C is for Caligula: The Dark Reign of Rome’s Mad Emperor

Rome’s most infamous emperor wasn’t just a tyrant—he was a spectacle of madness, cruelty, and decadence. From bizarre banquets to unspeakable acts, Caligula’s reign blurred the line between ruler and monster. Was he truly insane, or just history’s favorite villain? Join us as we dive into the blood-soaked, scandalous world of Caligula—where absolute power really did corrupt absolutely. Strap in for a wild episode!

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
And the arms crossing the arms crawl out and spit them out.
And when your bones begin so andto remain for you, do not so
don't ever laugh as the hearse goes by, there's some say you'll

(00:20):
be next in life. And when that brings his cold
despair, ask yourself for anyonethat care.
Macabre may not be suitable for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. So.
The Spotify comments, one of them said that they've been

(00:41):
binge listening and they compared us to Morbid, which I
would yeah hell yeah. And then the funny 1 was like
love the episode but don't like the foul language.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I have been told that many

(01:02):
times. I blame Michigan.
I don't. I'm probably not going to change
that about myself, which is partof my personality.
I think people who like our showare and listen regularly
probably won't care too much if we cuss once in a while.
But yeah, I just thought it was funny.
Right. Some episodes are worse than

(01:22):
others, but it's true not to. Not to like, call Michigan out
or anything, but I didn't start swearing until I moved to
Michigan for a year and then allof a sudden I'm like a sailor
and so. Can't imagine you with your
little Wisconsin accent being like God darn it.
Gosh, do you have any whiffers? Oh, I got picked on.

(01:44):
And funny story, I was in the UPwhere they definitely have an
accent and they're like, you have the weirdest accent ever
picked on you. They totally picked on me.
They're like, go back and eat your cheese.
Yes, thank. You.
Thank you. Can I be excused?

(02:07):
Dude, not going to lie, all the cheese that they had available
up in the UP and throughout Michigan, they had imported the
UP or whatever, did not compare to Wisconsin.
Just going to throw that out there.
So. Yeah, the Wisconsin cheese carts
have made their way to Indiana. Hell yeah.
I'll have you know, because I was in a gas station, of all

(02:28):
places. Good gas stations.
One of those that has like, a Dunkin' Donuts in it.
Nice and I was looking for snacks per usual and then the
little middle aisle in the refrigerated section they had
the dill garlic cheese curds like I got one I came to visit.

(02:49):
The cheese here is just magic. Magical.
Makes it worth waiting there just for the cheese.
Oh definitely. If it's worth anything, it's the
cheese. It's the cheese.
Beautiful landscapes, too. Yeah.
Oh yeah, Wisconsin's beautiful. As much as it gets flak.
I know. I was just picking on Michigan.

(03:10):
I do love Michigan. I still have friends there and I
love you guys, and you know that.
I'm just giving you crap. Also sorry to lady who I swore
too much at, it's not all the time but when it does happen it
seems to flow. So depending on what episode
this is going to be I can't makeyou any promises that it won't
be happening. And this episode so.

(03:31):
Well, I think just leading up tothat with this episode, you kind
of know what you're getting intojust based on the title, If you
have any indication of who this person is, this character is in
history, so. Oh yeah.
You know, I don't really honestly know a whole lot about
this individual. I haven't actually seen the

(03:53):
movie either. I haven't.
So I have a feeling I'm in. For it I've seen the trailer and
that was enough maybe maybe one day.
I feel like, oh, I don't even know, that's a close your
curtains type of movie. Like you don't even want people
driving by the house to see. Yeah, it's, you know.
What's in favors you go outside and you're like hi Carl, I like.

(04:17):
Hey, Carl, they're like, what were you watching last night?
Oh, nothing. I am having an adult beverage.
It's Friday night. Oh heck yeah, this will always
come out on a Monday morning. It will, but this is mine as
well. Cheers.

(04:38):
Yeah, we'll have some announcements at the end.
I've got some special shout outsfor some new Patreon members.
Special thank you to all of you lovely listeners who have been
leaving five star reviews on your listening platforms and the
comments on Spotify. I've really enjoyed reading
those. So thank you very much for

(04:59):
helping boost that algorithm andgetting the show out there for
Season 3. We love hearing what you have to
say. So we really.
Oh my goodness. Thank you it.
Makes our day. You don't know how many times it
makes our day when you know we're dealing with the day job
and life stressors and things like that, so.

(05:20):
Yeah, shout out to you lovely people.
Yeah, you freaking rock. Just so you know, you freaking
rock. Without further ado, I suppose
we should probably get this party started right?
We should because I feel like for one, it's been a while since

(05:41):
we've had a sit down episode together because of the
features. It has.
I know. It's like, Oh my gosh, we're
we've been in Season 3 now for like over a month and this is
only the third alphabet episode for the season.
It's wild. It's wild we we'll be having a

(06:01):
little live stream. By the time you hear this, it'll
be long gone. Party over.
Yeah, party. Over but on Patreon, we're gonna
do a start doing deep dives on behind the scenes with our
Macabre features. So if you're interested, come to
join the exclusive party. It's over there.
We'll get there. But before we do, hello, welcome

(06:25):
to Macabre, a dark history podcast.
I'm Blair. I'm Holly.
And we're really happy that you came to hang out with us today.
It means a lot. Thank you so much for choosing
us as your entertainment of the hour.
If you're new here, we are so ecstatic that you found us.
And keep listening, I hope. Let us know what you think.

(06:47):
Spread the word and remember, this show is so not for the
faint of heart. Like ever.
And negative energy is never allowed.
Let's slap the gloves on for a little wee bit of housekeeping
here in the beginning. If you like what you're hearing,
you can join us over on Patreon.We do early and add free

(07:10):
listening. You could become a looky loo,
freaky friend, deadly darling, or Makabahati over there and see
what it's like behind the scenesand see our faces.
Sometimes it's look at Hallie. Hallie's worth it.
We are. We also have a private Facebook

(07:31):
group where you can hang out with more magnificent listeners
like yourself. And if you like what you're
hearing, we're encouraging thoseratings and reviews.
As always, thank you to those who have you freaking rock.
And like I said, tell a friend, but also you can show a friend
now. Thanks to our friends over at
gothicthreats.com. They delivered and now we have a

(07:56):
merch spot over on their websitethat is Gothic Threads with
2C's. Yes, with two C's, because it's.
Thin. It's hard to say it.
Is and it's but it's awesome. But now you can strut your stuff
in true macabre fashion with a shirt or drink Ware.
We have both apparel and drink Ware and maybe there'll be more

(08:19):
to come. You never know.
Keep looking, all of our links and ways to reach us are in the
show notes. So please check that out.
And now I just have one questionfor you.
Did. You have one.
Question. You have one question for me.
Oh, I do, but I think I'm gonna save it till the end.
Oh, OK. That sounds ominous.

(08:42):
It's not trust. Me, you're good.
Did you bring your boots today? Nope.
Damn it, what about you? Got some little ones over there.
Little boots. No.
Oh man, I was hoping you did 'cause today we're talking about
the mad tyrant of Rome, Caligula, my high so.

