# Who's the worse emperor: Nero or Caligula? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 8, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753 "2008-07-08T20:47:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/1 "2008-07-08T20:47:13Z")
(Note: I wasn’t sure where to put this, so I picked IMHO. IMHO, they’re both so bad that it takes a personal opinion to differentiate the level of “bad” they both sunk to.) I’m reading Suetonius’ _The Twelve Caesars_ and I’ve just reached the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. I got to thinking: which one was the worse emperor, Nero or Caligula? Let’s look at some of the highlights of their reigns, in no particular order: [**Nero**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero) Killed his mother Bankrupted the economy “Persuaded” many nobles and Senators to commit suicide “Persuaded” Roman citizens to leave him money and property in their wills Took said money and property even if they were still alive Burned Rome Fiddled while Rome burned Built a huge palace that, according to popular graffiti, threatened to take over Rome Kicked his wife Poppaea to death while she was pregnant General depravity and inability to keep it in his pants Point in his favor [Some people mourned him](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero#After_death) [**Caligula**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula) Bankrupted the economy Incest with his sister Drusilla Thought he was a god Built a palace for his horse Was rumored to be thinking about appointing said horse for a consulship Killed many family members Killed several Senators Committed adultery with many noblewomen, at dinner even Came back and bragged about said adultery at the dinner table Sent the legions out to collect sea shells General depravity and inability to keep it in his pants Points in his favor His name translates, roughly, to “Bootsie.” Emperor Bootsie. 😃 First few months of his reign were promising until he [fell mysteriously ill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula#Illness.2C_conspiracies_and_a_change_in_attitude) What say you, fellow Dopers? Which one was worse? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/2 "2008-07-08T20:50:40Z")
Slight hijack, perhaps - but is Suetonius the best source for this discussion? My understanding, perhaps mistaken, is that he had a penchant for exaggeration. Sort of a tabloid historian. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/3 "2008-07-08T20:53:09Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Excellent] Slight hijack, perhaps - but is Suetonius the best source for this discussion? My understanding, perhaps mistaken, is that he had a penchant for exaggeration. Sort of a tabloid historian. [/QUOTE] Of course not. Suetonius is just the one that got me wondering about this question. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/4 "2008-07-08T20:57:51Z")
IIRC, Nero had a longer reign, so he had more time to be a tyrant. At least, Caligula was gone faster. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/5 "2008-07-08T20:58:01Z")
I thought Nero fiddling while Rome burned was just a myth. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/6 "2008-07-08T21:12:05Z")
[QUOTE=pool] I thought Nero fiddling while Rome burned was just a myth. [/QUOTE] Yah, that’s why I brought up Suetonius’ shoddy reputation - didn’t mean any dig at the OP. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/7 "2008-07-08T22:54:47Z")
At least Nero got things done (include major arson for the sake of city renovation). My vote: Commodus. THAT’S Batshit Insane (at least according the our tabloid sources here). Makes Caligula look like Teddy Roosevelt. Decided that he was a reincarnation of Hercules and liked to fight in the arena, usually against feeble animals. Every time he’d do the arena thing he’d charge the city a million sesterces – (one was about a dollar, perhaps) which wounded the economy quite a bit. Maybe had an affair with his sister, had a harem of about 300 men and women Renamed the city of Rome Colonia Commodiana, renamed all the months of the calendar after himself—using middle names and such—renamed the senate the Commodian Fortunate Senate, renamed the army the Commodian army, etc etc. Eventually decides that tomorrow he is going to walk into senate dressed as a gladiator and take rule of senate as consul. Enough is enough and his cousin/ mistress hires a wrestler to strangle him in his bath. THAT’S good TV. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/8 "2008-07-08T23:56:15Z")
[QUOTE=capybara] At least Nero got things done (include major arson for the sake of city renovation). My vote: Commodus. THAT’S Batshit Insane (at least according the our tabloid sources here). Makes Caligula look like Teddy Roosevelt. Decided that he was a reincarnation of Hercules and liked to fight in the arena, usually against feeble animals. Every time he’d do the arena thing he’d charge the city a million sesterces – (one was about a dollar, perhaps) which wounded the economy quite a bit. Maybe had an affair with his sister, had a harem of about 300 men and women Renamed the city of Rome Colonia Commodiana, renamed all the months of the calendar after himself—using middle names and such—renamed the senate the Commodian Fortunate Senate, renamed the army the Commodian army, etc etc. Eventually decides that tomorrow he is going to walk into senate dressed as a gladiator and take rule of senate as consul. Enough is enough and his cousin/ mistress hires a wrestler to strangle him in his bath. THAT’S good TV. [/QUOTE] Wasn’t he the emperor in _Gladiator_? The one who murmured “Do you remember what our father told us?” in his sister’s ear during a tense moment? (The response at the movie theater I was at: “Don’t have sex!”) ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/9 "2008-07-08T23:57:23Z")
[QUOTE=pool] I thought Nero fiddling while Rome burned was just a myth. [/QUOTE] It was. He actually played the lyre. 😛 (I don’t really think he set fire to the city. But boy was that a public relations bonanza for the other side!) ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/10 "2008-07-09T11:41:46Z")
Nero gets a bad rap. Well, sort of. He was a very popular emperor, especially early on, except with the senatorial classes (where much of our ‘evidence’ comes from). He did go completely off the rails at the end. But it seems what he realy wanted was to be a performer, not an emperor. Caligula appears to have been debilitated very early on in his reign and was generally No Good. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/11 "2008-07-09T12:01:05Z")
