Top Five Infamous Emperors

Listed below are the Top Five most Infamous Roman Emperors. They are noted for their cruelty or insanity or both. All were eventually assassinated with the exception of Nero who committed suicide.

1. Caligula (37-41 CE)

• • ‘A Viper for the Roman People’
    • Tiberius is alleged to have said, ‘ I am nursing a viper for the Roman People.’ After an initial period of popularity Caligula is portrayed as an insane Tyrant.
    • Suetonius stated that as a child Caligula experienced the ‘falling sickness’, meaning Epilepsy. Josephus wrote that power made Caligula think he was Divine. Philo of Alexandria and Seneca wrote that Caligula was insane.
  • Caligula had the Crowd thrown into the Arena
    • During an intermission at the Games, Caligula had his Guards throw part of the crowd into the Arena to be eaten by the animals, because there were no criminals.
  • Caligula turned the Palace into a Brothel
    • Suetonius and Cassius Dio wrote that as proof of his insanity he turned the Palace into a Brothel.
  • Incitatus
    • They also state that Caligula made his horse, Incitatus, a Priest and planned to make him a Consul.
    • In 39 CE, Caligula ordered a two mile (3km) long Pontoon Bridge to be built between Baiae and Puteoli in the Bay of Naples.
    • Wearing the Breastplate of Alexander the Great he rode his horse, Incitatus, across the Bridge in defiance of the Prophecy by Thrasyllus of Mendes, that he had ‘no more chance of becoming Emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae’.
  • Executions (38 CE)
    • He had Macro, the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, executed and commenced executions of others, without Trial.
    • ‘Let them hate us, as long as they fear us’, was a phrase used by Caligula.
    • ‘Would that the Roman People had a single neck, to cut off their head’ Caligula said this after witnessing an execution.
  • Treason Trials (39 CE)
    • Caligula reviewed Tiberius‘ records of the Treason Trials, and restarted them. He replaced the Consul and had several Senators executed. According to Suetonius, others were humiliated by being made to behave like servants to Caligula.
    • During 39 CE two conspiracies emerged, one by Caligula’s Brother-in-law and another by the Legate of Germania Superior, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus. Both were executed.
  • Caligula claimed he was a God
    • He had two Temples built to worship him in the Rome and the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum Romanum, was re-dedicated to Caligula. The Heads of Statues of the Gods in the Temples were all replaced with likenesses of himself.
    • He appeared in public, dressed as various Gods, such as Apollo, Hercules, Mercury, and even Venus. He was also referred to as Jupiter in official documents. A sacred area was set up to worship him in Miletus, Asia.
    • Egyptian coins were minted showing Caligula as a Sun-God
  • Financial Crisis (39 CE)
    • Within two years, Caligula had spent the State Funds of 2,700,000,000 sesterces which had taken Tiberius 23 years to amass.
  • New Taxes and the Seizure of Estates
    • Caligula then resorted to desperate measures to raise Funds:
    • He auctioned the lives of Gladiators at Displays. He imposed a Tax on Marriage, Prostitution and Court Cases. State officials were accused of embezzlement and obliged to repay vast sums. Centurions were obliged to repay the Spoils of War to the State. Caligula accused, and fined or executed individuals, in order to seize their Estates.
  • Assassination
    • Caligula was the first Emperor to be Assassinated.
    • A Plot was coordinated by members of the Praetorian Guard, various Senators and Equestrians.
    • Cassius Chaerea, a member of the Praetorian Guard assassinated Caligula, whilst elsewhere, separately, his wife and child were murdered.