(09:04):
That has something to do with boots.
Right. Oh yeah, it does.
We're gonna get into that. OK.
And it's so funny when you thinkabout it as like an overall
theme. It's pretty funny.
But, well, you think you know what debauchery even means?
Well, think again, because you don't.
We're going to be talking on this grand crazy spectrum today,

(09:28):
from designed pleasure barges all the way to potentially
making his beloved horse a console.
Yes, this is this is Caligula. And he had no bounds.
Join us as we talk about the oneand only little boots and no one
knew madness like this guy. Oh, it's bad, we're going to

(09:52):
talk about it. Macabre morsel's.
This episode is going to be an interesting one for sure.
I think there'll be a little debate at the end.
So where did this craziness start?
I mean, we are talking about ancient Rome, so do I really
have to say anymore? But for this particular person

(10:13):
we are landing on the 31st of August in 12 CE.
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, let me take a
breath, was born in Antium to a respected general named
Germanicus Caesar. And Germanicus was the nephew

(10:33):
and adoptive son of Tiberius, the second emperor of Rome.
And to Agrippina the elder, who was the granddaughter of Emperor
Augustus, the first emperor of Rome.
The power couple would have manychildren in their lifetime.
Gaius was their third son. Agrippina was a very influential

(10:54):
figure during her lifetime and she married Germanicus, A
Germanicus, by the way, also Mark Antony's grandson.
So big name people here. They got married in five CE and
they were second cousins, par for the course at that time.
Just surprise, surprise, as a son in the first ruling family

(11:17):
of the Roman Empire, also referred to as the Julian
Claudian, Julio Claudian dynasty.
There's going to be a lot of that today.
I tried he had to demonstrate quite early on the power that he
held just with him and his family.
But reality struck. He was already doing these types

(11:38):
of duties at the age of 2. So imagine that and buckle up
because it's going to go fast. Real fast.
Germanicus had command over Gaul, and when his third son was
very young, the family actually moved and lived with him at his
post in command on the Rhine. And Gaius lived there between

(12:01):
the ages of two and four. During this time, he was paraded
around the soldiers dressed as alittle soldier, like complete
exact miniature of their uniforms, head to toe.
And this is how he got the name Caligula.

(12:21):
Caligula. It kind of sounds intimidating,
doesn't it? You hear that name?
You're like, oh, like sounds like he could be a monster in
some crazy, you know, love crafty, a novel or something,
but. It certainly has a ring to it.
Yeah, exactly. But in reality, it it literally
translates to Little Boots or Bootykins.

(12:43):
That's like a baby nickname. Oh yeah, it's hilarious.
And he, he fucking hated that name.
Like he was known as that for his entire life and he hated it.
He really did. It's speculated.
I think it could have been both.It's widely agreed upon that it
was just a term of endearment for him because he was beloved

(13:04):
by a lot of people in Rome. Their family was, and they were
very influential. But of course, you do have the
other side of society. And some believe that that was a
nickname given to him to kind of, you know, pick on him from
the beginning of his life. So I think it's kind of both.

(13:25):
But in that time, things were very, very happy until they
weren't, like, normal because why else would it be on macabre?
In 19-CE, Germanicus died under very, very suspicious
circumstances. Agrippina accused one of his
rivals of poisoning him. Again, kind of par for the

(13:48):
course. It's ancient Rome.
She was a very bold figure. Like I had mentioned before in
Rome, she had been given an education by her grandfather,
Emperor Augustus, and she becamea permanent person in political
circles, which defying the female role at that time.
For sure, she was very well respected by a lot of people in

(14:10):
society. But again, like we said, there
were people that just did not think she deserved to be in that
circle. So this kind of played a role in
how things went down after her husband's death.
Now, she had defined traditions in many ways.
She accompanied Germanicus on his military campaigns when

(14:30):
women weren't supposed to. There are a couple records that
say that she did actually act ashis advisor and diplomat for a
couple of circumstances while onthese campaigns, which she knew
her stuff. She was very influential.
Once he died, her reputation wasvery, very quick to just be

(14:53):
crumbled, especially after she started accusing people of
murdering him. Now, she spoke against Emperor
Tiberius as well, and she did that while Germanicus was still
alive. Probably didn't go very well.
Oh, gosh, no. And so when she started that
backup after Germanicus was gone, Tiberius is like, you

(15:16):
literally have nobody to back you now.
I can come after you if I want to.
And he did. She really hated him.
Well, and I mean, look at what happened.
He was the successor from her grandfather's reign.
A lot of weird tension. She married into it.

(15:37):
She just continued to speak out.And finally, Tiberius was like,
yeah, I'm totally done with yourshit.
So he and his Praetorian Guard Sianis.
I'm pretty sure that's how you translate that, sorry if it's
not correct. They didn't really like her or
Caligula's two oldest brothers. Both brothers were very popular

(16:02):
generals, very similar to Germanicus, very well loved and
respected. They followed very closely in
what Germanicus was doing. So Tiberius and Sianis saw them
as political rivals, and they decided that they were going to
treat it as a treason case, and they were going to accuse them

(16:22):
of treason. If you know anything about when
Tiberius was emperor, that was like commonplace.
We'll talk a little more about that later, too.
But yeah, nobody was surprised that he conveniently accused the
three of them. And that's when things really
started to go downhill for Caligula's family.

(16:46):
Now, with the accusations in place, her sons Nero Julius
Caesar and Drusus Caesar were accused along with her.
And Caligula's mother was flogged.
And by some accounts, she was beaten to the point where one of
her eyes came out. Oh, no.

(17:06):
Yeah, it was bad. Drusus was killed in 23,
Agrapina the Elder was then exiled in 29, Julius was killed
in 31, and then Agrapina the Elder died just two years after
Julius. Accounts say that she starved

(17:28):
herself to death as a way of protest.
And yeah, it was bad. It's an awful.
Way to die too, I'm sure. Definitely, yeah.
And under his reign, I can't imagine the other things that
were going down while she was inexile either.
You know, he, he was definitely ruthless.

(17:50):
And poor Gaius and his sisters, like, they were so young and
they really didn't know truly what was happening.
And Gaius's grandmother, Antonia, tried so hard to shield
those four from what was going on and the truth about what was
really happening with Tiberius. And it was just a complete,

(18:11):
brutal destruction of the entirefamily.
In 31-CE, Tiberius had Caligula come move with him to the island
of Capri, where he had his residence.
We're going to get real familiarwith the island of Capri.
Yeah. No, I don't even know where to

(18:34):
begin with that. I'm going to have someone else
relay the accounts of the islandhere very soon.
But it's Caligula's life just went down the toilet.
You know, he was so young to have his life turned upside
down, and you think that was badenough?
People really think that he was mad or he went insane.

(18:55):
And we obviously can't prove that.
But when you hear what I'm goingto tell you, I don't think
anybody would be surprised that if he did end up going insane,
why it would have happened. He went through a lot of trauma
because not just family destruction was bad enough.
Apparently Tiberius only tortured him further when he

(19:18):
moved in with him. He lived alongside Tiberius's
grandson Jamellus, who was technically the next in line to
be emperor, but Tiberius actually made it so that he and
Caligula would be equally in line for the throne.

(19:39):
He knew what he was doing there.He wants conflict.
He's trying to make things happen in a very gross,
dramatic, destructive way. And unfortunately, being so
young, Gaius still knew that every action and word that he
were to say or act upon would bevery closely monitored.

