Caligula
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12 – 41 AD) earned the nickname Caligula (“little boots” in Latin) by which he is better known to history from Roman legionaries because of the miniature legionary outfits he wore in camp as a child while accompanying his father on military campaigns. He grew to become emperor of Rome from 37 to 41 AD and is probably the gold standard for crazy rulers.
He was raised by his uncle, the Roman emperor Tiberius, a paranoid odd fish who spent much of his reign as a recluse in a pedophilic pleasure palace in Capri, surfacing on occasion to order the execution of relatives accused of treason, including Caligula’s mother and two brothers, and had likely been behind the poisoning of Caligula’s father as well.
A great natural actor, Caligula hid any resentment felt towards his uncle and survived the bitter Tiberius, who named him heir, quipping “I am rearing a viper for the Roman people“. The years of repressed living left their mark, and once freed of the ever-present threat of execution by his paranoid relative, Caligula cut loose in an orgy of lavish spending and hedonistic living, as the combination of sudden freedom and sudden unlimited power went to his head.
He kicked off the weirdness early, when, to demonstrate his contempt for a soothsayer’s prediction that he had no more chance of becoming emperor than riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae, Caligula ordered a 2-mile bridge built across the bay, then rode his horse across it while wearing the breastplate and armor of Alexander the Great.
He once started cackling uncontrollably at a party, and when asked what was funny, replied that he found it hilarious that with a mere gesture of his finger, he could have anybody present beheaded right then and there. On another occasion, displeased by an unruly crowd at the Circus Maximus, he pointed out a section to his guards and ordered them to execute everybody “from baldhead to baldhead”, gesturing at two bald people. On yet another occasion, bored at an arena when told that there were no more criminals to throw to the beasts, he ordered a section of the crowd thrown to the wild animals.
Among the litany of sexual depravities attributed to him, incest with his sisters was the least of it. At dinner parties, he would frequently “request” that a guest’s wife accompany him to his bedroom, and after bedding her, return to the party to rate the quality of her performance, berating the cuckolded husband if Caligula thought she was lacking.
He also turned the imperial palace into a brothel, in which he forced the wives of leading Roman senators and other high-ranking dignitaries to serve as prostitutes. To further show his contempt for the senatorial class and the Roman Republic for which they pined, Caligula had his beloved horse made consul – the Republic’s highest magistracy.
He would go on to declare himself a god and had the heads removed from the statues of various deities, replacing them with his own. He also once declared war on the sea god Neptune, marched his legions to the sea, and had them collect seashells to show the deity who was boss. Eventually, the weirdness and unpredictability got too much, and his Praetorian Guard, fearing that he might turn on them, murdered him in 41 AD.