Ivan IV, "the Terrible," is another great example of a ruler who began as a progressive and capable leader who spiraled into madness. I would love to see him covered here!
“Ivan the terrible” was a name coined by his enemies. The people under his rule adored him. There was even a golden chalice placed in the middle of towns across Transylvania. Anyone could use and drink of it so long as it was returned at the end of the night. There has been no documented cases of a chalice going missing till after his death. Oh and also the Sultan who ordered him killed requested his decapitated head be preserved in honey to ensure his actual death.
The main source for most of the more outrageous stories about Caligula is Suetonius, who was born a couple of decades after the Julio-Claudians were out of power and may have been motivated to exaggerate Caligula's madness. His stories are not corroborated by, say, Tacitus. Nor by Philo, who had actually met with Caligula and who described him more as fidgety and neurotic than megalomaniacal. We unfortunately have no details from Tacitus; the books of his Annals that would have covered Caligula's reign are lost.
This is a great point. Sadly a lot of what does survive is clearly quite bias and is only a small portion of what would have been written back in the day. A good way of thinking about it is imagine the internet went down and in a thousand years, the only written sources about Margaret Thatcher that survive were written in the 2050s from folk memories in mining communities. You’re going to get a pretty one sided view.
Sadly missing the part of his childhood, following his father around after his mother dressed him in a child sized version of a roman soldier uniform and being seen as a mascot for the legion and the origin of his nickname "Caligula" meaning Little Boots (caligae being the footwear of the Roman army) so to this day we still call him the equivalent of "ickle, little bootsies"
@@lizardog The nickname probably gained widespread use later to discredit him - in his lifetime (according to Mary Beard & other historians) he would have been referred to as Emperor Gaius
I'd argue very few people in power are lunatics to begin with, but if you don't have trusted advisors who will present challenges to ideas other advisors come up with then you're going to not see most of the pitfalls ahead. You need people around you in a leadership role who think differently, because you need to see those blind spots so you don't turn against your original ideals and become corrupted by power.
At 3.23 there is a mistake. It shows a statue of emperor Nero, who was NOT the brother of Caligula. He was the son of his sister. Caligula did have a brother called Nero...but he was locked up in prison in 29 AD by then emperor Tiberius.
Also 0:58 is not Caligula, it is Augustus. This mistake is repeated later in the video And 20:07 is not Cassius Chaerea, it is Caligula. This mistake is also repeated
I really like the new thing the editors are doing zooming in on google earth when a location is mentioned, would really like this on the other channels as well!
Caligula and Nero for that matter - Remember "Source critical" thinking. A lot of what was written about Nero was written by haters as we would say today. My brother is an expert on Roman times and there are signs that Nero was not treated well by historians after his death for various reasons, and that the more we find out, the more normal he looks - in some instances at least.
Nero definitely was not as bad as people tend to believe nowadays, Caligula I'm not so sure. I mean none of us are sure about any of it because it was two thousand years ago but you know...
Combined with the terror he experienced by seeing his family killed by Tiberius and the constant threat of death probably drove him to insanity. If you add the possibility of lead poisoning due to the widespread use of it in almost everything from water pipes to cosmetics and wine preparation its not surprising he did what he did.
All of this scare-mongering about lead is just about Big Copper lining their own pockets. My grandfather drank out of lead vessels and he lived to be 28
Dont think he was mad. He was well trained in Tiberius's depravity and paranoia from a very young age. He knew how to express his power and constantly tested peoples loyalty like the collecting of shells in what could be seen as madness. He once said about the senate. Quote "I dont care if they hate me as long as they fear me"
I'm so happy you covered Caligula's horse. I fully believe that Caligula might have tried to mock the Senate by doing something like that. And I also believe that any record we have of Caligula has probably been influenced or directly written by members of the Senate. Also, the story of the men being punished by collecting seashells makes a lot of sense if you look at Roman behavior. They'd refused to cross into Britannia and so had to be shown to be cowards. They had to go back to Rome with seashells in hand to show the Roman people what treasures they were winning at the edge of the world. IIRC, within the last twenty years, we actually found proof of those massive ships that Caligula had built.
Though the appointing of the horse could also be a clever political move. The head of the senate was the only person in Rome who could potentially rival the emperor in power and so appointing his horse could have been a clever way to neutralize that position. Caligula could have assigned a puppet but there is danger in that as that person might not remain a puppet forever. The emperor at the time was legally allowed to dismiss people from positions but was not allowed to dismiss positions themselves. Appointing his horse as head of the senate could have been Caligula exploiting that loophole.
I did a thesis on Caligula that proposed that he wasn't as mad/crazy as he was made out to be. Yes, sure, there was sociopathic tendencies there (an understatement, I'm sure), but when you weed out the likely propaganda, he was a shrewdly cruel ruler that took it a step too far and had to be dispatched by his guards, the senate and the nobility (I'm way over simplifying it here). Nero is often considered the worst of the Julio Claudian emperors (mainly because of his persecution of the early Christians), but Caligula was much worse. I've actually been quite fascinated by Caligula and his reign. The level of WTF, dude! is just incredible.
I think a lot more historians are really examining these stories and really questioning the validity of their claims. One of my favorite debunkings was of those supposed War being declared on Poseidon and the men got seashells as rewards. What makes a TON more sense is that a legion refused to sail out of fear and were thus shamed by being forced to "collect spoils from their battlefield".
@@DieNextInLINE Exactly! And the whole thing with making his horse a consul, as Simon pointed out, was very likely to embarrass the Senate, not that he actually was going to do it. I'm not surprised (not that I condone any of his behaviour) Caligula was so nasty to the Senate, nobility and other authority figures in Rome. Tiberius made his life a living hell and as far as he likely saw it, they enabled him. People forget that he died quite young, being only 28 years old. He was 24 when he became Emperor. Caligula also showed signs of cruelty before he became Emperor, he was just a really good actor so Tiberius would pretty much let him live.
@@terbear5120 So many portrayals of Emperor's in surviving accounts make a lot more sense when you look at who wrote them. It was almost always a member of the Senate or someone who was friends with Senate members. The Senate had become beyond corrupt by 50-100AD and detested the fact that their powers and privileges were being curtailed and they made that pretty clear in their writing. Like the whole Caligula wanting to be called a god sounds like somebody didn't like the authority Caligula was swinging around since most of the Emperor's had been deified already back in Augustus' reign.
I wonder what exactly he said to the Senate to have them elect him. I was under the impression they may have opted to return to a republic and everything rode on what he stated. Due to a lack of direct descendants I guess? Or Tiberius not naming one?
I wonder if maybe he suffered some brain damage from the poisoning. I don't think that made him more cruel and sociopathic though. More that it led to him having poor judgement as a ruler and go from being seen as Emperor that will mean a bright future to Rome, to one that is a liability. Romans of those times (more like the world of those times) were pretty apathetic about violence and cruelty unless they're the target (look at their arenas). They were more desensitized to violence and depravity then. I think his assassination was ultimately to do with the perception of him leading Rome into the toilet, much of which was probably a narrative pushed by Senate. I think they knew he was coming for most of them, and they ended up beating him to the punch.
Caligula’s older brother Drusus was locked up and forcibly starved on Tiberius’s order. He tried to eat the stuffing from his mattress before he died. Then Caligula was ordered to go live with Tiberius, the man who killed most of his family. The horror!
I personally subscribe to the idea that he threatened to appoint his horse to the senate as a 'f*** you', like 'You're all so useless a HORSE could do your job!'
@The Real Miss Mia 'Yeah, we uh, murdered him 'cause he was a...uh...psycho. He wanted us to pay taxes? We totally didn't know that before hand, what a strange coincidence! Definitely not why we murdered him👀 '
I have often wondered if Caligula's illness may have been encephalitis. Encephalitis can cause personality changes and loss of consciousness, including coma.
When I was in college one of the theories was that Caligula had lead poisoning because he was supposedly an alcoholic and the Romans boiled down wine in lead caldrons. If this was the case, probably a lot of Romans were crazy from lead poisoning. This might explain a lot...
@@onlyme219 The bible is reality jeeeez. The bible doesn't say Adam and Eve's kids got together. It doesn't say they didn't either, to make an assertion either way is to say more than you can know.