(20:02):
He learned to keep his composureno matter what from a very young
age. And this could be.
Just the tipping point that he needed because everything that
followed, it just seems that he silently took in and relish the
violence that was performed before him.
Tiberius would constantly remindhim of what happened to his

(20:22):
family. He would go into detail about
how much he hated his mother andwhat he wanted to do to them.
It wasn't a great place. He just kept egging him on,
hoping he would crack so that hecould do something about it.
Well, then he also indulged guys's bad habits and of course

(20:43):
he is at a very impressionable age.
And so the things that were going down on Capri really not
suitable for any age. Some of the stuff is like, OK,
well maybe if you're eccentric and you're into that.
Other things are like, no, he should have definitely been in
jail. And but it's the time.

(21:04):
At one point he told them that he was, quote, nursing a Viper
in Rome's bosom. That was Tiberius speaking about
Caligula. Yeah.
Another cruel thing that Tiberius did was make Gaius and
Jamellus equal heirs and then let them fight each other.

(21:25):
Just try to be wrong. Very messed up.
Yeah. Very messed up.
Caligula suffered a great deal in his time living with his
adoptive uncle. With that being said, we don't
want to really talk about anything with Tiberius unless we
really dive into his residence at Capri.
And so I warned you before, and I'm going to warn you again, I'm

(21:46):
going to let Suetonius. He is a ancient writer who
documented this. We will be talking about him
quite a bit in this episode, buthe went into grotesque detail
about the happenings on this island.
I'm not even going to go into all of it.
I'm going to let him describe itas it was, but I did XNA some of

(22:10):
it out because it was that graphic.
I'm still going to give you a trigger warning.
But like you've, you've heard ofLove Island, right?
This is very different. But Can you imagine if there was
a parody show of Love Island andit was historical figures?
Telling you there's a whole market of shows that we could

(22:30):
produce. I know, I know.
And we should because I would watch it.
I would watch a parody version of that show if it was
historical figures. But I, I don't know.
I just pictured this lady is just like sitting in the
interview and she goes, Oh my gosh, like Oscar Wilde is such a
player on the silent. He just really made me believe

(22:51):
that we could have been a thing.And he sells it with words.
Put Hemingway in there for the brute.
You know the. He's such a jerk.
What the fuck? Just I'm, I'm just picturing,
you know, this very like done uplady that's in a bikini talking
about this is just, I think Albert needs to go.
I am just so sick of hearing himtalking about theories all the

(23:14):
time. It's like, what about me?
And I just, I just want to puke if I hear one more theory about
whatever relativity, relationship, whatever the hell
he was saying. But I want to tell you a secret.
Oh my gosh, it's so stupid. But like, I really, really,
really want to hook up with Houdini because I heard he's a
freak in the sack. Oh man, seriously, Can you

(23:39):
imagine? I would love that so much.
I. Would too.
I would too. That would be so funny.
Maybe you can tell like right off the bat I don't watch
reality TV, like at all. No funny me just say that
because I'm I just I'm almost done binging that show that
this. Came out perfect match.

(23:59):
Perfect match. Is it good?
It's exactly what you think it is.
I like your version. A lot better.
Gosh. So the premise of Perfect Match
is basically like the same thing.
It's these mystery people meeting each other.
Well, yeah, in this scenario, it's people from the world of

(24:22):
reality TV. They come from other shows and
they compete to find their perfect match.
And, you know, there's all kindsof scandal and drama and.
Oh man. Heartbreak.
But yeah, it's entertaining. It's my guilty pleasure.
Sorry people, I don't know if that changes your opinion of me,

(24:43):
but I like your version a lot better.
That's funny. Oh man, I love that.
Well now I'm like, what? What would it look like if we
did a parody of Perfect Match? Weird.
It'd be very similar. They're all kind of the same.
Genghis Khan hook up with Queen Victoria.

(25:04):
Find out next time. No, I don't know.
I don't know. Now I'm off on a weird tangent.
But like, I just, I mean, I loveDrunk History.
I just think that it'd be so funny.
It'd be so funny. Oh, shit.
Yeah. And have, you know, really well
known people act these people out and.
Oh yeah. You'd have to put Poe in there

(25:26):
somewhere. Oh heck yeah.
Heck yeah. Who could we hook him up with?
Think of it. Yes.
Oh my gosh, yes. Then Percy gets involved.
He's up, pieced, push, pieced. Egg is moving in on his lady.
I don't know the listeners are like what in that what is

(25:49):
happening we. Might have to cut for the
blooper reel and revisit. We'll see.
We. Should I'm sorry if my voice
gets kind of weird and I'm stuttering or trying to talk
louder accentuate certain thingsrandomly but the thunder's
getting louder? You don't.
OK, good, OK, good. And then I'll relax a little bit

(26:12):
'cause I'm like holy shit, that one rumbled the light.
So I was like, oh, OK. So who's this guy that's giving
me a count? Suetonius.
OK, yes. Also, how did Suetonius get
involved in all of this? Is he just the guy at the time
that just he's like the reporter, so.

(26:35):
I can you fucking imagine if that was the case?
I'm sure that there was somebodyin that time that was
documented. OK.
He went into the bedroom and he showed this lady a book and
said, yes, do this for me tonight, please.
No, that's not far from the truth.
We're going to get to that, but we'll get to more of why

(26:56):
Suetonius could be a major problem in some of these
accounts because he is one that a lot of people go to to get
references on what the hell was going on with Tiberius and
Caligula. Get this, Suetonius existed 80
years after the death of Caligula.
So there's a lot of room for error and a lot of accounts of

(27:20):
hearsay. And he did go and interview
people that were still alive from the time which and that
time really like, who are you going to be interviewing?
So it's kind of that same old story where there is a
philosopher or a writer from a different time accounting about

(27:41):
years past. But we'll, we'll get into that a
little more too, because there'sa theory on certain things that
rulers at the time were accused of were perhaps just a sign of
how unhappy people were with their rule.
And it was potentially an ancient attempt at a smear

(28:04):
campaign, but we'll talk about that, too.
Yeah, very weird. Very weird.
But I'm glad you asked that because that's going to be a
topic in morsels that I found really interesting.
Anyway, Setonius, he's the star of the show today, besides
Caligula. He's really.

(28:25):
So he talks in length about Tiberius's residence on Capri
and I'm going to quote him verbatim.
Of course, like I had said before, we started laughing
about our Love Island tangent that there's a couple things I'm
going to take out because it is way too macabre even to mention

(28:45):
on our show, believe it or not. If you would like to read the
entire account, you can do so. This resource is in the show
notes. I'm just not going to say that
out loud. I will say some things out loud
to get some points through to you.
So trigger warning on the following.

(29:06):
There's multiple, multiple typesof abuse, child sexual and both
combined. Those are going to be big ones
that are in these accounts from Suetonius.
I did leave some of it out. OK, going to say that one more
time. But here's what he has to say
about Tiberius's residence quote.

(29:29):
On retiring to Capri, he devisedA pleasance for his secret
orgies, teams of wantons of bothsexes selected as experts in
deviant intercourse, and copulated before him in triple
union to excite his flagging passions.
Its bedrooms were furnished withmost salacious paintings and

(29:52):
sculptures as well as an This one got me an erotic library in
case a performer should need an illustration of what was
required for the evening. I'm just like, can you?
Imagine. So they're manuals, basically.

