“We came, we saw, we conquered.” This famous quote from Caligula is still in use today.
Caligula and Nero were two of Rome’s worst emperors. They both had a share in the fall of Rome. While
Caligula’s spending habits were ruining Rome, his nephew, Nero, wasted the remaining of Rome’s money and laughed as his empire burned to the ground and rebuilt on a much larger, luxurious scale (Morey). These two men were known to be the main reason Rome fell. Caligula, or Gaius Caesar, was emperor of Rome from 37 to 41 AD (Halsall). The young emperor wasted a majority of Rome’s money in only two years (The Roman Empire 29-31). He spent money on banquets, parties, and useless wars. The emperor waged a war on the god Poseidon for having a drought.
He had his troops march down to the
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Caligula spent lots of Rome’s money on banquets and parties. He started his ruling spending money on the people but only after six months became ill and started spending the money for himself (The Roman Empire 29-38). Nero, on the other hand, lived a successful ruling until the end when he started to spend Rome’s money and he had his wife and mother killed. He also corrupted Rome and expected everyone to respect him but he did not respect anyone else. He went around Rome and disguised himself while mugging prostitutes. Nero also set Rome on fire and as Rome was burning, he laughed and played his harp as he watched his empire burn to the ground (The Roman Empire 29-38). He later spent money to rebuild on a much larger scale (Morey). Rome today is nowhere near how it was back then. No emperors to burn the city down. Caligula aided this by spending a majority of Rome’s money. Caligula killed people who disapprove him or talked bad about him. He became ill very quickly and soon after becoming emperor (The Roman Empire 29-38).
Nero, Caligula’s nephew, ran the city very well for the first five years then he became seriously ill.
Emperors such as Caligula, Nero, and Commodus have shown that the empire crumbled because of the fact that the leaders weren’t able to successfully create a well structured “team”. Nero persecuted Christians for their beliefs, Caligula turned the palace into a brothel, and Commodus took over territories and claimed them as his own. All three of these emperors are part of the reason why the Roman Empire has fallen. The conspiracy was investigated as being part of the fall of the empire.
A reason why the fall of Rome happened is because of the constant wars they were having and the heavy amount of military spending. All of the constant warfare that was happening required heavy military spending, the Romans army became very over well stretched because they kept on needing more and more soldiers. As they kept needing more and more soldiers, they began to let other foreigns join the army.
With the largest empire at the time, Rome had an equal fall from grace. Rome fell because of the political corruption, inflation and the decline in morals of its citizens. By about the second century AD, Rome was suffering from political corruption. In 218 AD, Elagabalus rose to power and he was crazy. The Roman public had their fair share of bad emperors, but a guy that marries 5 women and 1 dude, at that time, was a little scary.
Julius Caesar emerged. He was able commander who led many conquests for Rome. In 59 B.C. Caesar set out for a new conquest. After nine years of constant fighting, he finally conquered Gaul. Pompey grew jealous of his achievement and had the senate order him to disband his forces and return to Rome. Caesar secretly crossed the Rubicon and killed Pompey then entered Rome. After crushing many rebellions, Caesar forced the senate to make him a dictator. Caesar launched many reforms such as public work programs and giving land to the poor. According to legend those in the senate murdered Caesar on March 15. Caesar's Grandnephew, Octavian, and Marc Anthony joined forces to capture his killers. However bitter feuds grew it soon became a battle for power.
The Roman Empire was the most powerful Empire during Antiquity. It is traditionally considered to have “fallen” in 476, when Rome’s last emperor was deposed. Many theories have been presented as to why it fell, from unsound economic and social policies to mass lead poisoning. The actual cause of Rome’s fall is the result of many factors, but was mainly caused by Rome’s poor economic policies.
Even though he eventually did believe in complete dictatorship, primarily he was quite promising because of his moderate approach to governance. His tutor and advisor Seneca, who was one of the great intellectuals and philosophers at the time, taught Nero from a young age about mercy, justice and the sacredness of human life. These ideas appealed to Nero and he tried to gain popularity by following these moral ideas. He also allowed the senate to make more decisions which was appreci...
As the story goes, Rome was founding in 753 B.C. by two brothers Remus and Romulus who were raised by wolves. The two brothers started fighting over the leadership of the land. Eventually Romulus killed Remus and took control own his own. The city was only a small settlement at that time. As the civilization grew, the Etruscans took over. The Romans drove out the Etruscans in 509 B.C. By this time Rome had become a city. As the empire came to its peak it included lands throughout the Mediterranean world. Rome had first expanded into other parts of Italy and neighboring places during the Roman Republic, but made wider conquests and made a strong political power for these lands. In 44 BC Gaius Julius Caesar, the Roman leader who ruled the Roman Republic as a dictator was assassinated. Rome descended into more than ten years of civil war. After years of civil war, Caesar's heir Gaius Octavius (also known as Octavian) defeated his last rivals. In 27 B.C. the Senate gave him the name Augustus, meaning the exalted or holy one. In this way Augustus established the monarchy that became known as the Roman Empire. The Roman Republic, which lasted nearly 500 years, did not exist anymore. The emperor Augustus reigned from 27 BC to AD 14 and ruled with great power. He had reestabl...
