oh no...Caligula!

I've been looking for a decent one of these for a couple of years but they're always too worn or off centered for my taste.Finally,I found this decent example at a good price.
He doesn't look too scary does he? Believe me he was!

 

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Oh now lets not be judgemental. Just because a guy loves his sister and his horse and maybe his mother a bit to much doesn't make him bad, just different and just because a few people here and a few people there might have come to no good in his presence doesn't mean he's a bad person just not a good host.

Thanks for sharing

 

Ah little boots. Wasn't Gaius also the one that cracked out laughing half way through a dinner banquet and when they asked him what he found so funny, he replied "i could have all your throats cut".


I can think of a few other things but i never know whether it was Caligula or Tiberius. Which one was it that invited people to dinner only to disappear and order that their wives join him in the bedroom. Whereupon he'd return to dinner and then explain to the husband all his wife's faults or good points.

 

That would be Caligula.He later pressed many of the wives of patricians and senators into service in a sort of celebrity "house of ill repute".But this was just his mild side.

 

Lol little boots. I'd forgotten that was his childhood nickname. Nice coin, btw.
Nick

 

Hmm such as watching tortures whilst having dinner? And one of his favourite jokes, inviting a greedy man to join him in a drink of wine, of course greedy men will drink as much as they can, Caligula knew this. Unfortunately what the greedy men did not know is that Caligula would have their tunics pulled up and a piece of string either threaded though or tied tightly around their privates to prevent them from being able to relieve themselves, and he'd watch them dance about in agony as they tried to relieve themselves.

Caligual was loved for this and so much more.

Of course as nut case Emperors go Elagabalus and Commodus take some beating. They make Nero look relatively sane and an all round nice chap.

 

Elagabalus used to parade around dressed as a woman much to the consternation of his mother.Check out his portrait on this coin.It says it all!.And if that wasn't enough,look at the reverse.."NOT that there's anything wrong with that" J.Seinfeld

 

Isn't it great that when one talks about coins that they can also converse with history.
I feel enlightened to know about the "wine and thread thing"

Trader Nick, long time no say. good to see your post.

 

I should have called this thread "The Bad Boys of Rome"
Nero's a bit worn and Commodus doesn't look anything like Jaochim Phoenix in the Gladiator movie,does he?

 

The Roman Emperors were very colourful characters it has to be said, even the relatively good ones (i.e Claudius) weren't that good really.

Marcus Aurelius apparantly was considered to have been about the best.

As for Elagabalus half the time didn't bother even wearing clothes especially when he had his various male lovers around him. Most of his advisers got their jobs on their physical advantages, generally size.

He wasn't a very popular Emperor, they murdered him. (Actually that's a recurring theme).

Claudius was apparently poisoned with mushrooms, his successor Nero had a choice be murdered or commit suicide (so he stabbed himself), Galba was murdered, Otho commited Suicide, Vitellius was murdered...

Rome was a really happening place.

 

This is a great site to read up on these dysfunctional guys..thumbs up to the guy who wrote these.
Those Wacky Emperors 49BCE-305CE
http://www.electriciti.com/garstang/emperors/index.html

 

VERY Nice Coin Here is a Romulus & Remus (raised by wolf) commerative from Thessolonica, Macedonia (sp, I'm sure) LOL. I don't know as much about 'Ancients' as I'd like too but they are my 2nd favorite series.

Bone

 

bonedigger,
Very nice coin with an interesting history.It is perhaps one of only two coins that we know were minted on or about a particular day,namely May 11,330 AD,although the coins were made for many years after.This was the official commemoration day for the city of Constantinople and was accompanied by another coin commemorating that event.Some historians speculate that the URBS ROMA (City of Rome) coin was created to help ease the resentments that some Romans felt about the moving of the center of power to Constantinople by Constantine the Great.You should try to get the second coin to make a set.Neither is very expensive since so many were made.$20-$25 ought to get you a VF example.
By the way,I think your coin was minted in Constantinople,not Thessalonica:
Urbs Roma Commemorative AE3. 333-335 AD. VRBS ROMA, helmeted, mantled bust of Roma left / She-wolf standing left suckling Romulus and Remus, two stars above,SCONSe. in exergue.These letters are one of several abbreviations for the Constantinople mint.Mine is from Heraclia.

 

All the Roman and other Empirors you dont mess with, the can and did mess with you back. And they mostly won.

 

Nero was the idiot who played a lyre while Rome burned in AD64.
It was Nero that started that fire.One of the most intelligent Roman Emperors was the Emperor Hadrian,who had Hadrian's Wall built in northern England to keep out the Picts & Scots.

Aidan.

 

Actually Aidan the fact that Nero started the fire isn't actually a 'fact', but is quite debated. The earlist references to Nero having started the fire apparently came about in the middle ages. Other sources stated Nero wasn't even in Rome when the fire started but arrived there as soon as he could and then actually was running around the streets with buckets of water trying to put it out.

Of course what condemned Nero were three things;

1) Once the city had burned down he decided to rebuild it for the people (ah nice Nero!) but he did this partially by taxing the people of Rome! (bad Nero!)

2) He also took a large spot of the cleared burned out city for his new palace. Could be Nero mearly taking advatage but of course people would soon be thinking, what if he'd done it on purpose? Nero wasn't bright enough to realise this though.

3) Someone had to be blamed for the fire. A small religious sect had been going around a few months earlier saying Rome would be destroyed if it didn't give up it's idol worshipping ways and the anger of God would destroy the city with fire. This little group were Christians. Of course everyone was well aware of what they'd been saying so they kinda suggested themselves to Nero. Don't forget the Romans were religious too and they thought having monotheists around might have insulted their gods and thus it was a message from Jupiter, kick out the monotheists or suffer more destruction. So natuirally Nero had them rounded up and crucified in his garden and then set on fire and used as torches.

Of course Christianity won out and the people writing the history books were generally ecclesiastics throughout much of the medieval period and thus when it came to Nero, it was obvious he was a lunatic that started the fire to build his bigger palace, and don't forget he played the lyre and sang as Rome perished. Then he picked on a poor unfortunate group of Christains that were minding their own business and living quiet holy lives in purity.


In essence history books have tended to paint things too black and white. Nero went from light grey to dark grey.

 

Emperor Hadrian says,
Thanks Aidan,you're a gentleman and a scholar

 

Ah Hadrian, the English like Hadrian and think of him as one of their own, afterall he did build us a wall.

The Scots wished he'd built it higher to keep the meddlesome, interferring and overbearing English out. The English just like it cos it's there.

 

By the way,that's one of my nicest Roman coins,just about perfect in every sense and a great portrait!

 

Sylvester,the Antonine Wall is actually in Scotland,not England.A lot of people think that the Romans never ruled Scotland,but the fact is,southern Scotland was part of the Roman Province of Britannia.

Aidan.