Explore all of the murder, madness and mayhem in Ancient Rome during the reign of the mad emperor, Caligula. In this book about Rome’s most infamous emperor, expert author, Stephen Dando-Collins’ chronicles all the palace intrigues and murders that led to Caligula becoming emperor, and details the horrors of his manic reign and the murderous consequences brought about at the hand of his sister Agrippina the Younger, his uncle Claudius and his nephew Nero. Skillfully researched, Dando-Collins puts the jigsaw pieces together to form an accurate picture of Caligula’s life and influences. Dando-Collins’ precise and thorough examination of the emperor’s life puts Caligula’s paranoid reign into perspective, examining the betrayals and deaths he experienced prior to his time in power and the onset of a near-fatal illness believed to have affected his mental-health.

Caligula: most notorious of the Roman Emperors, who seduced his own sister, installed a horse in the Roman Senate, turned his palace into a brothel, married a prostitute, tortured and killed hundreds of innocent citizens on a whim, and committed countless other acts of madness, cruelty and deviancy. Award-winning writer Stephen Barber documents in full the atrocities of Caligula, and also the other mad Emperors, notably the deranged Commodus. Also included is a bloody history of Gladiators and the Roman Arena, the depraved circus where Christians, freaks and criminals were butchered by the thousand. DIVINE CARNAGE is a shocking catalogue of incest, transvestism, torture, slaughter and perversity brought to life by Barber’s superb authorial skill, making it an essential and eloquent document of murderous decadence. This special ebook edition also includes the bonus of Suetonius’ “Life Of Nero”, highlighting the outrages of yet another sadistic Emperor, whose greatest pleasure lay in the crucifixion and burning of Christian martyrs.

Sam Wilkinson provides an accessible introduction to the reign of Caligula, one of the most controversial of all the Roman Emperors. Caligula's policies have often been interpreted to be those of a depraved tyrant. This study provides a reassessment of this controversial reign by scrutinising the ancient literary sources that are so hostile to Caligula, and by examining the reasoning behind the policies he enforced. Key topics discussed include: * Caligula's early life and accession to power * Caligula's relationship with the Senate * how far Caligula's domestic and foreign policies can be judged to be a success * why Caligula was assassinated in AD 41, only four years after his accession to power. With a guide to primary and secondary sources, a chronology and a detailed glossary, Caligula is an invaluable study of the reign of this fascinating Emperor.

Edition statement inferred from Epilogue.

Was the Roman emperor Caligula really the depraved despot of popular legend? In this book -- the first major reassessment of Caligula's life and career in over fifty. years -- Anthony A. Barrett draws on archaeological, numismatic, and literary evidence to evaluate this infamous figure in the context of the system that gave him absolute power.Authoritative ... highly readable. -- Bernard Knox, Atlantic MonthlyAn excellent study of the brief reign of Caligula....Barrett is a highly competent historian and clear writer, and the intrinsic interest of his subject is so great that the tougher kind of reader, as well as the scholar, will study this book with pleasure as well as with instruction. -- Hugh Lloyd-Jones, New York Review of BooksBarrett's Caligula fills a long-standing void in providing a balanced, thoroughly documented, and persuasive assessment of Caligula's life and career. This eminently readable book's value is further enhanced by the illustrations and by an appendix discussing Caligula's statuary and coinage. It will prove a welcome addition to the library of anyone with interests in Roman history and culture. -- Joseph J. Hughes, Classical WorldI do not think that any scholar interested in the Julio-Claudian period or any classics or ancient history library could be without this book. Very well written, it should also be popular with the general public. -- Colin M. Wells

The Roman Empire has always exercised a considerable fascination. Among its numerous colourful personalities, no emperor, with the possible exception of Nero, has attracted more popular attention than Caligula, who has a reputation, whether deserved or not, as the quintessential mad and dangerous ruler. The first edition of this book established itself as the standard study of Caligula. It remains the only full length and detailed scholarly analysis in English of this emperor’s reign, and has been translated into a number of languages. But the study of Classical antiquity is not a static phenomenon, and scholars are engaged in a persistent quest to upgrade our knowledge and thinking about the ancient past. In the thirty years since publication of the original Caligula there have been considerable scholarly advances in what we know about this emperor specifically, and also about the general period in which he functioned, while newly discovered inscriptions and major archaeological projects have necessitated a rethinking of many of our earlier conclusions about early imperial history. This new edition constitutes a major revision and, in places, a major rewriting, of the original text. Maintaining the reader-friendly structure and organisation of its predecessor, it embodies the latest discoveries and the latest thinking, seeking to make more lucid and comprehensible those aspects of the reign that are particularly daunting to the non-specialist. Like the original, this revised Caligula is intended to satisfy the requirements of the scholarly community while appealing to a broad and general readership.