While Caligula's behavior may have been exaggerated and born from hatred, Caligula did, to a certain degree, earn that hatred with his administrative incompetence and hostility toward the Roman Senate.
Lesson from history that those in power constantly forget. Your power is not intrinsic, it is given to you by those you rule. Don’t alienate the source of your power.
My gut has told me that Caligula was more party boy than murder tyrant. Like, his worst excesses sound made up or taken out of context. I think his “serious Illness” was a failed poisoning by some faction on the senate. He came back and started purging, but he eventually lost this political battle and was finally assassinated and was turned into the “worst ruler in Roman history”.
@@wingerding oh no doubt. But it is understandable political evil. That feels more likely than the pointless sociopathy we get in the histories. My read is that people were getting a little tired of the Juleo-Claudians. Claudius was supposed to be a pliable rubber stamp for what the senate wanted, but was slightly more commentary than they planned (took Britannia, something Caesar failed at and Caligula seems to have wanted to try. Armies risked falling off the world for Claudius but wouldn’t for Caligula. This bought them one more ruler in Nero.
Simon casting doubt on the claims about Caligula reminds me of the things that are said about Wu Zetian, China's only female Emperor. There are all sorts of stories about her alleged cruelty and depravity abd general wickedness. However, it's worth noting that the male Confucian scholars writing these tales would likely have regarded her ascension to we imperial throne as an unmatural abomination.
same with Bathory! a widowed woman so powerfull that even the king owed her a huge amount of money just so happened to be this insane, blood bathing, unimaginable cruel, "evil lesbian" serial killer who turned her castle into one giant torture chamber where she tortured and killed like 600 young girls before bathing in their blood to stay young? 600 girls before anyone did anything? just the hints to her being a sadistic predatory lesbian killing young girls to bath in their blood and torturing them for pleassure is such a red flag. and then saying she was so incredibly vain she was willing to do this to presserve her youth? c'mon now.
oooh, thank you for bringing this up! ive heard of her before but i haven’t really dug into her story. she sounds super interesting, now i have smthng to do this afternoon :P
The first part of this story I would challenge is the tale that Caligula remained unconscious for a month. I'm not a doctor, or an expert in medical methods of the time. However, I did study human biology to quite a fair level at university, so I am not a total armchair expert. I would question whether at the time it was possible for someone to remain unconscious, i.e. in a coma, and survive for a month. The issue is how he remained nourished and hydrated. The latter is most important, because whilst it is possible to survive for a month without feeding, it is impossible to survive for a month without hydration. It would have been necessary for someone to be placed on some sort of intravenous drip feed for someone to survive a month's unconsciousness, as someone unconscious cannot drink, and any attempt to pour liquid down their throat, would drown them. I am not aware of any medical knowledge during the Roman period that would allow someone to be hydrated for such a long period of time, when they were unconscious. If no such medical ability and knowledge at the time was available, the whole story that he was unconscious for a month unravels. Maybe he was feverish for a month, bedridden for a month, but not unconscious. However, the problem is if that part of the story was untrue, this calls into question the whole veracity of the narrative of this transition between the relatively sane ruler, to the insane i.e. was this whole narrative just invented to explain how a mental incompetent was made Roman Emperor. Yes, you can posit a narrative where Caligula wasn't actually unconscious for a whole month. The trouble is that when you do this, it calls into question the accuracy of the whole narrative we have been told about Caligula. If you accept that the whole story of unconsciousness for a month as untrue, then there is no part of the narrative of Caligula, that can be regarded as reliable.
You bring a valid point. But maybe his health helped him in some way that we cannot understand now in the absence of evidence. Or he might be insane from the very beginning, and become more deranged after the sickness. Or the narrative is partially true, I don't know.
@@learnwitharitriic - I'm not saying he didn't become more deranged after a period of illness, only that this is speculation, premised on other speculation. There's all these wild stories about Caligula, but the one bit of the story I rarely see questioned, is that he was unconscious for a month i.e. that he was in a coma. Most of the medical literature suggest someone can die within a few days if they stop drinking in a bed ridden state. Someone unconscious can't drink, and pouring water down their throat is likely to drown them. As I said, I don't know if there was some known method for hydrating an unconscious person in the Roman period, but I don't think they had saline drip feeds then.
It's possible it wasn't a coma as we understand it, but more akin to severe lethargy. He may have been able to be woken for short periods to eat and drink, but would immediately fall back to sleep. To all but the most trusted around him, it would be as if he was unconscious the whole time. And diseases that cause this type of lethargy are known to exist and some can cause brain damage. The thing I question, though, is the story about him being so great for the first 6 months. Many new rulers, especially coming after unliked ones, have a honeymoon period. He may have been just as crazy, but people ignored it, or he may not have had time to really enact his crazy ideas. Combine that with the probability that his later, crazy actions are embellishments or fabrications, and there may not be as much of a difference pre- and post-illness as is regularly believed.
@@QBCPerdition - Yes, I agree, but then as I said, if that part of the narrative is untrue, it questions the veracity of the whole narrative. "Maybe he was feverish for a month, bedridden for a month, but not unconscious. However, the problem is if that part of the story was untrue, this calls into question the whole veracity of the narrative of this transition between the relatively sane ruler, to the insane i.e. was this whole narrative just invented to explain how a mental incompetent was made Roman Emperor.". There's this long accepted narrative, that he started off quite a sane ruler and then lost his marbles after his illness. It's just as possible he was always insane, or the whole insanity thing was made up to justify getting rid of him. In other words, we have no idea what is true or not true.
I feel for George III. He seemed competent, but then his genetic "gift" of porphryia made him suseptible to bouts of instability. As Eddie Izzard so wonderfully put it "because marrying cousins is a bad idea!" From the English monarchy to the Hapsburgs that inbreeding did the royal houses no favors aside from securing their power and money. When it comes to Caligula....yeah..he probably did some pretty brutal and disgusting things but I also recognize the Senatorial hobby of denegrating the emperors they didn't like. You needed to suck up to the Senate to get good reviews so..I think a lot of what we get about Caligula through Senatorial history is to be taken with a very large grain of salt. Just my opinion. Yours may vary. :)
he utterly despised the ruling class and never turned down an opportunity to humiliate them. you left out the part in which Capri was essentially emporer tiberius's own personal epstein island, when you mentioned how long he lived there. interesting to note that of all of caligulas alleged "crimes and indiscretions", assaulting children wasn't one of them.
It's interesting that the guy who played Joffrey on Game of Thrones looks just like Caligula. He's apparently a hell of a nice guy in real life but if he ever gives acting a go of it again, that would be a great role.
I’ve always said the same thing! Someone needs to make a “legitimate” movie about Caligula, and the actor who played Geoffrey needs the role - before he gets too old that is! LOL
Wow this is by fair the best rundown of Caligula I have ever seen. So many people are quick to just write him off as crazy when life is never that black and white. Really a good job on this video. I am very impressed.
@@jaybee9269 Nero was the name of the CD-burning software used in the 90s and 00s. I don't know if the name was on purpose, but it's funny because Nero the Emperor watched Rome burn, while Nero the software burns CD-ROMs 😄
Also consider that much of what we know of Caligula was written by a man who's family hated Caligula's family and hated him, and also remember that the history we only know is just what some guy wrote thousands of years ago and that is usually just scraps of info that survived.
Part of Caligula's legacy (for good or ill) became the inspiration for John Hurt's portrayal of him in I, Cladius, the old BBC miniseries of the Suetonius "history" of the first 12 emperors. Many great actors got their introductions to an American audience at that time, so some good came out of that early work of latin-inscribed TH-cam forerunner fiction.
Okay but the nemi ships are fkn sick. Big ass party boats? Iconic. Shame he was seemingly so gross in so many ways, because that's a hilarious and incredible image of a floating orgy palace long before models on super yachts became a reasonably common thing amongst the elite.
I think it's worth mentioning that although his name was Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, he was known by the nickname Caligula, which is a very childish sobriquet. When he was a small child, his mother had a Roman soldier's uniform made for him complete with the sandal/boot hybrid called a "caliga." The soldiers under his father's command began calling him Caligula, which translates as "Little Boots." I'm thinking that could have had an affect on him. Also, it's my feeling that Tiberius most likely sexually abused him during his time on Capri.
