Were the Julio-Claudians really as bad as they seem?
I think that most of them did get a little crazy. Augustus was the most sane, he just had an issue with trying to marry his daughter off to whoever was a good ally to have. Then he made his crazy move, adopting Tiberius as his son. After Tiberius's son died, he went a little crazy. He began to kill anyone who possibly could become emperor over him, and for fun, while at his summer home, he would throw people off a cliff. He tried innocent people for treason, had numerous people executed, and people all over Rome were terrified of him. Then came Caligula. He tried to get his horse appointed onto the Senate. He also had people worship him as a god, and he would dress up as various gods and that is the name he would be called by. After Caligula, there was Claudius. When he heard of Caligula's death, he was found hiding behind a curtain in his room because he didn't want to be emperor. After Claudius, Nero came along. Rumor has it that Nero played the fiddle while the city of Rome burned to the ground. This is only just a rumor because the fiddle wasn't even invented until a thousand years later. Nero had his mother and his stepbrother executed. Instead of being killed like most of the other men in this dynasty, he committed suicide. I wouldn't necessarily say that all these rulers were bad, but I would definitely say that they were crazy.
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