Today's elections aren't the only political events with their fair share of nutty candidates. There were plenty of weird ancient rulers who pretty much had a monopoly on odd behavior, ranging from endearing quirks to more unfortunate personality problems, and often, simply being insane. Whether that meant sleeping with one’s own mother and then assassinating her after a series of unsuccessful attempts to do so or reinventing an entire country’s millennia-old religious system, these crazy ancient rulers weren’t afraid to indulge their whims.
Perhaps the most eccentric bunch of them all was the Roman emperors. There’s the uber-creepy Tiberius, a decent soldier turned weird pedophile who built a sex grotto on the island of Capri. Caligula (or, as he was properly known, Gaius; “Caligula” was a childhood nickname meaning “little boots”) planned on making his horse, Incitatus, a consul and gave him an ivory manger; he also seduced his sister, Drusilla. And then there’s dear old Commodus, he of Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator fame, who loved prancing about the arena and killing people.
Whatever your form of crazy, vote up the most insane ancient rulers here!
Sadistic Rulers From Ancient History Who Were Basically F*cking Psychopaths,
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
Royal Title: King of the Seleucid Empire (175-164 BCE)
Crazy Cred: This overenthusiastic pagan monarch tried to oust the faith of the Jews from modern-day Israel and impose his own Greek gods and Hellenic ways on the Temple Mount. Antiochus IV Epiphanes's overzealous efforts infuriated the Judeans, who fought back under the leadership of a family later known as the Maccabees. The Maccabees's eventual triumph is commemorated as the holiday of Hanukkah.
Antiochus was a successful warrior, occupying Egypt, but he's best known for his efforts to unite his realm through Hellenization. He promoted Greek gods and founded Greek cities across the Near East, but the citizens of Judea, who already had problems with Hellenism, weren't having it. When he heard of this, Antiochus, according to 2 Maccabees, came to Jerusalem and "commanded his soldiers to cut down relentlessly every one they met and to slay those who went into the houses." He slaughtered 80,000 people (the accuracy of the numbers is debatable), profaned the holy vessels of the Temple by handling them, set up an altar to Zeus, and robbed the Temple treasury.
Antiochus was a brutal madman defeated by the righteous Maccabees. But external evidence demonstrated that, despite his impiety, Antiochus wasn't the worst king around. Polybius called him not "Epiphanes," but "Epimanes" (madman): not because of his cruelty, but because he liked to pal around with commoners.
Caligula
Royal Title: Emperor of Rome (37-41 CE)
Crazy Cred: Where to start? Perhaps with the childhood sicknesses or love potion that supposedly drove him mad? Or with the most famous rumor of all: Caligula didn't make his horse a consul, but rumor has it he promised to do so. He invited his steed Incitatus to dinner regularly, too, and gave him tons of servants to muck out his stall and comb his forelock. Oh, and an ivory manger, along with tons of other goodies. He even built a floating bridge across the Bay of Naples and rode across it in a chariot.
Already ugly, Caligula forbade any mention of goats in his presence because he was so hairy. But he did fall in love with handsome actors; when his favorite pantomime, Mnester, was performing, Caligula would smack anyone who interrupted. Yet when he didn't like a slightly wounded gladiator, "he had the place rubbed with a poison which he henceforth called 'Columbinum'; at least that name was found included in his list of poisons." Rumor has it that Caligula also poisoned his brother and drove his father-in-law to suicide.
Some ancient accounts claim Caligula committed incest with his sister Drusilla, Suetonius noted. No evidence suggested, though, that he got Drusilla pregnant and ate her baby (though Caligula's only child by a later wife, aptly named Julia Drusilla, bit her little friends: just like Dad!) He eventually turned on all his surviving female relatives, putting his sisters on an isolated island. Cassius Dio reported, "Many who were guilty of great crimes he neglected to punish, and many who had not even incurred any suspicion of wrong-doing he slew."