Caligula easily gets my vote. His actions freaked out lots of important people and made them insecure. If I may play Devil’s (Emperor’s?) ADvocate, as both Suetonius and Michael Grant point out, they all did useful things – they kept ridiculously long hours for state affairs and held sessions for the commons and the like, and Suetonius lists the good things they got done (EVen Caligula). So they weren’t complete wastes of time. But combining almost total power with an ill-defined and pretty messy process of selecting and supporting the new ultimate ruler is clearly a BAD IDEA. The Romans really could have used some sort of Constitution setting out how to select the next God-For-A-Term instead of simply letting such a system grow organically. They would’ve avoided a lot of waste and bloodshed. Still, it lasted a long time – longer than our experiment in democracy has, so far, so who am I to criticize? Commodus was bad enough, but don’t get your “facts” about him from the movie [B[Gladiator\*\*. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/12 "2008-07-09T12:02:05Z")
Also, re: Nero, it appears that the fire of Rome in 64AD was, most likely, accidental. According to Tacitus, Nero spared no effort to fight the fire, paying from his own pocket for the efforts to combat the disaster. But, of course, the stories that have come to us are contradictory. All in all, however, and taking into account that the fire destroyed Nero’s palace as well, I incline myself towards the theory that the fire was accidental in origin. Just my 2 eurocent! ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/13 "2008-07-09T12:17:14Z")
Caligula could plead the diminished capacity defense. Elagabalus was assassinated at 18, so he would be tried as a minor. Nero was raised in a corrupt, dog-eat-dog environment, after the moral environment that Augustus had created had been destroyed (which is more than we can say in Tiberius’ defense) and only acted according to conditoning. But Commodus was the son of the last great Stoic philosophers, and was a morally culpable spoiled brat. ---
**Author:** ![Grossbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Grossbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grossbottom)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/14 "2008-07-09T12:33:25Z")
Nero may not have been all that bad as a ruler. He was just typical of those emperors who just didn’t particularly want to rule the world. He wanted to be a musician, singer, actor and gladiator. The big problems started when he decided to actually go and _do_ those things. For all its upward mobility, Roman society was extremely class-based, and musicians, actors and gladiators occupied an entirely unacceptable social level. This was slave & Greek work; Romans from good backgrounds might occasionally hire them but they did not become them. Imperators especially. It was scandalous, and not in an amusing way. This was on the level of the President spending half his work week as a male prostitute at a construction site. All that comes after has to seen in the light of a leader who was probably decent to mediocre, but villified by his peers and contemporaries for his indecent pursuits. And unfortunately, for all his efforts, Nero just wasn’t very artistically talented. Amusingly, Caligula was far more malicious, and probably more gifted. This guy had comic written all over him. For all his apparent insanity, his sense of humor was an example of classic Julio-Claudian deadpan absurdity. The horse as consul still makes me laugh, there was a man that missed his calling. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/15 "2008-07-09T13:12:36Z")
According to my chemistry book Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry by Geoff Rayner-Canham, it is likely that a lot of the roman emperors suffered from lead poisoning, due to the way they used to prepare wine. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/16 "2008-07-09T14:23:22Z")
[QUOTE=SpazCat] It was. He actually played the lyre. 😛 [/QUOTE] Thus the saying: “Lyre, Lyre, Rome’s on fire!” Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/17 "2008-07-09T14:37:03Z")
Nero had excellent people working for him, most notably Seneca and Burrus. Things went sort of downhill for Nero after he had Seneca kill open his veins. The cut scene (I kill me!) in Tacitus is not _really_ fair, but Tacitus loathed Seneca and was not one to portray him in a very good light. Add my vote to Elagabalus. ---
**Author:** ![Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Full_Metal_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/18 "2008-07-09T15:26:12Z")
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned, but could be considered a possible cause for some of the emperors’ more extreme behavoir later in their careers was mental debilitation due to syphilus (SP?). The harems and “extreme” sexual activities of both Nero and Caligula have been previously mentioned, and with the documented mental degradation that Syph. can produce could have been a contributing factor to their “odd” behavoir. Combine that with the megalomania and paranoia that the positions entailed, and you would get some outstanding wierdness. I have no site(s) to verify that they had the disease, but given their sexuial appitites and behavoir, it seems probablistic. Regards FML ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/19 "2008-07-09T16:52:05Z")
[QUOTE=Full Metal Lotus] One thing that hasn’t been mentioned, but could be considered a possible cause for some of the emperors’ more extreme behavoir later in their careers was mental debilitation due to syphilus (SP?). The harems and “extreme” sexual activities of both Nero and Caligula have been previously mentioned, and with the documented mental degradation that Syph. can produce could have been a contributing factor to their “odd” behavoir. Combine that with the megalomania and paranoia that the positions entailed, and you would get some outstanding wierdness. I have no site(s) to verify that they had the disease, but given their sexuial appitites and behavoir, it seems probablistic. Regards FML [/QUOTE] I recall Jared Diamond saying that syphilis probably came to Europe from America. Even if it was in Europe earlier, there is no evidence that the Roman emperors suffered from it. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753/20 "2008-07-09T19:09:38Z")
[QUOTE=SpazCat] It was. He actually played the lyre. 😛 (I don’t really think he set fire to the city. But boy was that a public relations bonanza for the other side!) [/QUOTE] /Bugs Bunny voice on/ Be it ever so crumbly There’s no place like Rome Nero he was the Emperor and the palace was his home But he liked to play with matches and for a fire yearned So he burned Rome to ashes and fiddled while it burned /Bugs Bunny voice off/ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worse-emperor-nero-or-caligula/455753.md?page=2)