(30:12):
How to manuals in the rooms? Yeah, just in case you don't
know. Do you think you could do this
one? Is this conspiration?
Lift your leg, Yeah. Lift your leg a little bit more
to the left. It's like looking.
At the book. All right now pivot.

(30:33):
Pivot that way. Pivot I just.
Oh, oh man, yeah, I laugh reallyhard at that part.
I'm like, are you kidding? Suetonius goes on to say then in
Capri's woods and Groves he arranged a number of nooks and
vanery where boys and girls got up in get UPS of pan and nymphs,

(30:58):
solicited outside borrowers and grottoes.
People openly call this the Old Goat's Garden, punting on the
island's name, which they in some accounts of Tiberius,
especially for people who weren't the biggest fans of him,
they called him Old Goat. It is really funny.

(31:20):
He goes on to say he acquired A reputation for still grosser
depravities that one can hardly bear to tell or be told.
Exactly, Suetonius. That's exactly why I'm leaving
some of this out, let alone believe.
For example, he trained little boys, whom he termed tiddlers,
to crawl between his thighs whenhe went swimming and to tease

(31:43):
him by licking and nibbling with.
I'm going to not go where you I'm sure can tell.
I'm not even going to talk aboutwhat he allegedly did with
babies. We're going to move on,
Suetonius goes on to say. The story is also told that
once, at a sacrifice attracted by the acolyte's beauty, he lost

(32:04):
control of himself and hardly wanted to wait for the ceremony
to end, rushing him off and debauched him and his brother
the flute player too. Subsequently, when they
complained of the assault, he had their legs broken.
Now, I did include this one because this shows just how
cruel Tiberius really was on topof everything else gross that he

(32:28):
did. If people came after him with
accusations of any kind, whetherit could be proven 100% by
multiple witnesses, he would pull shit like that.
Yeah, he's a Roman emperor. Right.
You can when you're in power like that, right?
Yeah. Which you can see how Caligula
was starting to realize he couldget away with a lot.

(32:51):
Keep this in mind for later. One of the last accounts that
Suetonius goes into was quote. He grossly was in the habit of
abusing women, even of high birth.
It's very clearly shown by the death of a certain Melania,
where she was brought to his bedand refused most vigorously to
submit to his lust. He turned her over to the

(33:14):
informers and even when she was on trial, he did not cease to
call her out and ask very loudlywhether she was sorry or not yet
so that she finally she left thecourtroom and went home where
she stabbed herself openly operating the ugly man of his
obscenities. Hence the stigma upon him.

(33:35):
At the next plays were given in farce that reflected with great
applause from many people in theaudience.
People really didn't like Tiberius, and when they picked
on him in plays, a phrase that would reportedly be said after
the fact was the old goat was licking his dues just because

(33:59):
they were afraid of him in the open.
But if they knew that they couldget away with certain code or
whatever in some of the plays, they definitely took the liberty
to do so. But firstly, what the hell was
that? Secondly, why the hell was that?
And three, what is wrong with people?

(34:23):
Like seriously, I read that and I'm like, it's only going to get
worse. What's crazy about that is
people never really change, eventhroughout the course of
history. I mean, the same stuff is still
happening. Yeah.
And the upper echelons of very powerful rich people, I can

(34:48):
guarantee. And I mean, let's talk.
I mean, we can just throw in theisland.
Yep. And the list.
Yep. Yeah, not much has changed.
No, not at all. Not at all.
It's very unfortunate. It's just seems to go in some
vicious loop. And I I know, like you might

(35:13):
wonder, OK, why are we going into so much detail about Capri?
Why is this so important? Well, don't forget that Caligula
had to live through this. He was seeing this constantly,
like all the time growing up. And I think that if he truly had
some sort of issue with, I mean,people say he was insane, if he

(35:36):
had any sort of mental triggers of any kind, can you about
imagine where they came from? If it wasn't from the
destruction of his family, it was definitely this like very,
very traumatic early childhood. And I mean, this doesn't
account, you know, for the violence and equal measure.

(35:57):
I mean, we're going to talk about some pretty crazy things
coming up, but just look at everything else that Tiberius
did that were just given as examples to Caligula.
He was so treason happy. He would accuse everybody and
anything of treason. And I feel like, I mean, a bad
joke, but like, I truly think that Tiberius was either aroused

(36:17):
by someone or something or he was accusing them of treason or
both at the same time. I mean, that account with
Melania, that's exactly how thatwent down.
If somebody refused his advancesbecause he was being a creep, he
would accuse him of treason because it was going against the
emperor. Yeah, so a lot of executions and

(36:37):
exiles, a bunch of stuff. But I tell you, welcome to
fucking agent room. It's it's only going to get
crazier. In 37, Tiberius died and the
rumor has it that Caligula and Praetorian Prefect Macro
smothered the emperor with a pillow and remember.

(36:59):
Yeah, kind of had it coming. Right.
It's like you can be nasty. I guess you go out nasty.
Now. Remember, both Caligula and
Gemellus were equally in line torule well at the age of 24.
Gaius Julius Caesar, Augustus Germanicus became the third
emperor of Rome. And in the beginning, people

(37:21):
were ecstatic. They were overjoyed to know that
he was going to be their new leader.
And being the son of Germanicus and also a descendant of
Augustus, it was made, you know,the rumors were like, he's the
beloved little kid that we all remember.
And he's going to do so much better for Rome.
Life is going to get better. And I mean, remember Tiberius,

(37:46):
he was a really stressful pimpleon society for everyone.
I mean, people lived in fear. He was frugal where he shouldn't
have been. A lot of his funds went to his
extravagance. Yeah.
I won't go back into accusationsof treason, but, you know, he
did Treason. Treason.
Tiberius. Treason.

(38:07):
Yeah, should have been his name,but it just seemed to everybody
that he was going to be the other extreme on the other side.
If Tiberius was the evil 1, Gaius was going to be this
amazing, you know, ruler. So people were happily surprised
when Caligula came into power and started his executive

(38:28):
actions. He started by doing extravagant
games for society to come and enjoy.
It is no surprise that he was a fan of chariot games, Gladier
games. He spent a lot of money for
entertainment for the people. In this time, he abolished sales
tax. He brought back a ton of people

(38:49):
who had been exiled by Tiberius.He also burned records that
contained the treason trials from Tiberius's reign.
He seemed to be the answer to everyone's prayers at this
point. But just seven months after he
gained the title of emperor, he got sick.
Like, really, really sick. The illness had him in bed for

(39:14):
about a month, and people were starting to really get terrified
of, OK, what's going on? Are we going to have a new
emperor? Like, what's going down?
So people were praying for him to get better, some people in
the Senate were proclaiming to the heavens that they should be
taking their lives instead of the emperors, and begging for
his full and fast recovery. He did recover, and he became a

(39:38):
completely different person whenhe got out of that bedchamber.
Some say he went insane at this point, some say he was suffering
from a hereditary illness. Some say he just straight up
turned evil, and some say his previous months as emperor had
only been an act. Gaius already had a long name,

(40:01):
but he added another middle nameto it, and that name would be
cruelty. He restored treason trials.
He began to issue execution orders, Macro, the prefect who
allegedly helped him kill Tiberius, and Jamelus, the other
person who was supposed to be equally in line for the Empire.

