Decadent and Depraved Roman Emperors Who Shocked their Subjects

19. A Decadent Start to Caligula’s Rule

When his paranoid uncle died and Caligula succeeded him ruler of the Roman Empire, he was not only freed of the constant threat of execution, but suddenly found himself the world’s most powerful man. He cut loose and dove head first into an orgy of lavish spending and hedonistic living, as the combination of sudden freedom and unlimited power went to his head. He kicked off the crazy early on, with a demonstration of his contempt for a soothsayer’s prediction that he had no more chance to become emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae. Caligula ordered a two mile bridge built across the bay, then rode his horse across it while clad in the breastplate and armor of Alexander the Great.

18. From Decadent to Depraved

On one occasion, Caligula began to cackle uncontrollably at a party. When asked what was funny, he replied that he thought it hilarious that with a mere gesture of his finger, he could have anybody present killed on the spot. Displeased by an unruly crowd at the Circus Maximus, Caligula pointed out a section to his guards, and ordered them to execute everybody “from baldhead to baldhead”. On another occasion, bored at an arena when told that there were no more criminals to throw to the beasts, he ordered a section of the crowd thrown to the wild animals. Caligula’s depravities included i-n-c-e-s-t with his sisters. At dinner parties, he frequently ordered guests’ wives to his bedroom. After he bedded them, he returned to the party to rate them, and berate the cuckolded husbands for any perceived deficiency in their wives’ performance.

17. Becoming a God

Caligula also turned the imperial palace into a pleasure-house, staffed with the wives of prominent senators and other important dignitaries. To further show his contempt for the senatorial class and the Roman Republic for which they pined, Caligula had his beloved horse made consul – the Republic’s highest magistracy. On one occasion, Caligula declared war on the sea god Neptune, marched his legions to the sea, and had them collect seashells to show the deity who was boss. He eventually declared himself a god, removed the heads from various deities’ statues, and replaced them with his own.

16. Bullying that Backfired Spectacularly

It was none of that craziness that doomed Caligula and brought his power to an end. Instead, he fell because he offended his bodyguards. His security detail’s commander, Cassius Chaerea, had a high pitched voice, and Caligula liked to mock him as effeminate. He thought it hilarious to come up with derogatory daily passwords that had to do with homosexuality. Whenever Chaerea was due to kiss the imperial ring, Caligula made sure it was on his middle finger, and waggled it obscenely. Chaerea finally had enough, and in 41 AD, he hatched an assassination plot with other Praetorian Guards who hacked Caligula to death, and did in his wife and daughter as well while they were at it.

15. A Depraved Imperial Mom and Son

Nero (37 – 68 AD) was one of history’s oddest rulers. He became emperor as a teenager in 54 AD, and was dominated by his mother, who reportedly controlled him with i-n-c-e-s-t. As described by contemporaries: “whenever he rode in a litter with his mother, he had i-n-c-e-s-t-o-u-s relations with her, which were betrayed by stains in his clothing“. That sheds light on how Nero ended up so depraved. When he tried to assert his independence as he grew older, Nero’s mother refused to give up her power, and continued to meddle in government. So he decided to murder her, and resorted to elaborate means to make it look accidental. Nero’s mom survived each attempted “accidental death”. Exasperated, he finally gave up on subtlety and simply had his henchmen club her to death.

14. The Decadent Nero

With his mother out of the way, Nero finally started to live life his way. He fancied himself an avant garde artiste, and liked to shock public sensibilities. Open displays of deviant sexual practices were the easiest way to do that. So Nero reportedly “defiled every single part of his body“. When he tired of run of the mill perversions, “he at last devised a kind of game, in which, covered with the skin of some wild animal, he was let loose from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women, who were bound to stakes, and when he had sated his mad lust, was dispatched by his freedman Doryphorus.”

13. A Decadent Emperor

At some point, Nero fell in love with a youth name Sporus, and married him in a public ceremony intended to shock: “He castrated the boy Sporus and actually tried to make a woman of him; and he married him with all the usual ceremonies, including a dowry and a bridal veil, took him to his house attended by a great throng, and treated him as his wife.” Nero put a lot of thought into his perversions, and liked to organize and preplan them. So much that he set up sex rest stops in advance of his vacation routes. As described by contemporaries: “Whenever he drifted down the Tiber to Ostia, or sailed about the Gulf of Baiae, booths were set up at intervals along the banks and shores, fitted out for debauchery, while bartering matrons played the part of inn-keepers and from every hand solicited him to come ashore“.

