CALIGULA: WAS HIS TYRANNY ALL IN THE MIND?
ALL BAD? Gaius Julius Caesar (known as Caligula), Roman emperor from AD 37 to AD 41, has a legendarily despicable reputation. But is it deserved?
GETTY
The Roman Empire produced some spectacularly bad emperors over the centuries. There was the brutally egotistical Commodus, who moonlighted as a gladiator in the Colosseum, and the bizarre Elagabulus, who dressed in women’s clothing and got about the Palatine in chariots pulled by slave girls. Then there was Nero, whose orgies and tyrannical excesses were notorious.