That would've been creepy as fuck if he did, Tiberius was 67 when he left for Capri & Caligula was 19 when joining him there. I know he was already a man at that point but damn that would be fucked, but maybe explain why he had incest on his mind with his sisters after becoming Imperator
There was actually some detailed information about Caligula’s 4 year reign by his sister Agrippina the Younger, but her work was lost to history at some point between her own Assassination & today
On the subject of exaggerated accounts of madness, the same thing may have happened to rulers like Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory. Both were said to be brutally violent and incredibly mad, but these accounts come from extremely biased sources; political rivals in the case of Bathory and kingdoms conquered by Vlad. Both of these sources would have a lot to benefit from portraying these rulers as evil and insane. It's hard to believe stories about a woman murdering hundreds of beautiful peasant girls to bathe in their blood, but easy to believe someone would make it up in an attempt to grab her title. Now the truth about many such people are obscured by the lies.
Elizabeth Bathory was a extremely rich noblewoman, envied by noblemen, but she didn't have a husband to protect her. All the stories about her were ficticious and all testimonies against her were made by servants who had been fired previously. Had she been the mad muderer as claimed, those former servants would not have lived to tell their slanderous tales.
@@learnwitharitriic with Bathory it more Points to the whole Trial being a Scam to Start with, if you actually look at who persecuted her and the so called evidence or Witnesses basically crumble under even a little scrutiny. With many cases there is doubt to the validity - but a King that needed cash, a scorned Man now Persecutor and the so called Witness one of his closest Allies and anything but the Village cleric he was claimed to be. Not to mention Bathory being close to other Ruling houses. She was even denied the ability to defend herself. If that doesn't stink of a Scam i don't know what else does.
There's loads of evidence for Bathory being a scumbag, she killed many girls. I know the bathing in blood part hasn't ever been confirmed, but she absolutely did commit murder on many different accounts. Vlad Tepes on the other hand was an incredible ruler, and did most of what he did to simply scare off future invaders, a lot of modern leaders could benefit from studying Vlad and his leadership style as well as willingness to do what needed to be done to keep his nation safe. He definitely wasn't evil like Bathory was.
The supporter of Jean d'Arc, Gilles de Rais, suffered this fate as well. He was accused of taking small boys, castrating them, "Loving" them, and using them in dark rituals of Satan worship. His lands and money's were then seized and distributed to those who had brought the charges. Most now believe that Giles was a target of conspiracy as his exploits during the war had basically seen him become one of the richest and largest landowner/lords in France, at the time. IIRC, France actually cleared Giles de Rais name with a new "trial".
Given the use of lead to store drink in back in those times to add sweetness (lead oxide is a sweet-tasting substance), especially for wine, it's probably no surprise that he was suffering from lead poisoning, along with other pre-existing mental health conditions, turning him into an utter nutjob...
@@Wooargh he never diagnosed Caligula with anything he simply stated that he is of the opinion that Caligula *probably* had other mental health issues.
I feel like "rulers starting out good and then going mad" is just a perfect, prime example of "if you do not treat mental illnesses, they get worse". A lot of these kinds of people I learn about, I'm thinking to myself whether it's more likely that their mental illnesses got symptomatic but they had no treatment. There are some mental disorders that cause permanent brain damage (like schizophrenia) and some that can cause progressive memory impairment (depression, I think ADHD too?), if left untreated. Some disorders get progressively WORSE without any treatment (Bipolar, Cluster B PDs). And considering the era, any mentally ill people are also being subjected to war, lead or other toxins in the environment, poor food (amount and quality), poor hygiene, etc. These people consistently poisoned themselves as healthcare so it's easy to imagine ANY mental illness becoming WAAAY out of control back in those days, and it's especially an issue when the Emperor of your country succumbs to has a severe mental illness and then drinks cocaine and opium to treat their sore throat. Now you have someone with [insert mental illness] who is also hopped up on hard drugs and I think any mentally ill people in the comments can agree that generally speaking, those kinds of drugs are pretty bad for us. Imagine you give the emperor cocaine and that triggers a severe manic episode w/ psychotic features, which there is literally no diagnosis, let alone treatment, for. That's gonna bode poorly for the entire country :') or at least I would imagine so
3:40 is a little confusing. Agrippina's brother was Nero Caesar. Then she has a son which became known as Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus or simply Nero. He was the last ruler of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.
Very good. Of course all is speculation. Leaving aside Julius Caesar and his relatives seemed to have been a particularly badly wired lot, Caligula was probably a pretty decent ruler by the standards of his day right up to his mysterious illness. Speaking as a (thank God!) retired UK doctor my best guess is he had some kind of meningitis, the resulting brain damage giving him among other things a form of frontal lobe syndrome. So less 'mad' and more 'broken'. PS Even by the standards of the day the Romans were a society of mildly deranged 'psychos', the richer you were the worse it got. There is some reasonable speculation this may be in part the result of chronic lead poisoning. Rich Romans liked their lead pipes and interestingly it was noted even then that lead probably wasn't good for you. While a work of fiction, and a thoroughly good one, "I Claudius" gives a pretty darn good feel for what it must have been like to be a powerful Roman and in particular a fly on the wall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. If anyone is interested and doesn't want to read it the BBC (back when it actually was a public service broadcaster) did a darn good TV adaptation that's still kicking about the internet. Maybe a little dated on the technical front, but still thoroughly worth a watch. The TH-cam Channel Historia Civilis has a fantastic long-running series on Julius Caesar - just keep in mind that for all his achievements they were done over the bodies of thousands if not millions - rather like Napoleon, another monster we unaccountably celebrate simply for being successful while killing so many innocents we see it as a statistic rather than a crime of epic proportions.
Having recently watched the sleeping sickness episode I am curious if that could be an explanation for the change. Extended sleep followed by change in personality and extreme paranoia are all part of the illness.
Question to the editor: How did the Prima Porta Augustus (the metal statue approx. 1 min in, as well as some chapter titles and at 10:38) sneak into the Caligula images? :) Beyond this sneaky boy, great video. And a fun fact for those who care: Caligula means "little boot", because the boy had accompanied his father in on his campaigning and had become the soldiers' pet with his little military boots.
Some stories say his mother hand made a miniature soldier's uniform to fit him... Specifically because he enjoyed marching and hanging out with the soldiers in his father's campaigns... Somehow, the nickname stuck... AND that can't have done any favors for his mental health... It might not have seemed destructive in and of itself, but it surely exacerbated everything else once things even began to look sour... ;o)
Of the Julians I think Tiberius was probably worse, in that his tyranny lasted a lot longer than Caligula. He was personally debauched as an old man and 'outsourced' government to a succession of strong men, the most notorious being Sejenus, the commander of the Praetorian guard. Incidentally, when Sejenus was finally toppled and executed, his children were also put to death, strangled by the State executioners in the underground prison where such deeds were carried out. Because his daughter (11, I think) was a virgin, she could not be executed. So they had the executioners gang rape her before strangling her.... The past, as Simon always says, was the worst.
Hitler in under 10 seconds; yeah I don't think this one is getting monetize. Top tier content from the blaze lord and of course he keeps top tier writers as well.
He wasn't called Caligula, by any contemporary writers. He was called that as a toddler but not as an adult. Writers only started calling him that some three centuries after his death. He was the Emperor Gaius and woe betide anybody who called him anything else.
Am I the only who thinks total power is to much for people and that’s why so many go clinically insane. On one hand they can have and do as they please and never hearing no and having no boundaries means that the lust for more is never tamed. However on the other hand I feel most people myself included would be crushed under the power of trying to help and do better for my people, only to find that some and or many want the exact opposite so you end up jumping fro. One extreme to another in the pursuit of good while never really achieving anyone.
I love this! Aloys Winterling wrote a really interesting biography on Caligula that examines the most respected accounts of Caligula's reign and distill where the stories of him are contradictory and likely false, or agree and are probably closer to the truth. It's fascinating. For those who liked this video, Winterling's book expands on all the topics covered!
