Historians describe emperor Caligula’s reign in unsettling terms. This was a man who made his horse a consul, who emptied the imperial treasury, …
Storyboard
The Roman Empires Most Controversial Emperors
Whether or not they truly deserve to be vilified, these Roman Emperors caused uproar in their day. People were shocked by their sex lives, their religious views, their mismanagement of the empire, and their extravagant tastes.
Late in the 1st century CE, an atmosphere of fear and mistrust clouded the palace atop the Palatine hill in Rome. Befitting the wealth of the …
Mad, bad, and bloodthirsty. These are but a few epithets attributed to the men who are traditionally considered the “worst” Roman emperors. …
Emperor Nero holds a special place in history’s hall of infamy. After all, this is a man who killed his stepbrother and competitor for the throne as …
Few emperors enjoy and endure quite as diverse a legacy as Elagabalus, who ruled from AD 218 to 222. Cut down along with his mother by mutinous …
If you were a Roman emperor, and if you happened to take your name from a sartorial choice, the odds are that the judgment of history will not be …
According to the official line, in AD 312 the Roman emperor Constantine had a vision of the Christian cross at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. He …
“For our history now descends from one a kingdom of gold, to one of iron and rust.” With this particularly enduring metallurgical metaphor, the …
Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Commodus, Geta, and Caracalla — these names evoke immense power and great fear. They are the most terrible of the Roman …
