When people think of Rome’s worst emperor, Caligula is usually the first name they blurt out. He has become a sort of shorthand for tyranny, madness, and depravity. If you want an example of how absolute power corrupts absolutely, the popular image of Caligula will do the job. He is the emperor who supposedly made his horse a consul, slept with his sisters, declared himself a god, ordered his troops to pick seashells as spoils of war, and murdered for fun. But as with most historical caricatures, the truth is much murkier. Behind the madness lies a man named Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, a product of Rome’s most powerful family, a survivor of palace intrigue, and a ruler whose short reign was distorted by hostile sources and centuries of mythmaking.

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