12. The Price of Depravity and Decadence

Nero dedicated himself to pleasure and spent lavishly to gratify his desires. In the meantime, he neglected the Roman Empire and entrusted its governance to corrupt subordinates, who wrecked it. Finally, in 68 AD, various generals and provincial governors rebelled, the Senate declared Nero a public enemy, and his Praetorian Guard abandoned him. Nero contemplated throwing himself upon the public’s mercy and begging forgiveness. He changed his mind when informed that he would probably be torn apart by the first mob that came across him. So he had a freedman stab him to death, and cried out with his last breath: “Oh, what an artist dies in me!“

11. A Teenage Emperor

Elagabalus (204- 222) became emperor when he was barely fourteen-years-old. Unsurprisingly, handing absolute power to an unprepared teenager did not end well. While he was not as vicious as some of Rome’s more monstrous rulers – he was no gratuitously cruel Caligula or Commodus – Elagabalus did display the occasional mean streak. It often showed in his practical jokes. Jokes that, since he was emperor with none above him, always meant punching down. At the milder end was seating some of his more pompous dinner guests on the ancient Roman version of whoopee cushions: stuffed pads that emitted farting noises when somebody sat on them. At the crueler end of the spectrum, as seen below, Elagabalus liked to put people in fear of their lives.

10. Cruel Pranks

To seat people on whoopee cushions is relatively harmless, far as pranks go. Not so Elagabalus’ tendency to prank people by putting them in mortal fear of life and limb. One of his favorite pranks began with getting his dinner guests so drunk, that they had to crash and sleep it off in the palace. Once the marks were out, Elagabalus had his servants sneak tame lions, leopards, bears, or a mix thereof, into the bedroom. Come the morning, Elagabalus would bust a gut as he laughed heartily at his hungover guests’ reaction to waking up in the midst of a menagerie of man-eating predators. Unsurprisingly, not many of the emperor’s marks appreciated the humor.

9. Rome’s Most Decadent Emperor?

Aside from his twisted sense of humor, Elagabalus stood out even among other decadent Roman emperors for his perversions and deviancy. A religious zealot, Elagabalus adhered to and followed eastern religious rites that seemed bizarre in Roman eyes, and shocked contemporary sensibilities with carnal practices considered unbefitting an emperor. In his youth, he had been a priest of the Syrian sun god Elagabal. Following the assassination of his cousin, the emperor Caracalla, his grandmother intrigued to have him succeed to the imperial throne.

8. History’s Most Flamboyantly Gay Ruler

Elagabalus took his god’s name as his own when he ascended the throne, and brought its worship to Rome, where he built Elagabal a great temple. There, he shocked Romans by dancing around the deity’s altar amidst a cacophony of cymbals and drums. What got him in the most trouble however is that he might have been the most flamboyantly homosexual ruler in history. Elagabalus openly went about in women’s clothing, and fawned upon and engaged in public displays of affection with his male lovers, whom he frequently elevated to high positions. For example, he sought to have a favored charioteer declared Caesar, and bestowed powerful government positions upon an athlete who caught his fancy.

7. Going Out of the Way to Shock

Additionally, Elagabalus reportedly prostituted himself in the imperial palace: “Finally, he set aside a room in the palace and there committed his indecencies, always standing naked at the door of the room, as the harlots do, and shaking the curtain which hung from gold rings, while in a soft and melting voice he solicited the passers-by. There were, of course, men who had been specially instructed to play their part. For, as in other matters, so in this business, too, he had numerous agents who sought out those who could best please him by their foulness. He would collect money from his patrons and give himself airs over his gains; he would also dispute with his associates in this shameful occupation, claiming that he had more lovers than they and took in more money“.

6. Romans Were Tolerant of Homosexuality – Kinda

To contemporary Romans, the fact that Elagabalus was gay was not a big deal in of itself, as homosexuality was not unusual. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, some homosexual relationships between men were often accepted, or at least tolerated – more so by the Greeks than the Romans. However, whether Greeks or Romans, the ancients were not tolerant of homosexuality in its entirety, as the term is commonly understood today. Sex between men did not carry much of a stigma in of itself – at least not for the top, or the one who did the penetrating. Exclusive bottoms – the ones penetrated – were often reviled, though, as effeminate behavior on the part of men jeopardized their social standing.