(40:22):
Were both as executed just a year after Caligula came to
power. He had heard that the people in
the Senate had begged to the heavens to take their lives
instead. So he went to the Senate one day
and said, why aren't you dead yet?
And people died from that. He began doing some devious

(40:43):
things to line his pockets. He came out of the sick bed
wearing silk robes and completely covered in jewels.
He started pretending that he was a God and once the silks and
jewels were on baby, there was no going back.
Caligula. He was in town and it was about
to get real crazy on the fear scale in Rome.

(41:05):
He was making senators kisses feet.
He held political dinner parties, and he made sure that
the senators brought their wiveswith because during the parties,
he would observe them all, seduce his favorites.
And then during dinner, he wouldselect one of them and announce
that he was going to go have sometimes with said wife.

(41:28):
Yeah, I can't even imagine. He would then take this
senator's wife out of the room and do just what you think that
he was going to do. And if anyone objected, they
were imprisoned or killed. And sometimes the guests could
hear things, see things, and sometimes it wasn't just one
wife in one party. Yeah, he's definitely pulling

(41:54):
Tiberius level shit. It didn't matter if you were
friend or foe of Caligula, you were walking on egg shells.
He executed rivals, but he also executed very close allies, such
as his personal protection. No one knew that what was coming
down the pipeline. I mean, any given day was

(42:14):
something different for him. There's a record of him heading
to a ceremony that was requiringA sacrifice, and he was supposed
to deliver the animal in the sacrifice.
So he was up at this altar with his animal, and the weapon of
use was going to be a mallet forthe sacrifice.

(42:36):
He went to bring the mallet downhard on the animal, and at the
very last second he turned and struck the priest behind him,
killing him instantly, and proclaimed he was the sacrifice,
not the animal. Yeah, Nope.
There are many accounts of his alleged incest with all three of

(42:58):
his sisters, specifically with his favorite sister Drusilla.
Now, this can't officially be confirmed, but it has followed
him throughout the centuries andyou're going to be surprised.
But Roman historian Suetonius would be the first to claim this
in his written works that Caligula committed a lot of
incest. The ruler apparently wasn't shy

(43:21):
about either. According to Suetonius, these
incestuous acts would take placeduring banquets.
Sometimes as part of the main entertainment of the night.
Guests would gather around. Family members, including
Caligula's wife, would watch andhave to applaud at the end.

(43:42):
Allegedly. But why don't we talk about
Caligula's wives for a hot second?
Because this says a lot about him too.
He had four wives. His first was Yunia, Claude,
Claudilla, and they were marriedin 33 and the marriage ended in
34. Now they were wed before he came

(44:03):
to power, so things were lookinga little differently at that
time. But she died during childbirth
along with her child which definitely had an effect on
Caligula and just another thing to throw in his trauma bucket.
Honestly not a good time for him.
His second wife Livia Orestala, they were married in 37 and

(44:27):
divorced in 37. The story with her is he just
wanted her, but the problem was she was already married to Gaius
Culpernius Piso, so he forced Piso to get their marriage
annulled. They were literally married for
a matter of months before Caligula decided that he was

(44:49):
going to divorce her on the account of suspicion that she
was committing adultery with none other than her former
husband. Husband Piso.
I mean, really. Can't the nerve of that moment?
Yeah, the nerve. It's like, Oh my gosh, dude.
Yeah. He actually put her into exile
for it. So like, yeah, jerk moves.

(45:13):
Jerk moves. The third would be at a very,
very traumatic turning point in his life.
His third wife would be Lalia Paulina.
They were married in 38. Do the math on these numbers.
He was like going right after the other.
He was a busy guy. So they were married in 38.

(45:34):
But what really started turning here was it ended the same year.
And the reason why that was is she died that year because
Caligula's sister, Agripina the Younger, saw Lolia as a rival of
power, and she wanted her eliminated.
And because Agripina held technically a higher status of

(45:58):
power, she ordered her to commitsuicide while under the
supervision of a Roman Colonel. Yeah.
Can you imagine? No, that is just terrifying.
And we'll talk about what happened that same year.
But his last wife before we go back in the timeline is Melania

(46:21):
Cezania. They were married in 39 up until
their deaths. And according to all written
accounts that I was able to find, Caligula and Melania were
very, very much in love with each other.
Definitely a different take for him personally in his life.
But going back to his sisters, Drusilla, his favorite, and many

(46:45):
think, you know, they had a veryunhealthy relationship.
I think that it can't necessarily be proven that there
really truly was any incestual acts between the two.
There's a possibility that theirrelationship was just very
misunderstood. Now, when he was younger, he

(47:06):
would often go to her when things were really bad and after
they had suffered so much loss in the family.
Some believe that that she was just his comfort.
He would go to her when he needed to calm down.
And this was that way for her entire life.
She was his calm point when he got out of control.
But others still speculate that it was in fact incestuous.

(47:29):
But it depends, I mean, on who you read.
But Suetonius would tell you it was definitely incest.
But he was just very dependent upon her and love and support by
a lot of other accounts and sometimes she would be just what
he needed. And she probably ended up saving

(47:50):
more Roman lives than people realize.
I think in that case if if that was truly how it was.
But they did definitely take a major turn in the year 38 when
Drusilla died. She got a very, very random
illness. It came on fast and it took her
life very quickly before they really, truly knew what was

(48:13):
going on. And this really put Caligula on
a new course of insanity. It didn't help that his other
two sisters, and nobody's surprised but Agrapina the
younger after, you know, having his third wife commit suicide

(48:33):
because she demanded it, his other sister was helping her
with different conspiracies thatwere going against him.
And so he actually had his othertwo sisters exiled because they
were involved with too much stuff.
Yeah, Yeah. It's getting real up in here now
in Rome. It's.
Very much. It's like a very reality TV.

(48:58):
It is that. But it's kind of that with the
soap opera mix. Mm Hmm.
It absolutely is. Absolutely is.
It's very Game of Thrones like. He's very much a Joffrey, for
sure. But yeah, super, super dramatic.
Like, this is just craziness. But yeah, he was starting to

(49:23):
make some very rash decisions. If he wasn't before, he really
was now. He was super inconsolable.
After Drusilla's passing, he refused to let anybody take her
body away. And so she sat there for quite
some time before they just basically said she's got to get
a right burial. You know, he made it so that she

(49:46):
was consecrated as a goddess in her passing.
That was like the very highest ranking that a lady could get in
Roman society at the time. And he had people worship her as
such. There were, there was a temple,
like a mini temple that he had for her and everything.

(50:07):
The year after this happened officially is when he had his
other two sisters exile. But he knew that there was
things going on in 38 and he waskeeping track and keeping
receipts. But that won't be the last you
hear of his sisters at this point.
He is distraught, he's upset. He is really not OK to work

(50:33):
with. Surprise, if he wasn't before,
he really wasn't now. And he really started spending
more money, like vast amounts until there was literally
nothing left in the Roman treasury.
But that didn't A tier Gaius. He had found other ways to get
money by blackmailing and confiscating very wealth in

(50:53):
Roman families of all of their possessions and then exiling
them. Or worse.
He was constructing buildings such as temples and theaters,
holding in very expensive games,gladiatorial and chariot races,
building huge race tracks for the chariot races, hosting
lavish parties while also funding multiple homes for

(51:16):
himself. Yay no.
Some good things that he did do we should give him something I
guess. Was that he actually started the
construction of two aqueducts during his time.
As we know the Roman aqueducts would become a major point for

(51:38):
the empire. He also maintained a lot of
roads and repaired city walls that were heavily damaged.
So he did also, the biggest thing that moving forward that
he did for the Roman Empire was that he expanded the empire on
their conquest to Britain, whichClaudius would end up doing.

