silver 2039
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Consider it the equivalent of approval ratings.
Poll: Caligula
- Thread starter GuitarHero
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MadmanOfALeader
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I wonder whose legacy is more unjust: Caligula's or Richard Nixon's.
Knighterror1013
Chieftain
He was horrible, along with Nero. Calligula was mad, face it. Entertainment to him was having sex with other men's wives then coming back and telling them how "good" they were. And that was at dinner time!
Not to mention, he tortured woman before having sex with them, and found the chopping off of limbs and torture also to be forms of entertainment. He squandered the Roman treasury, and left a mess for the next emporer.
Who ever finds Nero to be even remotely decent is insane! The man participated in chariot races with rules of 4 and 8 horses, and used 18! And still lost! And still had himself declared winner! Talk about a loser, and that was the man in charge...
Not to mention, he tortured woman before having sex with them, and found the chopping off of limbs and torture also to be forms of entertainment. He squandered the Roman treasury, and left a mess for the next emporer.
Who ever finds Nero to be even remotely decent is insane! The man participated in chariot races with rules of 4 and 8 horses, and used 18! And still lost! And still had himself declared winner! Talk about a loser, and that was the man in charge...
A lot of stated action's of Caligula's by you have been suggested as having happened by sources such as Suetonius, or illustrated in the film Caligula.
Suetonius has a very biased view of Caligula, so chances are that he's lying. And the film, no matter which edition you see, is innacurate, unbiographical, and mostly porno.
Knighterror1013
Chieftain
I've never seen a movie on Calligula.... why would someone waste the time to make a movie on a madman, let alone multiple additions as you state. Actually, were I got most of what I know about Calligula and the other Roman emperors was from a book about Roman Emperors and how the majority of them led the empire down a steady path of destruction. It also mentions, that only 5 of them were "good" from a historical perspective. I can't remeber the name of the book, or all 5 of the "good" emperors, but I believe they were, Ceaser, Augustus, Tiberius, Constatine... and I can't recall the other one, but I believe he was from Spain, although that might be Tiberius, I don't have the time to try to find out as I'm about to leave for Niagara Falls to go visit family.
holy king
Deity
you lost me there...
also it would be nice to know what sources this book you read used, since suetonius was really just slinging mud at the emperors.
Neither? They both debased the "office" that they held and they both deserve ridicule and condemnation for it.
Sofista
Deity
Caligula hurt the power of the Senate, not the Emperor.
I meant that they kinda "soiled" it more than anything, not made it weaker.
However, Nixon was corrupt and economically inept, and Caligula tried to lower the power of the upper class.
How did they deserve it? By exploiting poorer and using slave labour? Aren't you applying modern standards of morals to them? And didn't you also say that it's ridiculous?
How did Caligula's crueltys really improve the status of the plebs? If he was able to treat the upper class the way he did, he could probably have done much to fix the inequality of the society. Pure revenge without much effort to build better system doesn't sound very virtuous to me.
If we suppose that rich people really deserved what they got, it doesn't necessaraily make Caligula's actions good. In order for his cruelty's to be justified they should have been done because of the cruelty of his targets. To me it seems it wasn't the case.
And about that happiness of majority thing, it really is ridiculous. Think about hypothetical scenario: A pedophile and child murderer has committed horrible acts throughout the country. Mentally handicapped person is staged as guilty, tortured and killed as a punishment, and the majority of people derive pleasure for this revenge. Yet the person who stages the handicapped doesn't commit a good deed.
That's not exactly true. If the person is so handicapped that they were useless to society, then their would be a small relief upon that society, which even though it's not just, it's still not that bad.
Caligula taught a lesson to the patricians that the next generation did not soon forget.
It certainly is in question, given that we know almost nothing about that persecution, especially how many victims there were. There probably weren't even thousands of Christians in the Roman empire in total in the 60s of the first century, let alone in Rome itself, so it's pretty unlikely that Nero executed thousands of them, given that some obviously survived.
That is possibly the most absurd post I've seen here (at least in the last few days). First, Nero was the first Roman emperor to execute Christians; the actions of later emperors hardly provide any meaningful context for this. Second, most Roman emperors between the first and the fourth centuries did not persecute Christians and were mostly utterly uninterested in them; when persecutions did occur they were, with a couple of exceptions in the third century, usually local matters conducted by governors with an axe to grind. Third, it is true that Christians weren't well liked in the second and third centuries AD; but as far as I know there is no evidence that this was the case in the 60s of the first century, when, as I said, there were hardly any Christians around at all. Fourth, even during those periods when Christians were not well liked, it does not follow that most people approved of slaughtering them. In fact the Great Persecution of Diocletian that you mention was not generally popular, because most people felt that it went too far and felt sorry for the Christians, despite disliking them otherwise. And fifth, even if this had been a popular policy, it would not follow that it was a good policy. As Tertullian pointed out in Ad Scapulum, there were areas that were so full of Christians that persecuting them vigorously would have had adverse economic consequences.
It would be just as reasonable to say that the popular dislike for Christians, and intermittent imperial policy of persecuting them, were effects of Nero's actions, not some kind of mitigating context for those actions. And that would not be to Nero's credit. To suggest that it was somehow socially or politically productive - let alone morally acceptable - for political authorities to torture and kill blameless citizens for their religious beliefs is just absurd. Even if you think that one can't apply modern moral standards to ancient people, the notion that killing innocent people is a bad thing is not exactly a recent innovation in moral thinking. The Romans had plenty of moral philosophers who could have told them that.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
There had to have been more than few in Rome for there to be Christian quarter for the fire to start in.
There wasn't a "Christian quarter" in which the fire started. Tacitus, who is our sole source on this, simply states that Nero blamed the Christians for starting the fire in order to counteract people accusing him of it. There's no indication that he had some kind of legitimate reason for thinking this, such as the fire actually starting in a part of Rome largely inhabited by Christians. In fact I don't believe there's evidence for a "Christian quarter" in any city in the first or second centuries, not even Alexandria.
_random_
Jewel Runner
Do you realize that everyone loved Warren Harding when he was in office?
Eretz Yisrael
Korean Conscript
And all 'loved' JFK whil he was in office; they didnt remember how he dragged to Vietnam
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
When Jack Kennedy was killed we had nothing more than advisers in Vietnam, no troops had yet been committed. It is still highly subject to debate whether he would have increased our presence in Vietnam or not. Given his knowledge on the subject and area (he made The Ugly American required reading for his whole cabinet, for instance), I don't think he would have, but as I said, there are arguments both ways.
Eretz Yisrael
Korean Conscript
Anybody remember his actions to South Vietnam andthe Diem Brothers
? Anybody remember the Green Berets?
LBJ was interested in war at all; he merely followed JFK's policies.
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