5. Unfortunately for Elagabalus, His Kind of Homosexuality Was Outside the Boundaries of Roman Tolerance

Many Roman emperors had homosexual relations with other men, and their standing suffered no damage. Most famous among them was the Emperor Hadrian. He was so passionate about a young gay lover, Antinous, that he had him made into a god after his unexpected accidental death. However, such emperors were all tops, and did not engage in effeminate behavior. Elagabalus broke that taboo, was open about his role as a bottom, and was notoriously effeminate. He was widely reviled and came to grief as a result. Such perceived effeminacy were unacceptable in a Roman emperor, and opened Elagabalus to ridicule and contempt, which facilitated his assassination in 222.

4. Rome’s Most Depraved Emperor

Notoriously debauched emperors such as Caligula, Nero, and Elagabalus, are better known because of their ostentatiously bizarre behavior and public displays of sexual deviancy. By contrast, Tiberius (42 BC – 37 AD, reigned 14 – 37 AD) was not as out of control as the aforementioned trio. However, he matched and likely exceeded them in perversion and depravity. He just preferred to be a depraved pervert in relative privacy and seclusion, rather than put it all out on public display. Rome’s other notoriously perverse rulers ascended the throne as teenagers or immature young men and went crazy with the sudden power. Tiberius, by contrast, was quite mature – in his mid-fifties – when he succeeded Augustus as emperor in 14 AD.

3. A Seriously Sick Man

Since Tiberius was a middle aged man when he became emperor, he was not driven by youthful passions and the need to engage in ostentatious displays to shock and attract attention. That would have run against his personality anyhow since, even as a young man, Tiberius was taciturn, withdrawn, and introverted. Instead, he built himself a vast pleasure palace and compound, secluded in the island of Capri. There, he wallowed in all kinds of perversions, most notably with children. Among other things, he had toddlers trained to dive under water while he was in a pool to “nibble” at him as he swam – he called them his “minnows”.

2. An Imperial Pleasure Palace of Depravity

Tiberius also had pleasure gardens stocked with teenaged and prepubescent boys and girls. He had them dressed in outfits from Greco-Roman myths and legends, or run around naked, to frolic about, display themselves for his pleasure, and engage in carnal relations on command with each other. As he grew older, Tiberius grew increasingly impotent, and was often reduced to being a spectator in the perversions acted out for his pleasure. Inside his palaces and villas, he had walls covered with explicit paintings and murals of all kinds of carnal activity, from the routine to the shockingly depraved. The artwork served as a menu, and when Tiberius wanted to cut to the chase, all he had to do was point at a particular painting to communicate what he wanted done.

1. History’s Most Perverted Ruler?

Tiberius even had carnal experts on the imperial payroll: “On retiring to Capri he devised a pleasance for his secret o-r-g-i-e-s: teams of wantons of both sexes, selected as experts in deviant intercourse and dubbed analists, copulated before him in triple unions to excite his flagging passions“. To top it off: “Unweaned babies he would put to his organ as though to the breast, being by both nature and age rather fond of this form of satisfaction“. Tiberius might have been the dirtiest and seediest Roman ruler, ever. If perversion was a contest, he could make a credible challenge for the title of history’s most perverted ruler, ever.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Ball, Warwick – Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire (2000)

Barrett, Anthony A. – Caligula: The Corruption of Power (1998)

Gonick, Larry – The Cartoon History of the Universe, Part II (1994)

Grant, Michael A. – Caligula: The Corruption of Power (1989)

Historia Augusta – The Life of Elagabalus

History Collection – SPQR: The Men Who Made and Secured the Roman Republic

Icks, Martijn – The Crimes of Elagabalus: The Life and Legacy of Rome’s Decadent Boy Emperor (2011)

Levick, Barbara – Tiberius the Politician (1999)

PBS – Tiberius

Shotter, David Colin Arthur – Nero Caesar Augustus: Emperor of Rome (2016)

Shotter, David Colin Arthur – Tiberius Caesar (2004)

Suetonius – The Lives of the Twelve Caesars: Caligula

Suetonius – The Lives of the Twelve Caesars: The Life of Nero

Suetonius – The Lives of the Twelve Caesars: Life of Tiberius

Tacitus – The Annals, Books 1 – 6