(52:00):
But Caligula made that happen. But for real, he had so many bad
things that outweigh the good. So let's go back to some of his
ideas of the party entertainment.
Yeah, he was accusing people of stealing.
Like he had slaves that would apparently steal from him in his

(52:24):
palace. And during parties, he would
have them come out and he would have one of their hands chopped
off in front of the guests to belike a show of power, like you
do not do this regardless if whether it happened or not.
But if yeah, it's true or not, right?
But if that wasn't bad enough, he would then string that hand

(52:46):
around that person's neck and make them walk around for the
rest of the party that way. That sounds so much like a
movie. I don't recall which movie, and
maybe that was portrayed becauseit was something that happened
at that time, but yeah, Can you imagine?
Oh no. It's awful, Yeah.
No, so bad. So bad.

(53:09):
At another party, which this is really bad, too, he invited a
father to a dinner after he had just ordered his son to be
executed. Caligula told him that he had to
be happy and jubilant at the party and not show any, like,
remorse or sadness because if hedidn't, he would have his
remaining son executed as well. It's like, really?

(53:34):
Yeah. Yeah, this is he.
He's. Very Joffrey.
Very Joffrey. Harry Joffrey.
Yeah, yeah. I mean that came from Tiberius
directly. Oh definitely.
All rubbed off and made him messed up.
You know, right, You could totally see it and what he did,

(53:54):
like, almost like mini Tiberius in a way.
Like very, very, very reminiscent, like he even had in
his residences that he had throughout Rome.
There were places in some of theaccounts that I read that were
almost verbatim of the types of rooms that Tiberius had on

(54:15):
Capri. Yeah.
I feel like Tiberius just reallymade him a monster.
Just not great. He would have people dress up in
different types of clothing verysimilar to what Tiberius did.
He would have people dress up asdifferent gods and goddesses and
nymphs and different creatures from the mythology and stories

(54:39):
of the time in some gardens thathe had constructed.
There's just so many things thathe did.
In October of 39, he made a veryunexpected visit to the Rhine.
He executed his sister Drusilla's widower Lapidus while
he was there, along with the commander of the Upper Rhine

(55:02):
Army's Gottilicus. The next year he marched his way
into Gaul where he invaded and pillaged, and some record
records differ for this next excursion, and I'll explain why.
Supposedly, after that raid, he made his troops March to the
shores of Gaul and ordered them to collect seashells.

(55:23):
He then brought these back home and claimed that this was the
proof he needed to show that he had conquered the ocean.
Others speculate that this was he really went off the deep end
mentally. Others speculate that he was so
obsessed with gods and goddessesand wanted to be treated as such

(55:46):
that this was a symbolic way of showing that he had defeated
Poseidon. And like, was this, you know,
massive, you know, ruler, whatever.
Others speculate that he was a coward and he didn't want to go
anywhere else because he didn't want to put the work in and he
just wanted to make himself lookgood.

(56:07):
And so he was bringing these back as like, oh, look what I
did, you know, just kind of bidding his time because he
wanted the title of emperor, buthe didn't really want the
responsibilities that came with it.
One of the one of the other, like, speculations on this one
was that the talk of seashells was actually a reference to

(56:31):
something completely different. They think it was an insinuation
of having his troops go to brothels and Gaul instead
because seashells back then was actually a derogatory term for a
lady's southern shores, if you know what I mean.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
So this campaign got no further than the channel in the year 40.

(56:53):
And then he came back. It was very short.
He wanted the glory of a military mission, as I had
mentioned, but he didn't want todeal with the full blown war, so
he didn't really do much else. Something else that he posed was
that allegedly, now this is in different records, and I do
believe that this probably did happen.

(57:14):
But the alleged report is that he invaded the Germans, right?
And the invasion attempts were not successful.
So he came back to the homeland with all of the slaves that they
brought with them to the campaign.

(57:34):
They dressed them up as Germans and brought them back and just
pose them as their German prisoners of war.
Yeah. Such a fraud.
Such a fraud. He's a fraud, not a good guy.
But it only got worse for Caligula when he further
offended the Jewish community bymaking his intentions known that

(57:55):
he would be putting a statue of himself up in the temple at
Jerusalem. But the ruler of Palestine who
was under Roman rule, Harad Agrippa, somehow persuaded him
against it. Don't know how he managed to do
that because Caligula was so obsessed with being seen as a

(58:16):
God that I'm very surprised thatHarrod was able to convince him
otherwise. But yeah, in fact, he had a name
for himself, and he wanted people to call him Neos Helios
because he saw himself as the embodiment of the sun God.
Yeah, apparently there were coins in Egypt that featured him

(58:36):
with a crown symbolizing his divine status.
He went as far as claiming that he had full blown conversation
with gods and that's how he madehis decisions and after.
He had syphilis. I'm wondering the same thing.
I mean, he got around and do youthink Romans were protecting
anything? No.

(58:57):
Yeah, and we know that it makes you go crazy.
Yeah. At at a point and you go crazy.
Yeah, you do. And.
Ate up his frontal lobe. What they explain a lot.
Right, won't be talking about that lobe soon, 'cause yeah,
there's something definitely up at this point.
I mean, he's really pushed so many limits here.

(59:20):
There were conspiracies that hadalready begun against him and it
was literally just feeling the fire that was already in place.
And four months after returning from Rome from his mindless
campaign in Gaul, it was going to come to an end.

(59:42):
In January of 41, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was
assassinated trusted members andher, his Praetorian Guard
Cassius Cheria being one of them.
Caligula often mocked him for his high pitched voice,
supposedly. Yeah, all the dumb things all.

(01:00:06):
Of the things. Yeah, can just imagine that
going down. Oh.
Same. And just like this, I'm
picturing this really buff guy just shaking with anger and you
know, Caligula's like you've gota really high pitched voice
maybe, you know. Well, they confronted him in an

(01:00:27):
underground corridor at the Imperial Palace on Palatine
Hill, just after he had been hosting the Palatine Games, and
one report states that he had stabbed him 30 times.
Colony. Yeah, that's a lot.
Yeah, that's just somebody that's real pissed.

(01:00:48):
Off. Oh, yeah, exactly.
And many believe Cassius was thefirst to draw blood.
But he wasn't the only person there.
There were other people of the guard with him.
But it's very much like the at the Wall, yes, When they all
attack Jon Snow, that's the vision that I get, right?
All of them attacking him, Yeah.And I don't.

(01:01:09):
Although Jon Snow didn't deserveit.
No, agreed. And honestly I I'm still
picturing this big beefcake of aguy going who's having now
bitch. Like I'm just like I just I
can't. I can't.
So that's how the Emperor met his end.
It was a long time coming, it seemed, not just from Cassius,

(01:01:31):
but many others. He died at the age of 28.
Oh wow. OK.
He was really young Yeah. And just let that sink in for a
hot second. He went through so much in less
than 3 decades. Yeah, insane.
And The thing is that. No thank you.