Has Elagabalus ever been covered in a video? Because he kinda makes Caligula and Nero seem tame by comparison. He's the most unpopular of all the Roman emperors.
Your content is always interesting, Simon. Another content creator did a study on Caligula and she thought a bit of the problem was his nickname "Little Boots". She felt he had a self-esteem problem from having that nickname and that with his prestige and resultant ego, once he gained absolute power, he was going to strike out and prove that "Little Boots" was now THE emperor. And, I can tell you, if he had, for example, bipolar mood disorder and no one reigning him back, he could easily become monstrous. Of course, being around Tiberius didn't help either.
@Nancy Halstead - Yes, I wholeheartedly agree!!! I’ve watched _several_ of her lectures and documentaries on Ancient Rome - she’s fabulous! I figured I’d give this a go, but am not expecting much (just started it), because I figure it’ll be generic biographical information, and not quite as detailed as Dr. Beard presents her lectures.
I'm pretty sure your image of Caligula's older brother, Nero Iulius Caesar, at 3:23 is actually an image of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus) who was emperor following the reign of Claudius.
Caligula's brother was Nero Julius Caesar, not to be confused with the Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. The statues shown in the video depicts the Emperor.
I would love to see someone do a Simon Whistler type video about all the YT channels Simon presents and go into the same detail describing all of his channels 😂
Decades ago the local PBS (Masterpiece Theater?) used to run *I, Claudius* (I, Clavdivs) starring Derek Jacobi which was a quite uncensored portrayal of this stuff based on a novel IIRC. Worth watching if you can find it now.
I've never been completely sold on the mainstream view that he was batsh*t crazy - the stories were circulated by his enemies and there's interpretations about some of his supposed deeds that throw very different angles on them. Jury's out for me.
@@BonShula if Hitler had won we’d be living in a different world and god knows what we’d all think. Just because you write the narrative doesn’t make you right or wrong it gives you the power to influence. Personally I wouldn’t want to live in a world where people thought he was right.
The problem whit all these history is that they started write down 100 or so years after they had died. So a lot is hear say and it is the winner of history that writes the book.
Viruses and lead contamination could be blamed for insane and inhumane rule, but a spiritual dimension cannot be ruled out. That all begins with how a kid is brought up. If a child witnesses adults acting like brutes and fools, then, it's a sure bet the child will follow in like manner. Many thanks, Simon.
Yes! This is amazing content by Simon, even though he dislikes making Ancient Rome-content. Reminds me of Biographical back when it was a good channel. ^^
You should do an episode on the October Crisis and the FLQ, until the recent illegal declaration of the emergencies act to suppress legitimate opposition too unpopular government policies that was the only time that the war measures act (the forerunner of the modern emergencies act) was used in canada during peacetime.
I would like to point out a rather large Eurocentric error. When talking about Ptolemy of Mauretania and Caligula's expansion of the Roman Empire into Mauretania, you have the video zooming in on the modern day country of Mauritania and that is a completely different area. In this time period Mauretania is used to refer to the land of the Moors which correspond to the modern Maghreb countries of Morocco and Algeria. The Roman Empire never expanded into what is today Mauritania.
Ivan IV, "the Terrible," is another great example of a ruler who began as a progressive and capable leader who spiraled into madness. I would love to see him covered here!
The concept of progress is dehumanizing
Didn't he progressively poison himself with heavy metals for some pseudo medical reason?
@@waynebimmel6784 Yes, with mercury, if the historical record is to be believed. It was an early treatment for syphilis.
Maybe more anecdotal than historical.
“Ivan the terrible” was a name coined by his enemies. The people under his rule adored him. There was even a golden chalice placed in the middle of towns across Transylvania. Anyone could use and drink of it so long as it was returned at the end of the night. There has been no documented cases of a chalice going missing till after his death. Oh and also the Sultan who ordered him killed requested his decapitated head be preserved in honey to ensure his actual death.
Caligula = Evil, we all get that. But putting a horse in charge of the senate just to fuck with people you don't like is kinda hilarious, hahaha.
😂🤣thats sounds like a big f u
Ancient trolling
Also probably a poor choice
But who do u choose,Champ,Trigger,Mr Ed...?
@@susanmccormick6022 Roach. lmao
The main source for most of the more outrageous stories about Caligula is Suetonius, who was born a couple of decades after the Julio-Claudians were out of power and may have been motivated to exaggerate Caligula's madness. His stories are not corroborated by, say, Tacitus. Nor by Philo, who had actually met with Caligula and who described him more as fidgety and neurotic than megalomaniacal. We unfortunately have no details from Tacitus; the books of his Annals that would have covered Caligula's reign are lost.
This is a great point. Sadly a lot of what does survive is clearly quite bias and is only a small portion of what would have been written back in the day.
A good way of thinking about it is imagine the internet went down and in a thousand years, the only written sources about Margaret Thatcher that survive were written in the 2050s from folk memories in mining communities. You’re going to get a pretty one sided view.
Suetonius was the CNN of his day.
Excellent analysis; I would entirely agree. Anyone hoping to look into Emperor Gaius' career needs to bear these facts in mind.
Almost as if contemporary historians were too scared to publish any negative annuls
@@MikeGeorgeC0619
Ha!
1:25 - Chapter 1 - A confusion figure
2:45 - Chapter 2 - Early years
5:15 - Chapter 3 - Persecution & exile
7:05 - Chapter 4 - Rags to riches
8:20 - Chapter 5 - A glorious start
9:20 - Chapter 6 - Illness
11:00 - Chapter 7 - Paranoia
11:55 - Chapter 8 - Keeping in the family
13:50 - Chapter 9 - Madness
15:55 - Chapter 10 - Cruelty
17:50 - Chapter 11 - Collecting seashells
19:00 - Chapter 12 - Assassination
20:40 - Chapter 13 - Mad or myth ?
- Chapter 14 -
- Chapter 15 -
🤨
Legend
Sadly missing the part of his childhood, following his father around after his mother dressed him in a child sized version of a roman soldier uniform and being seen as a mascot for the legion and the origin of his nickname "Caligula" meaning Little Boots (caligae being the footwear of the Roman army) so to this day we still call him the equivalent of "ickle, little bootsies"
I'm sorry I didn't see your comment before I posted mine. I really think being called by that childish nickname as an adult had an affect on him.
@@lizardog
It seems to have been the norm in Rome though. ‘Cicero’ means ‘chickpea’ which was due to the shape of the end of his nose.
@@lizardog The nickname probably gained widespread use later to discredit him - in his lifetime (according to Mary Beard & other historians) he would have been referred to as Emperor Gaius
Like Bootsy Collins
What is ickle little bootsies? What is an ickle? I understood everything fine until that last part where you just totally went off in left field.
I'd argue very few people in power are lunatics to begin with, but if you don't have trusted advisors who will present challenges to ideas other advisors come up with then you're going to not see most of the pitfalls ahead. You need people around you in a leadership role who think differently, because you need to see those blind spots so you don't turn against your original ideals and become corrupted by power.
That's an assertion, not an arguement. You have to provide evidence to back it up to be an arguement.
@@shakiMiki "argument"
@@shakiMiki it wasn't meant to be an "arguement", it was just a statement and you decided you wanted to argue over it. Chill...
For that u need a courtier who is so smart he can say stuff that makes the emperor not kill him
@@44ARISEandSHINE44 and if ppl would stop religion and be good because they want to, it would be even better
At 3.23 there is a mistake. It shows a statue of emperor Nero, who was NOT the brother of Caligula. He was the son of his sister. Caligula did have a brother called Nero...but he was locked up in prison in 29 AD by then emperor Tiberius.
I came directly to the comments to see if I was the only one who noticed that.
there are many instances in this video, where wrong statues are shown.
Thanks for clearing that up. That statue of Nero seemed out of place.
Also 0:58 is not Caligula, it is Augustus. This mistake is repeated later in the video
And 20:07 is not Cassius Chaerea, it is Caligula. This mistake is also repeated
The statues are all over the place in the video but it’s not necessarily a big deal
I really like the new thing the editors are doing zooming in on google earth when a location is mentioned, would really like this on the other channels as well!
