3 January 2013
3. Commodus
He loved gladiatorial games, so much so that he entered many of them and fought alongside the gladiators, who were all criminals and slaves. This severely offended the entire Empire, especially the Senate. Commodus once ordered all the hunchbacks in the city to be rounded up, thrown into the arena, and forced to hack one another to death with meat cleavers. He especially adored killing animals, and killed 100 lions in one day, to the spectators’ disgust. He killed three elephants singlehanded in the arena, he beheaded an ostrich and he speared a giraffe to death. The senators conspired to have him killed. They sent in his favourite wrestler, who strangled him in his bath. His reign lasted 12 years.
2. Elagabalus
Elagabalus took the throne at the age of 14. He was a man, but wanted dearly to be a woman, and offered gargantuan sums of money to the physician who could turn him into one for real. He installed El-Gabal, the Syrian sun god, as the chief god of Rome, surpassing Jupiter, and it is this sun god from which we derive the emperor’s nickname. He transferred all Roman sacred relics from their respective temples to a new temple he had built for El-Gabal, the Elagabalium, and named himself the high priest. After 4 years of this, Rome erupted into riots as the praetorian citizens demanded his death or deposition. Everyone descended on him and his mother. He tried to hide in a large clothes chest, but they opened it and stabbed him to death. He and his mother were beheaded, and dragged throughout Rome. He was 18 years old
1. Caligula
He took the throne on the death of his second cousin Tiberius. Some say Caligula ordered the head of the Praetorian Guard to smother him with a pillow. For the first seven months or so, he was loved by all. He paid handsome bonuses to the military, to get them on his side. But he became very sick, and after the disease passed, he had turned into one of the most evil men in human history. Some historians of centuries afterward even considered that Caligula might have been possessed by a demon. He began ordering the murders of anyone who had ever crossed him. He exiled his own wife, and proclaimed himself a god, dressing up as Apollo, Venus (a goddess), Mercury and Hercules. He demanded that everyone, from senators to Guards to guests and public crowds, refer to him as divine in his presence. He attempted to instate his favourite horse, Incitatus (“Galloper”), as a priest and consul, and ordered a beautiful marble stable built for him, complete with chairs and couches on which Incitatus never sat. Once, at the Circus Maximus, the games ran out of criminals, and the next event was the lions, his favourite. He ordered his Guards to drag the first five rows of spectators into the arena, which they did. These hundreds of people were all devoured for his amusement. A citizen once insulted him to his face, and Caligula had him him tied up, and beaten with heavy chains. He made this last for 3 months. Caligula’s favourite torture was sawing. The saw-blade filleted the spine and spinal cord from crotch down to chest, and the victim was unable to pass out due to excess blood to the brain. He was finally murdered by the Praetorian Guard and some senators. His body was left in the street to rot, Ending his 4 year rule of tyranny. --- Beeglebuzz 23/12/12
Worst Roman Emperors • Opuss № I