Cambyses II
Royal Title: King of Persia (529-522 BCE)
Crazy Cred: Best known for conquering Egypt, Cambyses went insane while there, supposedly due to killing a sacred animal. The Apis bull was a holy creature associated with the sun. When a new incarnation was born, the Egyptians celebrated, perturbing Cambyses. He ordered the bull to be brought into his presence, Herodotus recounted, to see whether a god had really been born.
When the bull entered, Cambyses stabbed him and mocked the Egyptians for worshipping a flesh-and-blood god. He ordered the deaths of anyone celebrating the Apis bull's festival. Sadly, the animal died of its wound, causing Cambyses, in the Egyptian point of view, to be "smitten with madness for this crime." Insane Cambyses killed his brother, then his sister-wife. He opened up the tombs of Egyptian royals to peer inside, a sacrilege, and mocked the gods of the land.
What did Cambyses suffer from? Herodotus said, "They say that from his birth he was afflicted with a dreadful disease, the disorder which some call 'the sacred sickness.'" Scholars have speculated this signified epilepsy.
Caracalla
Royal Title: Emperor of Rome (211-217 CE)
Crazy Cred: Best known for granting citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Roman empire in 212 CE, Caracalla didn't do it to be nice. He wanted the cash benefit that came with it! Though he was a nice kid when he was young, in an attempt to mimic Alexander the Great, he got sort of mean. Caracalla suspected his brother, Geta, of plotting against him and ordered him slaughtered. Truly bloodthirsty, he organized massive beast hunts in and out of the arena, as he "was for ever killing vast numbers of animals, both wild and domesticated, forcing us to furnish most of them," wrote Cassius Dio. In true nutty emperor fashion, he even drove his own chariot during chariot races.
Caracalla always wanted to look like he knew everything, so he never asked for help and wasn't fond of many people. Dio quipped, "He never loved anyone, but he hated all who excelled in anything, most of all those whom he pretended to love most; and he destroyed many of them in one way or another." He killed lots of his rivals, sometimes exiling the sick to provinces with bad weather to kill them slowly. Caracalla's victims included tons and tons of foreign people he slaughtered in and out of battle.
Commodus
Royal Title: Emperor of Rome (180-192 CE)
Crazy Cred: Best known as the insane young emperor from Gladiator, Commodus was truly nuts and loved killing people. He once faked a plot against his own life so he could have an excuse to kill a bunch of his enemies, according to the Historia Augusta. Commodus loved pretending to be a gladiator and killing wild beasts in the amphitheater, even desiring to be a charioteer. Once, Commodus said he was going to war in Africa so he'd get a lot of funds; then, he used them on games.
In terms of religion and dealing with others, Commodus didn't stick to the traditional rites. He shaved his head like an Egyptian priest, ordered priests of the Roman goddess Bellona to chop off one of their arms, and carried around a club to smack people with. But he was also impious when it came to basic manners: He stuck a bird on a balding guy's head, and the critter pecked the man's scalp bloody, thinking the few remaining hairs were worms. Commodus cut a fat guy open so his intestines would spill out, made a guy with a giant penis a prominent priest, and made one of his premier officials dance naked in public.
Domitian
Royal Title: Emperor of Rome (81-96 CE)
Crazy Cred: Best known for his cruelty and imposing buildings, Emperor Domitian pretty much sucked the life (both literal and monetarily) out of Rome. With his military campaigns, construction projects (like a new forum, personal country villa, and city home), and brutal taxes, Domitian didn't stint on his personal ambitions. He was also a capricious ruler and "would often attack people with the sudden violence of a thunderbolt and again would often injure them as the result of careful deliberation," recounted Cassius Dio. Whenever somebody helped him out or lent him money, Domitian was sure to put them on his to-kill list. Once, to scare potential enemies, Domitian invited lots of rich guests to a banquet in a room he painted all black, served them funeral food, and gave them gravestone-like placemats.