Caligula and Nero for that matter - Remember "Source critical" thinking. A lot of what was written about Nero was written by haters as we would say today.
My brother is an expert on Roman times and there are signs that Nero was not treated well by historians after his death for various reasons, and that the more we find out, the more normal he looks - in some instances at least.
Nero definitely was not as bad as people tend to believe nowadays, Caligula I'm not so sure. I mean none of us are sure about any of it because it was two thousand years ago but you know...
Combined with the terror he experienced by seeing his family killed by Tiberius and the constant threat of death probably drove him to insanity. If you add the possibility of lead poisoning due to the widespread use of it in almost everything from water pipes to cosmetics and wine preparation its not surprising he did what he did.
Plus being called Caligula as an adult had to be fairly demeaning.
@@lizardog Yeah his real name was Gaius Julius Caesar the Younger & Caligula was a little boot that I’m sure enraged him to hear in his adult life
Lead is no joke. And neither is....
Vapor lock! Seriously, though. Thank gawd leaded gasoline isn't as widely used as it used to be.
@@lizardog idk why more people haven't thought about that
All of this scare-mongering about lead is just about Big Copper lining their own pockets. My grandfather drank out of lead vessels and he lived to be 28
Dont think he was mad. He was well trained in Tiberius's depravity and paranoia from a very young age. He knew how to express his power and constantly tested peoples loyalty like the collecting of shells in what could be seen as madness. He once said about the senate. Quote "I dont care if they hate me as long as they fear me"
"the younger" is 1000x cooler than "junior"
"Dale Earnhardt the Younger"
Hmm you are correct!
Yes.I hate 'Junior'.Horrible.
Yeah! Junior sounds like a lil kid wearing those multi colored hats with a propeller on top
@@CaseyAvalon 😂 Accurate
@@godwarrior3403 hehe 😄
I'm so happy you covered Caligula's horse.
I fully believe that Caligula might have tried to mock the Senate by doing something like that.
And I also believe that any record we have of Caligula has probably been influenced or directly written by members of the Senate.
Also, the story of the men being punished by collecting seashells makes a lot of sense if you look at Roman behavior. They'd refused to cross into Britannia and so had to be shown to be cowards. They had to go back to Rome with seashells in hand to show the Roman people what treasures they were winning at the edge of the world.
IIRC, within the last twenty years, we actually found proof of those massive ships that Caligula had built.
Agreed. History is written by the winners, as the adage goes.
The remains of the two ships burned up during ww2.
Though the appointing of the horse could also be a clever political move. The head of the senate was the only person in Rome who could potentially rival the emperor in power and so appointing his horse could have been a clever way to neutralize that position. Caligula could have assigned a puppet but there is danger in that as that person might not remain a puppet forever.
The emperor at the time was legally allowed to dismiss people from positions but was not allowed to dismiss positions themselves. Appointing his horse as head of the senate could have been Caligula exploiting that loophole.
I did a thesis on Caligula that proposed that he wasn't as mad/crazy as he was made out to be. Yes, sure, there was sociopathic tendencies there (an understatement, I'm sure), but when you weed out the likely propaganda, he was a shrewdly cruel ruler that took it a step too far and had to be dispatched by his guards, the senate and the nobility (I'm way over simplifying it here).
Nero is often considered the worst of the Julio Claudian emperors (mainly because of his persecution of the early Christians), but Caligula was much worse. I've actually been quite fascinated by Caligula and his reign. The level of WTF, dude! is just incredible.
I think a lot more historians are really examining these stories and really questioning the validity of their claims.
One of my favorite debunkings was of those supposed War being declared on Poseidon and the men got seashells as rewards.
What makes a TON more sense is that a legion refused to sail out of fear and were thus shamed by being forced to "collect spoils from their battlefield".
@@DieNextInLINE Exactly! And the whole thing with making his horse a consul, as Simon pointed out, was very likely to embarrass the Senate, not that he actually was going to do it. I'm not surprised (not that I condone any of his behaviour) Caligula was so nasty to the Senate, nobility and other authority figures in Rome. Tiberius made his life a living hell and as far as he likely saw it, they enabled him. People forget that he died quite young, being only 28 years old. He was 24 when he became Emperor.
Caligula also showed signs of cruelty before he became Emperor, he was just a really good actor so Tiberius would pretty much let him live.
@@terbear5120 So many portrayals of Emperor's in surviving accounts make a lot more sense when you look at who wrote them. It was almost always a member of the Senate or someone who was friends with Senate members. The Senate had become beyond corrupt by 50-100AD and detested the fact that their powers and privileges were being curtailed and they made that pretty clear in their writing.
Like the whole Caligula wanting to be called a god sounds like somebody didn't like the authority Caligula was swinging around since most of the Emperor's had been deified already back in Augustus' reign.
I wonder what exactly he said to the Senate to have them elect him. I was under the impression they may have opted to return to a republic and everything rode on what he stated. Due to a lack of direct descendants I guess? Or Tiberius not naming one?
I wonder if maybe he suffered some brain damage from the poisoning. I don't think that made him more cruel and sociopathic though. More that it led to him having poor judgement as a ruler and go from being seen as Emperor that will mean a bright future to Rome, to one that is a liability. Romans of those times (more like the world of those times) were pretty apathetic about violence and cruelty unless they're the target (look at their arenas). They were more desensitized to violence and depravity then. I think his assassination was ultimately to do with the perception of him leading Rome into the toilet, much of which was probably a narrative pushed by Senate. I think they knew he was coming for most of them, and they ended up beating him to the punch.
I love the biographics series on Roman emperors, this stuff is the icing on the bloody cake.
Caligula’s older brother Drusus was locked up and forcibly starved on Tiberius’s order. He tried to eat the stuffing from his mattress before he died.
Then Caligula was ordered to go live with Tiberius, the man who killed most of his family. The horror!
He killed most of his family, then kept him his island and Caligula saw all the debauchery allowed there. I would have gone mad, too.
I personally subscribe to the idea that he threatened to appoint his horse to the senate as a 'f*** you', like 'You're all so useless a HORSE could do your job!'
Looking at our government and all MP's nothing has changed.
Looking at the US government, it's the same on this side of the pond.
Yes, I tend to think so too...
@The Real Miss Mia 'Yeah, we uh, murdered him 'cause he was a...uh...psycho. He wanted us to pay taxes? We totally didn't know that before hand, what a strange coincidence! Definitely not why we murdered him👀 '
The ultimate troll.
I have often wondered if Caligula's illness may have been encephalitis. Encephalitis can cause personality changes and loss of consciousness, including coma.
When I was in college one of the theories was that Caligula had lead poisoning because he was supposedly an alcoholic and the Romans boiled down wine in lead caldrons. If this was the case, probably a lot of Romans were crazy from lead poisoning. This might explain a lot...
I totally agree with you
“LET US BEGIN WITH INCEST” a truly gripping line, sir.
That's how Adam and eves family started, Christians like that fact ignored
What happened after Noah and the flood? One family repopulated earth.
The Bible is a gross fairytale book.
@@onlyme219 you are so far from reality geeeeez
@@makemeajmod so are you suggesting the bible is?
'geeeeedz'
@@onlyme219 The bible is reality jeeeez. The bible doesn't say Adam and Eve's kids got together. It doesn't say they didn't either, to make an assertion either way is to say more than you can know.
While Caligula's behavior may have been exaggerated and born from hatred, Caligula did, to a certain degree, earn that hatred with his administrative incompetence and hostility toward the Roman Senate.
Lesson from history that those in power constantly forget. Your power is not intrinsic, it is given to you by those you rule. Don’t alienate the source of your power.
@@jessicascoullar3737 Even Stalin croaked because he scared people from wanting to help him.
Were you there or did you just get told this?
@@nathanseper8738 a hilarious death, he deserved way worse than dying alone shitting his pants
@@Fuzznator Yep. He deserved far worse.
My gut has told me that Caligula was more party boy than murder tyrant.
Like, his worst excesses sound made up or taken out of context.
I think his “serious Illness” was a failed poisoning by some faction on the senate. He came back and started purging, but he eventually lost this political battle and was finally assassinated and was turned into the “worst ruler in Roman history”.
Purging doesn't sound very nice
@@wingerding Especially the ancient ways of doing it...
