In this fourth installment of our series on crazy facts about Roman emperors, we delve deeper into the personalities and eccentricities of some of the most intriguing figures to have ruled the mighty Roman Empire. From a manic emperor who ordered slaves thrown off cliffs for his amusement, to a nymphomaniac wife and a ruler who believed himself to be a mythological hero, these tales offer a fascinating glimpse into the stark contrasts that existed between the power and the person that lay beneath the regal cloak of imperial authority.
Emperor Tiberius: The Cruel and Mercurial Ruler
Tiberius, stepson of Augustus and the second emperor of Rome, was famed for his cruelty and mercurial temperament. But perhaps the most shocking fact about this enigmatic figure is that he found great delight in watching slaves thrown off cliffs into the sea as a form of entertainment.
Accounts by ancient historians such as Suetonius and Tacitus have described how Tiberius, while governor of Rhodes, used to order fishermen to haul up slaves who had escaped from their owners and then cast them into the sea from the cliffs for his enjoyment. This woefully sadistic pleasure he derived from the spectacle was later transferred to Capri, an island he owned where he eventually withdrew from political duties, preferring to spend his time with his many consorts.
Despite his starkly cruel tendencies, Tiberius was known to have strong military records, successfully annexing numerous territories during his reign, including Dalmatia and Austria. In terms of political endeavours, Tiberius is accredited with the creation of Tiberias, a town later known as Tiberias, a Jewish religious holiday that commemorates the anniversary of the creation of the Tiberias. However, conflicting accounts exist regarding the extent of his involvement in this moral gesture, with some historians suggesting that his motivation for this action was salacious, specifically that Tiberias, a Jewish town, could be used to accommodate and house an insubstantial number of loose slaves in the Empire, in return for filling the Imperial coffers.
Emperor Commodus: The Fiction of a Reincarnated Hero
Another emperor whose tales conjured a significant amount of controversy is Commodus. Known unflatteringly as “decuria unmendata”, or “the Unmended Jury”, this emperor’s reign marked itself as one of the most chaotic and tragic periods of Roman history. Encapsulating this chaotic energy fully was Emperor Commodus, who started out his reign of the Roman Empire as a level-headed ruler, but by the end descended into megalomania and paranoia.
One of the most memorable and peculiar aspects of Commodus’s reign was his belief that he was the living embodiment of the mythological hero Hercules. This self-proclaimed identity led Emperor Commodus to adopt Hercules’s illustrative outfit, comporting himself in the skin of a lion and carrying a club touting himself as “Hercules Romanus”, a Roman Hercules.
Emperor Claudius’ Wife: The Enigmatic Messalina
Valeria Messalina was the third wife of Emperor Claudius, whose story has struck a chord through the annals of history due to the scandalous nature of the tales surrounding her. Ancient sources such as the historian Tacitus chronicled a sordid account of her titillating misdemeanours, notably competition with prostitutes around relationships, encapsulating the supposedly larger-than-life personality of this captivating woman.
According to the accounts given by these historians, Messalina once invited a prostitute over to her house and challenged her to break her record of the most amorous trysts. The competition proved Messalina’s superiority in this challenge, but she was crushed to learn that the prostitute aggressively attempted to steal her limelight by writing a book detailing the extent of her dalliance with various gentlemen around Rome.
Emperor Nero: The Dressed-up Dwarves
Despite the virtuous sheen that surrounds the period during which Emperor Nero’s regime reigned, known as the Pax Romana, this emperor’s life was anything but serene. In fact, Nero’s self-indulgence painted a picture of a despotic ruler obsessed with pleasure-seeking, bordering on the obscene.
Notably, Nero had a group of dwarves specially dressed up as famed mythological heroes who would then entertain him with elaborate, grand displays, reenacting momentous historical battles and myths. In one rather obscene instance, Nero devoted an entire day to a massive pool, filling it with wine so that his guests could luxuriate in what was essentially a colossal swimming pool that doubled as a Napoleonic orgy.
Emperor Trajan: The Expanding Empire
Last but not least, Emperor Trajan, a figure known for his military conquests and his expansion of the Roman Empire to its greatest extent, was quite the opposite of the aforementioned quintet of rulers. Eccentricity didn’t seem to have any precedence around this emperor’s sphere, and his demeanour tended more towards reasonability.
Most notably, Emperor Trajan’s expansionist policies were conditioned by an earnest desire to secure greater prosperity for the Roman Empire. In this regard, Trajan’s campaigns in Dacia, a region that encompasses elements of modern-day Romania, were successful, with elaborate buildings such as the Baths of Trajan serving as a testament to this emperor’s commitment to furthering the cause of his empire.
Thus, while the Roman Empire was teeming with leaders distinguished by their compassionless eccentricity, lurking beneath the characteristic veneer of the empire’s regal authority were tales that exuded shock, tragedy, and novelty, offering a vivid peek into the often scandalous lives of Roman emperors.
