Simon Sebag Montefiore on Caligula

“Caligula ascended the imperial throne as the young darling of the Romans — and ended his four-year reign with a reputation as an insanely cruel tyrant. Capricious, politically inept and militarily incompetent, sexually ambiguous and perversely incestuous, he went from beloved prince to butchered psychopath in a reign that quickly slid into humiliation, murder and madness.”

“The life of Caligula demonstrated how much the imperial system created by Augustus, whilst preserving the trappings of the Republic, had actually concentrated absolute power in the hands of one man. Caligula stripped away the veneer of constitutional restraint and flaunted his total authority over his subjects in the most capriciously horrific manner. Caligula personifies the immorality, bloodlust and insanity of absolute power.”