@@paulohagan3309 no doubt
@@wingerding oh no doubt. But it is understandable political evil.
That feels more likely than the pointless sociopathy we get in the histories.
My read is that people were getting a little tired of the Juleo-Claudians.
Claudius was supposed to be a pliable rubber stamp for what the senate wanted, but was slightly more commentary than they planned (took Britannia, something Caesar failed at and Caligula seems to have wanted to try. Armies risked falling off the world for Claudius but wouldn’t for Caligula. This bought them one more ruler in Nero.
Purge, or be purged @@wingerding
Simon casting doubt on the claims about Caligula reminds me of the things that are said about Wu Zetian, China's only female Emperor. There are all sorts of stories about her alleged cruelty and depravity abd general wickedness. However, it's worth noting that the male Confucian scholars writing these tales would likely have regarded her ascension to we imperial throne as an unmatural abomination.
same with Bathory! a widowed woman so powerfull that even the king owed her a huge amount of money just so happened to be this insane, blood bathing, unimaginable cruel, "evil lesbian" serial killer who turned her castle into one giant torture chamber where she tortured and killed like 600 young girls before bathing in their blood to stay young? 600 girls before anyone did anything? just the hints to her being a sadistic predatory lesbian killing young girls to bath in their blood and torturing them for pleassure is such a red flag. and then saying she was so incredibly vain she was willing to do this to presserve her youth? c'mon now.
oooh, thank you for bringing this up! ive heard of her before but i haven’t really dug into her story. she sounds super interesting, now i have smthng to do this afternoon :P
The first part of this story I would challenge is the tale that Caligula remained unconscious for a month. I'm not a doctor, or an expert in medical methods of the time. However, I did study human biology to quite a fair level at university, so I am not a total armchair expert. I would question whether at the time it was possible for someone to remain unconscious, i.e. in a coma, and survive for a month. The issue is how he remained nourished and hydrated. The latter is most important, because whilst it is possible to survive for a month without feeding, it is impossible to survive for a month without hydration. It would have been necessary for someone to be placed on some sort of intravenous drip feed for someone to survive a month's unconsciousness, as someone unconscious cannot drink, and any attempt to pour liquid down their throat, would drown them. I am not aware of any medical knowledge during the Roman period that would allow someone to be hydrated for such a long period of time, when they were unconscious. If no such medical ability and knowledge at the time was available, the whole story that he was unconscious for a month unravels. Maybe he was feverish for a month, bedridden for a month, but not unconscious. However, the problem is if that part of the story was untrue, this calls into question the whole veracity of the narrative of this transition between the relatively sane ruler, to the insane i.e. was this whole narrative just invented to explain how a mental incompetent was made Roman Emperor.
Yes, you can posit a narrative where Caligula wasn't actually unconscious for a whole month. The trouble is that when you do this, it calls into question the accuracy of the whole narrative we have been told about Caligula. If you accept that the whole story of unconsciousness for a month as untrue, then there is no part of the narrative of Caligula, that can be regarded as reliable.
You bring a valid point. But maybe his health helped him in some way that we cannot understand now in the absence of evidence.
Or he might be insane from the very beginning, and become more deranged after the sickness. Or the narrative is partially true, I don't know.
@@learnwitharitriic - I'm not saying he didn't become more deranged after a period of illness, only that this is speculation, premised on other speculation. There's all these wild stories about Caligula, but the one bit of the story I rarely see questioned, is that he was unconscious for a month i.e. that he was in a coma. Most of the medical literature suggest someone can die within a few days if they stop drinking in a bed ridden state. Someone unconscious can't drink, and pouring water down their throat is likely to drown them. As I said, I don't know if there was some known method for hydrating an unconscious person in the Roman period, but I don't think they had saline drip feeds then.
The same issue arises in relation to King Henry VI of England in the 15th century
It's possible it wasn't a coma as we understand it, but more akin to severe lethargy. He may have been able to be woken for short periods to eat and drink, but would immediately fall back to sleep. To all but the most trusted around him, it would be as if he was unconscious the whole time.
And diseases that cause this type of lethargy are known to exist and some can cause brain damage.
The thing I question, though, is the story about him being so great for the first 6 months. Many new rulers, especially coming after unliked ones, have a honeymoon period. He may have been just as crazy, but people ignored it, or he may not have had time to really enact his crazy ideas. Combine that with the probability that his later, crazy actions are embellishments or fabrications, and there may not be as much of a difference pre- and post-illness as is regularly believed.
@@QBCPerdition - Yes, I agree, but then as I said, if that part of the narrative is untrue, it questions the veracity of the whole narrative. "Maybe he was feverish for a month, bedridden for a month, but not unconscious. However, the problem is if that part of the story was untrue, this calls into question the whole veracity of the narrative of this transition between the relatively sane ruler, to the insane i.e. was this whole narrative just invented to explain how a mental incompetent was made Roman Emperor.".
There's this long accepted narrative, that he started off quite a sane ruler and then lost his marbles after his illness. It's just as possible he was always insane, or the whole insanity thing was made up to justify getting rid of him. In other words, we have no idea what is true or not true.
I feel for George III. He seemed competent, but then his genetic "gift" of porphryia made him suseptible to bouts of instability. As Eddie Izzard so wonderfully put it "because marrying cousins is a bad idea!" From the English monarchy to the Hapsburgs that inbreeding did the royal houses no favors aside from securing their power and money. When it comes to Caligula....yeah..he probably did some pretty brutal and disgusting things but I also recognize the Senatorial hobby of denegrating the emperors they didn't like. You needed to suck up to the Senate to get good reviews so..I think a lot of what we get about Caligula through Senatorial history is to be taken with a very large grain of salt. Just my opinion. Yours may vary. :)
Agree with that,Michael.
Yes. He put that entitled senate to its place and showed then who really has power heare: that’s why they smeared him. Sicko senate guys. Classic.
he utterly despised the ruling class and never turned down an opportunity to humiliate them. you left out the part in which Capri was essentially emporer tiberius's own personal epstein island, when you mentioned how long he lived there. interesting to note that of all of caligulas alleged "crimes and indiscretions", assaulting children wasn't one of them.
Love your work Simon, always learn something new. ❤
It's interesting that the guy who played Joffrey on Game of Thrones looks just like Caligula. He's apparently a hell of a nice guy in real life but if he ever gives acting a go of it again, that would be a great role.
I’ve always said the same thing! Someone needs to make a “legitimate” movie about Caligula, and the actor who played Geoffrey needs the role - before he gets too old that is! LOL
@SavingHistory GOG was based off the Roman empire
Wow this is by fair the best rundown of Caligula I have ever seen. So many people are quick to just write him off as crazy when life is never that black and white. Really a good job on this video. I am very impressed.
As bad as he was, his son gave us power to burn compact disc and for that I am grateful.
I don’t follow…?
@@jaybee9269 Nero was the name of the CD-burning software used in the 90s and 00s. I don't know if the name was on purpose, but it's funny because Nero the Emperor watched Rome burn, while Nero the software burns CD-ROMs 😄
@@revinaque1342 Funny but a bit obscure.
His nephew*
I'm really impressed with the accuracy of your videos. Keep up the excellent work!
last time I was this early, the Roman empire still existed
Me too, and your here earlier then me lol
😂
Last time I was this early, it was still the Roman Republic
Damn long before me, I just got here when Simon wasn't a perfect spokesman for Keeps hair products.
When I am early, I had not thought of baseball.
Also consider that much of what we know of Caligula was written by a man who's family hated Caligula's family and hated him, and also remember that the history we only know is just what some guy wrote thousands of years ago and that is usually just scraps of info that survived.
Amazing videos! I love all your videos please more crazy rulers? Unbelievable job on the video!
Part of Caligula's legacy (for good or ill) became the inspiration for John Hurt's portrayal of him in I, Cladius, the old BBC miniseries of the Suetonius "history" of the first 12 emperors. Many great actors got their introductions to an American audience at that time, so some good came out of that early work of latin-inscribed TH-cam forerunner fiction.
Great series
A lot of people watched it because it was the raciest thing on television st the time, by far 🙂
Only simon can blend modern historian, anthropologist, storyteller, etc. so well on this platform. Difficult subject/story expertly told.
