Caligula

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Outlandish stories cluster about the raving emperor, illustrating his excessive cruelty, multiple and peculiar sexual escapades (both heterosexual and homosexual, at least as claimed by Suetonius, Cal. 36), or disrespect toward tradition and the Senate. Sources describe his incestuous relationships with all three of his sisters, his disembowelment of his favorite sister in order to get to the child he impregnated her with resulting in her death, his subsequent declaring her to be a goddess, his selling to the highest bidder of the wives of high ranking Senate members during sexual orgies, his laughable military campaigns in the north, the plan to make his horse Incitatus a consul, and his habit of roaming the halls of his palace at night ordering the sun to rise. He also named his horse as a priest, and gave it a house to reside in, complete with a marble stable, golden manger, and jewel necklaces; and he later talked of making his horse a member of the Senate. He opened a brothel in his palace and had a habit of taking Senate members' wives with him to his private bedroom during social functions, while the husbands could merely look on as they left together, then he would recount the sexual acts he performed with the wives for all to hear, including her husband.

He comes across as aloof, arrogant, egotistical, and is generally portrayed as insane. He is said to have cried "I wish the Roman people had but a single neck" when an arena crowd applauded a faction he opposed. [18] It is also said that when there were not enough convicts to fight lions & tigers in arena, he threw in some spectators. Suetonius wrote that he often uttered "Let them hate me, so long as they fear me", and described this as a familiar line of the tragic poet (Accius); however, Suetonius also attributes the utterance of this line to Tiberius.

What is documented is that he declared himself a living god, and even had a bridge constructed between his palace and Jupiter's Temple. He is also said to have made it a crime to look down on him from above, and not to leave him everything in a will. To the Roman people, this was considered nothing less than blasphemy.

Caligula was also incredibly self-indulgent, dramatic proof of which has been found with the discovery of two sunken ships at the bottom of Lake Nemi. These two ships were by far the largest vessels in the ancient world; in fact their size was not even rivaled until after the Renaissance.[citations needed] The smaller of the ships was designed as a temple dedicated to Diana (the Roman equivalent of Artemis). The larger ship was essentially an elaborate floating palace that counted marble floors and plumbing among its amenities, the sole role of which was to satisfy Caligula's increasingly hedonistic behavior.