(01:01:51):
No. Exactly.
Exactly. It's like, oh man, no.
The The Praetorian Guard also assassinated his wife Melania
and their daughter Julia Drusilla because they.
That's a little too. Far I agree.
And Melania was a little outspoken.
Her and Cooligilla were very much in love and she advocated

(01:02:14):
for things. She was afraid of him though.
A lot of times he would just straight up, they'd be having
like a really happy moment and he'd be like, just remember, I
could kill you at any time. And she just went along with it.
I mean, what else can you reallydo?
But I don't know how fair it wasto kill them as well.
I can understand why they would want to get rid of any loose

(01:02:34):
ends because he was such a terror on Rome.
But also, Julia Drusilla was basically an infant.
So Caligula had less than a fiveyear reign when you broke it
down. And besides wild parties, what
did he really accomplish? Well, he was credited with

(01:02:57):
adding new provinces to Rome andthe country focus on expanding
westward. The mad emperor did formulate A
tangible plan to take over Britain.
His efforts wouldn't make it past the English Channel in his
lifetime, but he did pave the way for Claudius to start that
conquest of Britain in 43 AD, just two years after Caligula's

(01:03:19):
death. And if you thought that his life
story was wild, just wait till you hear some of these macabre
morsels. Little Boots may have may have
assassinated Tiberius. We kind of covered that already.
But there was a Roman writer that actually lived during the

(01:03:42):
time that apparently had an account of this.
And it was indeed that he he didsmother him with a pillow with
the help of Praetorian Guard. But another writer, guess who
Suetonius challenged this reportand he threw in his own theory
because why not? I'm just picturing when he's

(01:04:04):
being some paparazzi like writerfrom beyond he And then he did
this. And yeah, I don't know.
He wrote that Caligula was at his own wit's end and wrote that
he poisoned Tiberius, as some think, and ordered that his ring
be taken from him while he stillbreathes.
And then he was suspecting that he was trying to hold fast to

(01:04:28):
it. And that's when they pulled the
pillow over his face and even strangled the old man with his
own hands, immediately ordering the crucifixion of freedom who
cried out at the awful deed. I I just think it was a pillow
my dude but OK. Caligula has gone down in
history as a madman, but how true is it?

(01:04:49):
He was etched into history as a sadistic psycho, but historians
think that some of the sources who documented his reign are
suspicious. How Suetonians.
Like many other accounts of emperors of the time, his true
story had been rewritten even before his assassination, and
this was to help Claudius take his place and make him look so

(01:05:10):
much better and as the solution to all of Rome's problems.
He wasn't the only person to do this, this would be done many
times. For many of the Emperor's he was
a monster. But the stories and legends,
they've evolved since his death,and they've carried through time
as such. So some of these stories should
be taken with a grain of salt. Allegedly, he developed an

(01:05:34):
enjoyment for watching people being tortured and also being
eaten by wild animals, especially during gladiatorial
games. And this was said to have
started when he lived with Tiberius.
Surprise, surprise. Remember Suetonius?
He's coming back. I mean, yeah, that guy.

(01:05:56):
Oh, that guy. I mean, who could forget him
with all of the things that he said about that?
Suetonius wrote The Lives of Caesar in 121.
So a significant amount of time,as you said, had passed.
Yes, that's a whole 80 years in between him and the Tyrants

(01:06:18):
assassination. This is an entire lifetime of
separation from these events andpeople exaggerate as things go
down the line and Roman writers are very well known to do that.
And this whole not living duringhis reign thing.
He never got this from any true account from people.

(01:06:40):
Apparently there are documented writers that did mention
Caligula in their lifetime. They live during his reign, and
they really didn't mention a lotof crazy behaviour.
They just mentioned the similar,like, OK, the government's kind
of sucking right now because of this, this and this and here's

(01:07:01):
trees and trials and all this stuff.
Very, very par for the course. So was Suetonius in actuality
just an ancient gossip columnistmaking money off sensationalism?
Well, we'll leave that up to youbecause we do know that Little
Boots was cruel. But to what extent what we can

(01:07:25):
say is absolutely true is his launching of pleasure barges on
Lake Namie. That was true.
And we can back this up in 1929,dictator Benito Mussolini, who
probably deserves his own episode and he really fangirled
hard over the legacy of ancient Rome, had Lake Namie drained.

(01:07:47):
And what was discovered in this effort was 2 shipwrecks that
were absolutely massive. The larger of the two wrecks was
240 feet long with 36 foot long ores recovered with the vessel.
Caligula's name was on some of the remnants.
And they've discovered some other things.

(01:08:08):
And that was, they believe one of his big pleasure barges.
And these things were massive, like he had like fruit Groves,
mazes. Well, and it's called a pleasure
barge. So you know, what went down on
them. I won't go into details.
It's like, you know? It's like a modern day cruise
line, Yeah. Yeah, maybe he would see.

(01:08:30):
Maybe he's the OG cruise liner dude.
More orgies going on, going backto Setonius for yet another
written statement, this time regarding the barges.
He said quote, 10 banks of oars,the poops of which blaze with
jewels, filled with ample baths,galleries, and salons, and

(01:08:51):
supplied with a great variety ofvines and fruit.
End Quote. Damn that shit was rich.
Poops like they've never seen. Just kidding.
If you're not familiar with shipterms, poop means the highest
deck in the rear of the ship. Like the poop deck?
Like the poop deck? Yeah, exactly.
You can read all about it. I left a source for you in the

(01:09:12):
show notes from Harbour Guide. It's called Pooped the Origin.
You're welcome. That that was my little nautical
nugget for your pool today. He didn't just leave the crazy
parties for the water on land. They were quite the spectacle
too. Sparing no expense for any party

(01:09:32):
ever in his life, Caligula goes down in the record for the most
money spent on debauchery in Roman history.
He spent all that Tiberius had left behind, and on one party
alone. It was documented that Caligula
spent 10 million denarii on one party.

(01:09:53):
That's the equivalent to just under 51 million U.S. dollars
today. That's.
Yeah, that's that's more than Jeff Bezos.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crazy little boot spent more
time at races than he did on business affairs and the empire
as a whole. His favorite racing team was the

(01:10:15):
green chariot team, allegedly. That's that's how it was written
down. If you listen to our episode.
Oh, in Season 2, it was for onset, meaning movies.
We talked a little bit about this.
This may sound familiar. There is a film about him called
Caligula that came out in 1979. We reference that in the

(01:10:38):
beginning of this episode, too. I do want to find it just to say
I watch it. I'm a little scared though.
It is still banned in multiple countries.
I looked, particularly Canada and Iceland and others.
Yeah, the film that was directedby Tinto Brass and starred
Malcolm McDowell as Caligula himself, Not to mention Helen

(01:10:59):
Mirren and Peter O'Toole also playing major roles in this
film. It was explicit and that's
putting it politely. There were scenes that portrayed
the emperor's madness in horrific detail.
Some of these scenes were basically themed pornos.
And that is also putting it politely.
If you find it, watch with discretion.

(01:11:21):
It has a horrible rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
OK, for many reasons. All the more.
Reason to watch it, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, you, you probably should prepare yourself if you're going
to watch it. There is still some debate with
Caligula's life, so let's just talk about a couple of rumors
that have been going around. Let's see if we can get to the

(01:11:41):
bottom. Did the tyrant make his beloved
horse in Sita? In Sitatos, a console?
No, he didn't. But was it considered?
Yeah, potentially it was. Some historians believe that the
record that this was stated in was in jest or a threat made by

(01:12:04):
Caligula. Basically stating to the people
that if he wanted to make his horse a console, he could
because that's what he could do with his power if he wanted to.
Basically saying that he could do whatever the heck he wanted
'cause he was the emperor. Though he did state this shortly
before his death, so maybe it would have happened if he wasn't
killed. But you know what he did do to

(01:12:29):
his trusty steed? Or for his trusty steed, he made
a house for his horse with a ivory and like marble stall.
It had a Manger in there that was madely complete out of
ivory. Wow.
Yeah, that's a that's a spoiled horse for you.

