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Decadent and Depraved Roman Emperors Who Shocked their Subjects

Khalid Elhassan February 11, 2025 15 min

16. Bullying that Backfired Spectacularly

The Assassination of Caligula, by Lazzaro Baldi (1624 – 1703). Veterum Sapientia Institutum

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.

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.