2. Nero (54-68 CE)

• • Great Fire of Rome (64 CE)
    • Nero is thought to have started the Great Fire of Rome himself in order to build the Domus Aurea, In 64 CE Nero built the Domus Aurea, (Golden Villa) an opulent Palace on the ruins of burnt out Rome.
    • Nero succeeded in getting a confession from the Christians that they had started the Fire deliberately. Nero ordered the Christians to be torn apart by dogs, others crucified and some burnt as human torches in his garden at night.
  • Nero fiddled while Rome burned
    • According to Suetonius and Cassius Dio, Nero sang ‘the Sack of Ilium’ in actor’s dress during the Fire. This has led to the popular expression today ‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned’.
  • Nero assassinated his own Mother
    • Nero conspired to have a ship built in such a way that it would collapse and drown his mother, Agrippina the Younger.
    • She survived and swam to the shore. Instead Nero had her assassinated and made it look like a suicide.
  • Germanicus
    • Nero is reputed to have poisoned his stepbrother Germanicus.
  • Octavia
    • Nero’s wife. He divorced and banished her on the grounds of infertility, but was forced to bring her back by public protests. However, he had her executed later.
  • Poppaea
    • He married Poppaea, but she died whilst she was pregnant, and historians hold him responsible for her death.
  • Nero’s Rivals
    • Nero’s Rivals, Pallas, Rubellius Plautus and Faustus Sulla, as well as others, were all murdered.
  • Pisonian Conspiracy
    • Gaius Calpurnius Piso organised a conspiracy in order to bring back the Roman Republic. Nero had Piso and Lucan the Poet executed, amongst others.
    • He also gave his old tutor, Seneca the Younger, instructions to commit suicide, which he did by cutting his veins and bleeding to death in his Bath.
  • Winner of the Olympic Games of 67 CE
    • Nero decided to participate in the Olympic Games, held at Olympia in Greece. Here he raced a ten horse chariot from which he was thrown, and in another Race he never finished.
    • Despite this Nero won several Crowns, allegedly by bribing the Judges, and brought them back to Rome.
  • Death
    • Nero avoided assassination by committing suicide.
    • On 9 June 68 CE, Nero became the first Roman Emperor to commit suicide to avoid assassination. The Palace Guard and Praetorian Guard withdrew and he was left undefended, whilst instead support for Galba as Emperor had been growing.
  • Damnatio Memoriae
    • After his death, the Senate declared a Damnatio Memoriae. Nero’s name was erased from monuments and sculptures of him were changed to represent other figures.
  • Nero’s biographers
    • Nero’s biography is based on the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio Cassius, who may have been biased as they all came from Senatorial families.

3. Commodus (177-192 CE)

• • Gladiator in the Arena
    • Commodus was obsessed with Hercules and repeating his exploits in the Arena as a Gladiator.
    • He regularly fought in the Arena as a Gladiator. His opponents always conceded, so he never lost a fight. Commodus charged one million sesterces to the city of Rome for each of his appearances in the Arena.
    • He was hated by the Senate who considered his Gladiatorial combats in the Arena were offensive and beneath the Office of Emperor.
    • During the Plebeian Games of November 192 CE, Commodus hunted the wild animals in the mornings and fought as a Gladiator in the afternoons. In December, he announced he would become both Consul and Gladiator for the Year 193 CE, starting from the 1st January.
  • Lucilla
    • His sister, Lucilla, organised a plot to assassinate Commodus at the age of 18, with two Senators Quadratus and Quintianus, who failed. They were executed and she was exiled to Capri before eventually being executed.
  • Commodus renamed Rome after himself
    • After the Fire of Rome in 191 CE, Rome required reconstruction and in 192 CE, Commodus then decided to refound Rome with a new name, Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana and rename himself Romulus.
    • The Legions were renamed Commodianae, the Egyptian Grain Fleet was renamed Alexandria Commodiana Togata, the People of Rome renamed Commodianus and the date of the changes was to be named Dies Commodianus.
  • Assassination
    • On New Years Eve 192 CE, Commodus had planned a mass assassination of the Senators and Nobility.
    • Instead, the Praetorian Prefect Laetius organised that Commodus be poisoned on 31st December 192 CE. When that failed, he ordered Commodus to be strangled in his bath and named Pertinax Emperor instead.

4. Caracalla (211-217 CE)

• • Geta
    • Caracalla’s father, the Emperor Septimius Severus, named both his sons co-Emperor after his death in February 211 CE, but they hated each other and lived at different ends of the Palace.
    • In Dec 211 CE, Caracalla had his brother Geta murdered and became sole Emperor.
  • Caracalla ordered the Mass Execution of 20,000 civilians
    • When he declared a Damnatio Memoriae on his brother Geta, he simultaneously had up to 20,000 people executed in Rome.
    • During his Campaign against Parthia, he conducted massacres in Alexandria, Egypt, and in the East.
  • Assassination
    • Caracalla was assassinated by Julius Martialis, one of his Imperial Bodyguards on board ship near Carrhae during his Parthian Campaign, probably in collusion with Macrinus.

5. Elagabalus (218-222 CE)

• • Accession
    • Elagabalus was a teenage Emperor who is considered to have been the most decadent of all the Emperors and his reign to have marked the beginning of the Fall of the Roman Empire..
    • Elagabalus was proclaimed Emperor when he was 14 years old in a Revolt by the Legio III Gallica in Raphanea, who had just defeated Macrinus near Antioch. His influential grandmother, Julia Maesa, had been instrumental in persuading the Legion that her son was the illegitimate son of Caracalla.
    • Elagabalus was already the High Priest of the Arab-Roman Sun God Elagabal in Syria.
  • Elegabalus married a Vestal Virgin
    • Elagabalus married four times, on one occasion to a Vestal Virgin, which deeply offended the Romans because this was illegal in Roman Law.
    • He is also considered to have prostituted himself, and to have had many lovers both male and female.
  • Assassination
    • He was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard when he was 18 years old and his body thrown into the Tiber, along with that of his Mother.