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Decadent and Depraved Roman Emperors Who Shocked their Subjects

Khalid Elhassan February 11, 2025 15 min

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

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.