One enemy was an actor named Paris, whom Domitian murdered in the street after accusing him of having an affair with his wife. And when citizens left flowers at Paris's death site in honor, he ordered the deaths of those nice people too! Domitian also shacked up with his own niece and condemned the famously chaste Vestal Virgins to death for having had sex with men. Needless to say, few mourned when he was murdered.
Emperor Qianfei of Liu Song
Royal Title: Emperor of Liu Song (464-465 CE)
Crazy Cred: This teenage Chinese emperor only ruled for one year in the fifth century, but what a legacy he left! He grew so paranoid about conspiracies against his reign that he started killing officials left and right, although he did reportedly have time to give his half-sister thirty male concubines. Somewhere in there, Liu Ziye (his personal name) allegedly had an affair with his great-aunt.
He's perhaps most famous for plotting against his own uncles, too, but his ultimate successor and courtiers plotted right back. On the night he was assassinated, Liu Ziye went to a pavilion in one of his parks and shot at ghosts a shaman told him were hanging around. Distracted, he let his courtiers get close and stab him to death.
Nero
Royal Title: Emperor of Rome (54-68 CE)
Crazy Cred: Nero may not have fiddled while Rome burned in 64 CE (in fact, he was miles away when it happened and later organized firefighting efforts), but he was a pretty reprehensible guy nonetheless. He was famous for his love-hate relationship with his mother, Agrippina, perhaps having sex with her and very probably murdering her. Nero also reportedly tortured early Christians, throwing them to the dogs to be torn apart or burning them alive to be human lamps.
When looking to off his enemies, including any who badmouthed him, Nero enlisted the help of ancient Rome's consummate poisoner, Locusta. She was convicted of murder under Nero's predecessor, Claudius, but Nero granted her a stay of execution in exchanging for helping him murder his cousin/stepbrother and rival heir, Britannicus, at a banquet. As Nero's pet poisoner, Locusta was allowed to test her concoctions on people and animals as much as she liked, even starting a school for aspiring poisoners.
Phalaris
Royal Title: Tyrant of Acragas in Sicily (570-554 BCE)
Crazy Cred: In the sixth century BCE, Phalaris, a citizen of Acragas on the island of Sicily, seized power and made himself tyrant of that city. He crucified his rivals, but his most famous torture technique came by roasting his enemies alive in a bronze bull.
Phalaris stuck the smith who built the animal into his own creation, which the craftsman had given Phalaris as a gift. Unwisely, the coppersmith told Phalaris he could torture enemies by sticking someone in the bull, putting it over a fire, and telling everyone the victim's groans were those of the animated bull. By putting tiny tubes in the bull's nostrils, air would shoot out and sound like flutes were playing. Of course, Phalaris took him up on his advice and made the smith the first test subject.
Tiberius
Royal Title: Emperor of Rome (14-37 CE)
Crazy Cred: The second emperor to ever rule Rome, Tiberius, stepson of Augustus, didn't improve the Julio-Claudians' reputation. Tiberius "trained little boys (whom he termed tiddlers) to crawl between his thighs when he went swimming and tease him with their licks and nibbles," said Suetonius. Tiberius even ordered babies to give him blow jobs. He organized secret orgies at his private residence on the island of Capri, arranging teams of "experts in deviant intercourse and dubbed analists" to have sex in front of him, according to Suetonius.
There, Tiberius built an erotic library so that visiting sex slaves could learn more positions. He also built a garden with little nooks where boys dressed as Pan and girls dressed as nymphs could get it on. Once when he was attending a sacrifice, Tiberius got really hot from staring at the sexy young flute player. After the ceremony, he raped both the musician and his brother. Then, when they complained about it, he broke their legs!
Tiberius also didn't mind murdering a few rivals, especially when aided by his lackey Sejanus. Among his victims were Priscus, a fellow who liked writing poems about the imperial family, and perhaps even his stepson Postumus, his chief rival for the imperial throne.