(01:12:51):
There is a weird like thing thatI keep I kept coming across
while I was doing my research and this question, I don't know
why, but like they're like, did Caligula eat his son?
No, Caligula did not have a son.This was something that kept
popping up and I just had to address it.
He only had one living child by the time he passed away, and

(01:13:13):
that was his daughter, Julia Drusilla.
But then she was also assassinated and now the big
one. Was Caligula actually insane?
That's debatable. Writers and documentaries
throughout history have said he was.
But remember, smear campaigns were a thing in Rome too.

(01:13:35):
And this was often to promote new potential rulers propaganda
to make the the current emperor look like garbage.
So any time that this, you know,it was just aggressively done,
ancient Rome was a brutal cutthroat time.
So it's very, very suggestible that this was something that was

(01:13:58):
done as a smear campaign. It is also said that certain
accusations during this time that were made, historians
believe we're actually a just like a suggestion made to
suggest that it was a bad government.
And so it's kind of just the same as a smear campaign.
But like, anytime that mental illness or incest or any like,

(01:14:21):
sexual misconduct was mentioned,it's thought that this was just
said in order to try to attempt to get them pushed out of office
or end their life to get someoneelse in.
So this could potentially be whyCaligula was given so many
different like slanderous facts that just seem to follow him

(01:14:43):
throughout. Could some of it be true?
Yes, there is a a high probability that some of that
was true. Look at Tiberius and just look
at how his life was. It's just crazy.
Like another fact. If you didn't know, these
statues that we have from Rome, I mean, people were like coming

(01:15:04):
out like high turnover rate, right?
Some statues you'll notice, especially in the face or the
bus, they look the same, especially in the Julio Julio
Claudian dynasty, because they could literally just easily mess
up a face and re etch a face. And some of these people had the
same haircut and ears because they were supposed to be other

(01:15:26):
people. And that's just how quick the
turn around time was. There is like a structure that
these architects would have whenthey were making up sculptures
that it was it was almost like like Polly Pocket or like Lego.
They like installed this like little whole thing that you

(01:15:49):
could put a bust of somebody on on a statue and they could go
and easily just chisel a couple places, remove the head and put
someone else's head on a statue.Isn't that crazy?
That's hilarious. It is hilarious, but like damn,
like they were ready to move on quickly.
That was for sure. So some things that we no and

(01:16:12):
some things that we don't know super easily erased during this
time. Remember that he was definitely
a ruthless ruler, but some stuffwas absolutely exaggerated.
There is debate whether or not he did have a mental illness.
It's a huge possibility. Also, just knowing that what he
went through, it is also speculated that there was

(01:16:33):
something that was hereditary that followed in that line with
the family. Definitely a possibility.
Some scholars think that he could have had hyperthyroidism,
A temporal lobe epilepsy syndrome, or Wilson's disease,
which can also be hereditary. The condition causes copper

(01:16:57):
levels to build up in the body, leaving the neuropsychiatric
symptoms commonly known for moodswings and movement disorders.
And ultimately, we just don't know and we can't confirm, but
that is a highly, highly speculated option.
If that were the case, he was Emperor Nero's uncle.

(01:17:19):
Nero definitely deserves his ownepisode.
Nero became the ruler of Rome after Claudius, who Claudius
took it over from Caligula. Now how did Nero come to power?
Nero's mother was Agrapina the Younger, and she was married to
Claudius, the one who, you know,took over after Caligula, and it

(01:17:43):
said that she poisoned Claudius to make Nero the 5th emperor of
Rome. Would you be surprised with
everything else that she did? She was absolutely saturated in
conspiracies at the time to get her own brother outlet alone,
get her husband and then off himtoo, so her son could take over.
Yeah, and you know what? He would also be the last in

(01:18:05):
line to the Julio Claudian Empire.
Nero was nuts. In 68.
Nero would end this dynasty by committing suicide.
Ultimately, Caligula's actions led to a long lasting damage to
the Roman Empire. He single handedly weakened the

(01:18:26):
foundation of the empire with his misspent finances and this
led to power struggles after hisdeath.
And even Caligula wasn't actually mentally insane.
He was insane with greed and power and lust that made him
blind to anything not in his Direct Line of sight.

(01:18:46):
And he literally could have had anything he wanted.
And he did. And he was one of the world's
most powerful rulers of the time.
It just wasn't enough for him. Little Boots didn't want to be
emperor, he wanted to be a God. And when mortals set their
sights on such desires, it's always leading to a very brutal

(01:19:09):
destruction. And that is Caligula, my
friends. Well, I learned a few things.
Caligula is definitely worth thetalk.
He was insane. Not maybe, not actually, but

(01:19:29):
just everything that went down was insane.
What a time to be alive. Yeah, yeah.
Seeing some parallels, are we? I am, but yeah, that's what I've
got for you. Do you remember that question

(01:19:52):
you were going to ask me? I.
Do yes. And I, I think it's going to be
an obvious answer now. Before I wasn't sure because it
didn't really know about Caligula, but now that I know
about Caligula, I think you're going to agree with me on this
one. Would you rather party with
Caligula or Rasputin? Oh my gosh.

(01:20:14):
OK, Honestly, probably Rasputin.Definitely.
Rasputin. I mean Rasputin could do some
really weird things, but like I feel like he.
Seemed like a fun guy. Kind of eccentric, but still
kind of fun. Yeah, He wasn't gonna sit there
and be like you. You stole from me.

(01:20:35):
No, I didn't. Yeah, it wasn't gonna be like
that. You know, definitely that's an
easy answer. Yeah, but a really good
question. Well, before we wrap up, I think
we have some shout outs to do. Yes, we do.
We have some Patreon members want a special shout out, so

(01:20:56):
thank you for joining. We've got Lindsay, our newest
Looky loo. Thank you, Lindsay.
Hillary, thanks for being a freaky friend.
Hillary, thank you. And Nick, you deadly darling
you, Nick, thanks for being. And let's not forget, last but

(01:21:17):
not least, Emma you. Makabahati you.
Emma Makabahati, thank you. You guys freaking you all.
We appreciate your support helpsus to keep the show going.
Thank you and definitely join usfor our next live show on
Patreon. We would love to see you there.

(01:21:39):
Heck yeah. Come have a party with us.
It's pretty funny sometimes. And it's really fun to hang out
sometimes. I mean, it's always, it's always
for me. It's always a time.
But I'm just remembering the when we were trying to watch a
movie and we more context on that later.
But Patreon, it's fun. Heck yeah.

(01:22:00):
Thank you guys so much. It really means so much to us.
And the party is forever going on and it's only growing.
And that's because of you fabulous people.
So thank you so much. We freaking love you and that's
literally all we wrap for you. Yes, that's a wrap.
As always, have fun, be safe, bekind and we will shock you

(01:22:23):
later. Bye.
The the. The.