Emperors could be elevated with high political, legal and eventually religious offices, but control of the army and the senate was what really mattered.
Julius Caesar, the last republican ruler, and Gaius Octavius or Augustus, the first emperor, threw a long shadow over the office. The adoption of either of their names might signal a man’s rise to ultimate power.
With the imperial throne a passport to enormous power and wealth and little to stop the strongest from seizing it or the weakest being propelled into it, it’s no wonder that some Roman emperors are famous for being bad, brutal and even evil.
1. Caligula: 37 – 41 AD
Selected as emperor by his great uncle Tiberius, Caligula may have ordered his benefactor’s suffocation.
His accession was popular, but after seven months an illness seemed to turn “Little Boots” into a monster. He is called a bad emperor main because of reports that he killed at whim and financed himself with legalised looting.