It’s basically just “I, Claudius” summarized tbh. I appreciated it all the same.
Okay but the nemi ships are fkn sick. Big ass party boats? Iconic. Shame he was seemingly so gross in so many ways, because that's a hilarious and incredible image of a floating orgy palace long before models on super yachts became a reasonably common thing amongst the elite.
I think it's worth mentioning that although his name was Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, he was known by the nickname Caligula, which is a very childish sobriquet. When he was a small child, his mother had a Roman soldier's uniform made for him complete with the sandal/boot hybrid called a "caliga." The soldiers under his father's command began calling him Caligula, which translates as "Little Boots." I'm thinking that could have had an affect on him. Also, it's my feeling that Tiberius most likely sexually abused him during his time on Capri.
That would've been creepy as fuck if he did, Tiberius was 67 when he left for Capri & Caligula was 19 when joining him there. I know he was already a man at that point but damn that would be fucked, but maybe explain why he had incest on his mind with his sisters after becoming Imperator
Love this comment, so insightful. Thank you!
Get your mind out of the gutter! Men in positions of power never do things like that especially on an island!
@@dyslexicboogaloo then you obviously are ignorant and have no idea what the hell you’re talking about
There was actually some detailed information about Caligula’s 4 year reign by his sister Agrippina the Younger, but her work was lost to history at some point between her own Assassination & today
😞😞😞 so much stuff lost.
@@Fanney47 Indeed, we only get propaganda resources mixed in with the reliable ones that are in scraps
I really don’t know much about Caligula tbh, thanks for the great subject TangentBoi 👍🏻
On the subject of exaggerated accounts of madness, the same thing may have happened to rulers like Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory. Both were said to be brutally violent and incredibly mad, but these accounts come from extremely biased sources; political rivals in the case of Bathory and kingdoms conquered by Vlad. Both of these sources would have a lot to benefit from portraying these rulers as evil and insane. It's hard to believe stories about a woman murdering hundreds of beautiful peasant girls to bathe in their blood, but easy to believe someone would make it up in an attempt to grab her title. Now the truth about many such people are obscured by the lies.
May be Bathory did kill those girls, but may not have bathe in their blood. Or the story can be falsified too. You bring a good point
Elizabeth Bathory was a extremely rich noblewoman, envied by noblemen, but she didn't have a husband to protect her. All the stories about her were ficticious and all testimonies against her were made by servants who had been fired previously. Had she been the mad muderer as claimed, those former servants would not have lived to tell their slanderous tales.
@@learnwitharitriic with Bathory it more Points to the whole Trial being a Scam to Start with, if you actually look at who persecuted her and the so called evidence or Witnesses basically crumble under even a little scrutiny. With many cases there is doubt to the validity - but a King that needed cash, a scorned Man now Persecutor and the so called Witness one of his closest Allies and anything but the Village cleric he was claimed to be. Not to mention Bathory being close to other Ruling houses. She was even denied the ability to defend herself. If that doesn't stink of a Scam i don't know what else does.
There's loads of evidence for Bathory being a scumbag, she killed many girls. I know the bathing in blood part hasn't ever been confirmed, but she absolutely did commit murder on many different accounts. Vlad Tepes on the other hand was an incredible ruler, and did most of what he did to simply scare off future invaders, a lot of modern leaders could benefit from studying Vlad and his leadership style as well as willingness to do what needed to be done to keep his nation safe. He definitely wasn't evil like Bathory was.
The supporter of Jean d'Arc, Gilles de Rais, suffered this fate as well. He was accused of taking small boys, castrating them, "Loving" them, and using them in dark rituals of Satan worship. His lands and money's were then seized and distributed to those who had brought the charges.
Most now believe that Giles was a target of conspiracy as his exploits during the war had basically seen him become one of the richest and largest landowner/lords in France, at the time. IIRC, France actually cleared Giles de Rais name with a new "trial".
5:48 wrong Nero, that's a statue of emperor Nero who wasn't born till a decade later.
Given the use of lead to store drink in back in those times to add sweetness (lead oxide is a sweet-tasting substance), especially for wine, it's probably no surprise that he was suffering from lead poisoning, along with other pre-existing mental health conditions, turning him into an utter nutjob...
You must be an incredible Psychologist to be able to diagnose conditions in a man who died 2000 years ago.
@@Wooargh he never diagnosed Caligula with anything he simply stated that he is of the opinion that Caligula *probably* had other mental health issues.
@@Wooargh You really should visit a psychiatrist if you can't analyse text...
@@erikstolzenberger1517 He said "it's probably no surprise" not "it's no surprise he probably". I'm guessing English isn't your first language.
@@Wooargh Don't try me on semantics, kiddo...and I assume you're american, so english isn't your first language either...that'll be grunting^^
I feel like "rulers starting out good and then going mad" is just a perfect, prime example of "if you do not treat mental illnesses, they get worse". A lot of these kinds of people I learn about, I'm thinking to myself whether it's more likely that their mental illnesses got symptomatic but they had no treatment. There are some mental disorders that cause permanent brain damage (like schizophrenia) and some that can cause progressive memory impairment (depression, I think ADHD too?), if left untreated. Some disorders get progressively WORSE without any treatment (Bipolar, Cluster B PDs). And considering the era, any mentally ill people are also being subjected to war, lead or other toxins in the environment, poor food (amount and quality), poor hygiene, etc. These people consistently poisoned themselves as healthcare so it's easy to imagine ANY mental illness becoming WAAAY out of control back in those days, and it's especially an issue when the Emperor of your country succumbs to has a severe mental illness and then drinks cocaine and opium to treat their sore throat. Now you have someone with [insert mental illness] who is also hopped up on hard drugs and I think any mentally ill people in the comments can agree that generally speaking, those kinds of drugs are pretty bad for us. Imagine you give the emperor cocaine and that triggers a severe manic episode w/ psychotic features, which there is literally no diagnosis, let alone treatment, for. That's gonna bode poorly for the entire country :') or at least I would imagine so
3:40 is a little confusing. Agrippina's brother was Nero Caesar. Then she has a son which became known as Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus or simply Nero. He was the last ruler of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.
There's a restaurant near me called Little Boots...Ive always called it Caligulas lol
Very good.
Of course all is speculation. Leaving aside Julius Caesar and his relatives seemed to have been a particularly badly wired lot, Caligula was probably a pretty decent ruler by the standards of his day right up to his mysterious illness. Speaking as a (thank God!) retired UK doctor my best guess is he had some kind of meningitis, the resulting brain damage giving him among other things a form of frontal lobe syndrome. So less 'mad' and more 'broken'.
PS Even by the standards of the day the Romans were a society of mildly deranged 'psychos', the richer you were the worse it got. There is some reasonable speculation this may be in part the result of chronic lead poisoning. Rich Romans liked their lead pipes and interestingly it was noted even then that lead probably wasn't good for you.
While a work of fiction, and a thoroughly good one, "I Claudius" gives a pretty darn good feel for what it must have been like to be a powerful Roman and in particular a fly on the wall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
If anyone is interested and doesn't want to read it the BBC (back when it actually was a public service broadcaster) did a darn good TV adaptation that's still kicking about the internet. Maybe a little dated on the technical front, but still thoroughly worth a watch.
The TH-cam Channel Historia Civilis has a fantastic long-running series on Julius Caesar - just keep in mind that for all his achievements they were done over the bodies of thousands if not millions - rather like Napoleon, another monster we unaccountably celebrate simply for being successful while killing so many innocents we see it as a statistic rather than a crime of epic proportions.
Having recently watched the sleeping sickness episode I am curious if that could be an explanation for the change. Extended sleep followed by change in personality and extreme paranoia are all part of the illness.
Question to the editor: How did the Prima Porta Augustus (the metal statue approx. 1 min in, as well as some chapter titles and at 10:38) sneak into the Caligula images? :)
Beyond this sneaky boy, great video.
And a fun fact for those who care: Caligula means "little boot", because the boy had accompanied his father in on his campaigning and had become the soldiers' pet with his little military boots.
Who cares about factual images. The world can be whatever I want...
