Today on Dave Does History, we tackle one of the most infamous names in all of Rome: Caligula. He’s the emperor remembered as a monster, a madman, and the poster child for how absolute power can twist a man beyond recognition. But the truth is more complicated. Born Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, nicknamed “Little Boots” by soldiers, Caligula was adored when he first took the throne in AD 37. For a brief moment Rome believed it had entered a Golden Age. Then illness, paranoia, and political gamesmanship turned him into one of history’s great villains—or so the story goes. How much of what we think we know is fact, and how much is rumor spread by hostile senators and recycled in a 1979 movie that cared more about shock value than history? That’s the question we’ll dig into as we unmask Caligula, emperor, enigma, or exaggerated madman.

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