6. Getting Killed by Trolling the Wrong Guy
In a history that had no shortage of weird rulers, Caligula (12 – 41 AD) was probably Rome’s most batshit emperor. His often terrifyingly bizarre behavior included cackling uncontrollably at parties, giddy at the thought that he could have anybody present killed on the spot, with just a gesture from his finger. One time he got mad at a noisy crowd in an arena, so he pointed out two bald guys at opposite ends of a section, and ordered his guards to execute everybody “from baldhead to baldhead“. He was into raping the wives of party guests, then rating the victims’ performances to their husbands. He also reportedly turned a section of the imperial palace into a whorehouse, staffed by the daughters and wives of prominent Romans.
However, it was not the preceding craziness that doomed Caligula, but his grievous error in offending his own bodyguards. The commander of his security detail, a man named Chaerea, had a high-pitched voice, and Caligula got a kick out of mocking him as effeminate. He thought it hilarious to come up with derogatory daily passwords that had to do with homosexuality, and whenever Chaerea was due to kissing the imperial ring, Caligula made sure it was on his middle finger, which he would waggle obscenely. In 41 AD, Chaerea finally had enough, hatched a plot with other Praetorian Guards, and hacked Caligula to death.