Yeah wtf.
Some stories say his mother hand made a miniature soldier's uniform to fit him... Specifically because he enjoyed marching and hanging out with the soldiers in his father's campaigns...
Somehow, the nickname stuck... AND that can't have done any favors for his mental health... It might not have seemed destructive in and of itself, but it surely exacerbated everything else once things even began to look sour... ;o)
This should be good! Thanks Simon and Co.
Great video. Please do more :)! Love the edge you've created.
Of the Julians I think Tiberius was probably worse, in that his tyranny lasted a lot longer than Caligula. He was personally debauched as an old man and 'outsourced' government to a succession of strong men, the most notorious being Sejenus, the commander of the Praetorian guard. Incidentally, when Sejenus was finally toppled and executed, his children were also put to death, strangled by the State executioners in the underground prison where such deeds were carried out. Because his daughter (11, I think) was a virgin, she could not be executed. So they had the executioners gang rape her before strangling her....
The past, as Simon always says, was the worst.
Simon I'm gonna need a list of all your channels I can't keep up
Yes. Honestly I kept seeing different channels and I was like why do all these TH-camrs look alike
This makes me wish I had a Chronovisor to watch them all, like tiny chaotic, insane Sims.
Ooooo, that transition music was so perfect and really framed the mood of this piece.
What a fine and totally sane guy. He clearly cared about the common person.
Hitler in under 10 seconds; yeah I don't think this one is getting monetize. Top tier content from the blaze lord and of course he keeps top tier writers as well.
0:03 why are you pointing at us Simon?
He wasn't called Caligula, by any contemporary writers. He was called that as a toddler but not as an adult. Writers only started calling him that some three centuries after his death. He was the Emperor Gaius and woe betide anybody who called him anything else.
I think it's worth noting that almost all of the information we have on him comes from his enemies. History is written by the victors, after all.
18:27
About that, Caligula told his soldiers to attack the sea to show the futility of fighting their gods.
Am I the only who thinks total power is to much for people and that’s why so many go clinically insane. On one hand they can have and do as they please and never hearing no and having no boundaries means that the lust for more is never tamed. However on the other hand I feel most people myself included would be crushed under the power of trying to help and do better for my people, only to find that some and or many want the exact opposite so you end up jumping fro. One extreme to another in the pursuit of good while never really achieving anyone.
I love this! Aloys Winterling wrote a really interesting biography on Caligula that examines the most respected accounts of Caligula's reign and distill where the stories of him are contradictory and likely false, or agree and are probably closer to the truth. It's fascinating. For those who liked this video, Winterling's book expands on all the topics covered!
Has Elagabalus ever been covered in a video? Because he kinda makes Caligula and Nero seem tame by comparison. He's the most unpopular of all the Roman emperors.
“I can quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus…”
- W.S. Gilbert
"Well to do family..." lol. One of the most illustrious families in history.
I know Roman medicine was pretty advanced but I wonder how they sufficiently fed and kept Caligula hydrated for the month he was unconscious?
Your content is always interesting, Simon. Another content creator did a study on Caligula and she thought a bit of the problem was his nickname "Little Boots". She felt he had a self-esteem problem from having that nickname and that with his prestige and resultant ego, once he gained absolute power, he was going to strike out and prove that "Little Boots" was now THE emperor. And, I can tell you, if he had, for example, bipolar mood disorder and no one reigning him back, he could easily become monstrous. Of course, being around Tiberius didn't help either.
The craziest and strangest Roman emperor surely was Elagabalus.
I appreciate your covering this- it's not a topic I'm particularly familiar with.
I recommend Dr. Mary Beard for a good , enjoyable lecture on this topic.
She's great.
@Nancy Halstead - Yes, I wholeheartedly agree!!! I’ve watched _several_ of her lectures and documentaries on Ancient Rome - she’s fabulous! I figured I’d give this a go, but am not expecting much (just started it), because I figure it’ll be generic biographical information, and not quite as detailed as Dr. Beard presents her lectures.
She is! Love Mary Beard.
The queen of Rome
Being called Bootsy your whole life is enough to drive anyone over the edge.
I'm pretty sure your image of Caligula's older brother, Nero Iulius Caesar, at 3:23 is actually an image of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus) who was emperor following the reign of Claudius.
How do I keep coming across more and more channels with this guy 😂 the work rate is crazy
He was in a coma for a month, and something else came back with him.
What do you mean?
He would have died in a week from dehydration.
Oh okay. I might have misunderstood
Sounds like a prequel to insidious.
😮😮😮😲 I love it
Your content lately has been👌
Could the mystery illness be a case of The Sleeping Sickness?
It did potentially change the person after they got better, so.
Caligula's brother was Nero Julius Caesar, not to be confused with the Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. The statues shown in the video depicts the Emperor.
omg imagine if caligula had access to tiktok lmao
I would love to see someone do a Simon Whistler type video about all the YT channels Simon presents and go into the same detail describing all of his channels 😂
Surprised Simon didn't pronounced "Caliguler".
Decades ago the local PBS (Masterpiece Theater?) used to run *I, Claudius* (I, Clavdivs) starring Derek Jacobi which was a quite uncensored portrayal of this stuff based on a novel IIRC. Worth watching if you can find it now.
If it wasn’t for a big red circle and arrow in the thumbnail, never would have seen how crazy this man was 😱😳🤯
This video barely even touches it.
Bro how many TH-cam channels does this guy have?
It’s like I see a new one every day.
I wouldn't mind being remembered as "insanely depraved". Beats being forgotten.
who cares about being remembered? You're dead.
so you’d want to murder a bunch of people and commit incest?
The last insult they threw on him was the name "Caligula," which was a childhood nickname roughly meaning "Little Boots."
I've never been completely sold on the mainstream view that he was batsh*t crazy - the stories were circulated by his enemies and there's interpretations about some of his supposed deeds that throw very different angles on them. Jury's out for me.
Totally agree. We tend to forget that history is written by the victors and successors.
@@charlottehardy822 true dat
@@charlottehardy822 So if Hitler won does that mean he was somehow right?
@@BonShula if Hitler had won we’d be living in a different world and god knows what we’d all think. Just because you write the narrative doesn’t make you right or wrong it gives you the power to influence. Personally I wouldn’t want to live in a world where people thought he was right.
@@charlottehardy822 So Caligula could had been an alright guy. Since history is written by the victors.
I'd love to see a video about the Pazzi Conspiracy. The aftermath of that is pretty intense.
The problem whit all these history is that they started write down 100 or so years after they had died. So a lot is hear say and it is the winner of history that writes the book.
Yeah, a lot of this is from Suetonius' "The Twelve Caesars"; where most of the commonly known Emperor lore is sourced.
Simon's mad Emperor Content will always get my click.
Viruses and lead contamination could be blamed for insane and inhumane rule, but a spiritual dimension cannot be ruled out. That all begins with how a kid is brought up. If a child witnesses adults acting like brutes and fools, then, it's a sure bet the child will follow in like manner. Many thanks, Simon.
Great video! Very interesting! You are a very busy man, how many channels do you have!? And they’re all very good!
Didn't this episode happen on biographics about 3 years ago
Yes! This is amazing content by Simon, even though he dislikes making Ancient Rome-content. Reminds me of Biographical back when it was a good channel. ^^
"Let's begin with incest" erm no I don't think I will...
Algo Help 4 Whistler! Thanks 4 The Show!
You should do an episode on the October Crisis and the FLQ, until the recent illegal declaration of the emergencies act to suppress legitimate opposition too unpopular government policies that was the only time that the war measures act (the forerunner of the modern emergencies act) was used in canada during peacetime.
Every Time this channel videos are good 😉
Wrong Nero statue.
I would like to point out a rather large Eurocentric error. When talking about Ptolemy of Mauretania and Caligula's expansion of the Roman Empire into Mauretania, you have the video zooming in on the modern day country of Mauritania and that is a completely different area. In this time period Mauretania is used to refer to the land of the Moors which correspond to the modern Maghreb countries of Morocco and Algeria. The Roman Empire never expanded into what is today Mauritania.
I like Caligula, hes my spirit animal
good stuff, as per usual, good sense of humour overall videos :-)