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, born 15 December 37 AD, was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68 AD, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his granduncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54AD following Claudius’ suspicious death. Nero focused much of his attention on diplomacy, trade and enhancing the cultural life of the Empire. When he became emperor, Nero was a young man who enjoyed the theater, music and horse racing. Ancient Historian, Suetonius, stated that “Nero degenerated from the good qualities of his ancestors, yet he reporoduced the vices of each of them, as if tramsitted to him by natural inheritance” (Suetonius, 110 AD). His dominating mother, Agrippina, had already
He was privy to violence, death, conspiracy trials, and warped sexual escapades in Tiberius’s palace in Capri at a very impressionable age. He ascended the throne at twenty-four years old and was given complete and absolute control over an empire with very little political experience. If he was not made unstable by all the occurrences in his youth and upbringing, he was bound to be impacted by the constant threat of murder hanging around an emperor. What person could endure such trauma and depravity and remain unaffected? Caligula was murderous and deeply disturbed, but I cannot see how any other person with his past that would not be. It is proportional to putting an abuse victim in the president’s chair and expecting rational thinking. Many historians believe he suffered from some kind of clinical illness that aided in his hostel and fanatical behavior. The main sources we have on Caligula are from Suetonius and Dio, who were not contemporary to all these occurrences and should be read with criticism as their main goal was to attract readers, not to convey truth. Contemporary writers such as Philo and Seneca should also not be taken at face value. Though they are not flattering descriptions of the emperor, their writings were under scrutiny and could get them a quick death penalty if too far out of line. None-the-less I feel that Caligula was not entirely at fault
The Roman government had many debts to pay. They also had to find a way to fund for the upkeep and development of its roads and army. The government decided to excessively tax the people, who viewed this as unjust. Much of Rome’s wealth came from the wealthy places it conquered, but they eventually reached a point where there were no longer any wealthy rivals to conquer. The Roman Empire never actually established an efficient currency system, and eventually, due to inflation, money became worthless. The empire that was once known for its excessively elaborate architecture and system of roads began to fade away because of its loss of wealth. Also, their trading stopped because of the dangers involved in traveling. This caused small farmers to eventually completely die out, or hide behi...
The Roman Republic began in 509 B.C.E. with the overthrow of the Etruscan monarchy. In 27 B.C.E the Roman Empire began with Octavian Caesar becoming the emperor, this ended almost 500 years of republican self-government. There is much debate over why Rome became so powerful so quickly. Many think it had to do with Rome’s military strength. Others think that it was because Rome knew of and controlled most of the trade routes. Still others believed it had to do with the technology that was advanced during the Roman Republic. All of these factors played significant roles, but which one played the most important role?
The credit to his downfall goes to himself. He brought upon the fall of “Caligula and his Tyrannous Reign”.
Caligula was infamous back in ancient Rome, and nothing much has changed. He is known for being a sadistic, cruel and malevolent ruler. Caligula, who took over the throne after the exhausting rule of his great uncle, Tiberius, who also murdered his father and imprisoned his mother, as well as his two brothers after his mother threatened Tiberius because of her husband's wrongful death. The three died while imprisoned but, due to Caligula's young age, he did not join them in prison. He struggled to hide his hatred for his adopted father. After Tiberius' death, Caligula and his cousin, Gemellus, were made equal heirs to the throne. But, thanks to a friend that Caligula would later kill, some strings were pulled and he became emperor.
The fall of the Roman Empire was a non-expected fall after a long time of control. Still to this date, Rome is history’s biggest empire so far lasting about 1000 years. The 147 emperors show how long the empire lasted. The fall happened because during the end of the Empire, Rome was changing for the worst. There were good and bad times before the Roman Empire before the fall of the empire. Specific reasons of why Rome fell include Christianity becoming the religion of Rome because of the reform by Emperor Constantine, the Roman Empire became too big, and the empire decayed without problems being fixed.
Historical accounts hold that his lavish excesses bankrupted Rome, and he resorted to levying harsh taxes against the people. A famine also took place, for grain could not be imported as cargo ships were impounded to be used in the construction of the Caligula’s pontoon bridge (archive.org). On top of the famine, Caligula’s relationship with the Senate was extremely turbulent. He humiliated and mocked the Senate at any possible opportunity, so much as to making his own horse consul (bbc.com). Though Caligula was less than skilled dealing with politics, he however was able to contribute new territory to Rome.