes."
How he got power: Just 14 when he became emperor, Elagabalus was ... unique. Caligula, step aside. "If you simply go by what you're told," Barrett says, "Elagabalus probably takes first prize for being just a complete and utter nutcase." Among many other things, the rumors say he tried to change Rome's religion and he dressed up so he could prostitute himself.
Elagabalus was only Caracalla's cousin, but his maternal aunt campaigned for him to lead Rome. The explanation for his rise is simple after that. "If you want to understand how the Roman Empire ended up having at the very top of the pyramid someone who was more or less wildly inappropriate," Ando says, "one answer is that they never gave up on blood as a rule of succession."
This reliance on succession kept the best leaders from rising to the top — but the Romans never adopted any other mechanism. When there wasn't a blood relative in line, Romans pursued the formality of adoption to maintain a longstanding preference for family ties.
Why so many bizarre emperors were able to run a vast empire
Many of these emperors had extremely small circles of advisers who often did the grunt work of running the vast empire. "The number of people who had direct access to the emperor ... was actually rather small," says Ando. The emperors ruled through networks of officials, and those officials were often more competent. They propped up the insanity at the top.
What's more, most people scattered across the vast Roman Empire didn't pay much attention. "It didn't matter how nutty Caligula was," Ando says, "unless he did something crazy with tax policy." While those living in military provinces could have been affected by an emperor's decree, those in far-flung civilian provinces might have barely noticed the change from one emperor to another.
All that underlines the real truth about imperial power in Rome: yes, there were some crazy emperors, and some of the rumors were probably true. But the most bizarre thing about the Roman Empire wasn't the emperors — it was the political structure that made them so powerful in the first place.