Nero. It's for good reason that Nero is the most infamous of all Roman emperors. Ascending to the throne in 54 CE at the age of just 16, his 14-year reign was marked by a string of scandals, excesses, and atrocities — not to mention the murder of his mother (and Caligula's sister) Agrippina the Younger.
Caligula
While recognized for some positive measures in the early days of his rule, he became famous throughout the ages as an absolutely insane emperor, who killed anyone when it pleased him, spent exorbitantly, was obsessed with perverse sex, and proclaimed himself to be a living god.
ELAGABALUS (ruled 218-222)
Nicknamed after the god, the emperor also had children tortured and sacrificed. And he was infamous for his sexual proclivities: He married a Vestal Virgin, slept with men, cross-dressed, and married a male slave. He even asked doctors to castrate him and give him female organs.
Some of the most famous Roman emperors were perverted, megalomaniacal, or just plain crazy. The weird fixations of Caligula and Nero made them household names.
Although romantic love between husbands and wives is attested to in letters, inscriptions, and epitaphs, a great deal of what is known of love in ancient Rome comes from the poets in praise of women or boys they were involved with sexually, usually an extramarital affair on the part of one or both.
Profanity is not just the domain of modern language. In the ancient and Roman times, vocabulary considered indecent was widely used.
But it was for pedophilia that Tiberius was most notorious. Tiberius trained infants he called his “little fish” to swim between his thighs when he took a bath and nibble on his genitalia. And that's not the only horrendous accusation to survive against him.
According to the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth preached and was executed during the reign of Tiberius, by the authority of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea province. Luke 3:1, states that John the Baptist entered on his public ministry in the fifteenth year of Tiberius' reign.
Caligula's assassination: the most brutal of Roman emperor deaths.
Witnessing brutal massacres and resenting personal slights, Praetorian Prefect Macrinus acted on his own well-founded paranoia before he too could become another victim of the emperor. And so, in a campaign in Media in 217 AD, Caracalla was assassinated whilst urinating on the side of a road at just 29 years old.
Emperor: AD 138-161. Antoninus Pius is famous for the kindness and wisdom that characterized his not-so-brief reign.
Trajan is famous for the popularity he gained among the Romans, and during the Middle Age. He became emperor in AD 98, after Nerva's death. During his reign, he carried out military conquest to the east of the Empire, annexing territories in Dacia (Romania), Arabia, and Armenia, among others.
Reputation. Suetonius is particularly responsible for giving Vitellius the reputation of being an obese glutton, using emetics so as to be able to indulge in banquets four times a day, and often having himself invited over to a different noble's house for each one.
When the first-century emperor Aulus Vitellius failed to emerge victorious from a civil war launched by his rival Otho, Tacitus blamed his failure on moral turpitude connected to his penchant for good food. That Vitellius was also a rather fat man is evident in the statues and busts of him that survive.
"Render unto Caesar" is the beginning of a phrase attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels, which reads in full, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ).
Emperor Constantine (ca A.D. 280– 337) reigned over a major transition in the Roman Empire—and much more. His acceptance of Christianity and his establishment of an eastern capital city, which would later bear his name, mark his rule as a significant pivot point between ancient history and the Middle Ages.
Nothing is known about what happened to him after this event. On the basis of events which were documented by the second-century pagan philosopher Celsus and the Christian apologist Origen, most modern historians believe that Pilate simply retired after his dismissal.
According to one of our most salacious stories about him, Emperor Nero was close to his mother Agrippina, perhaps too close — the young emperor and his mother engaged in incest. Unsurprisingly, the depraved relationship scandalized Rome, causing uproar among the elites and gossiping among the populace.
At the beginning of 66, Nero married Statilia Messalina. Later that year or in 67, he married Sporus, who was said to bear a remarkable resemblance to Poppaea. Nero had Sporus castrated, and during their marriage, Nero had Sporus appear in public as his wife wearing the regalia that was customary for Roman empresses.
Julia, (born 39 bc—died ad 14, Rhegium [present-day Reggio di Calabria, Italy]), the Roman emperor Augustus' only child, whose scandalous behaviour eventually caused him to exile her.
According to maths, the ultimate swearword is 'banger' – or 'ber' for short. The answer may be a little disappointing for those expecting something coarser. “I think neither is as satisfying as a 'f*ck' when you've stubbed your toe, or a 'sh*t' when you realise you've forgotten your parent's birthday.
The word “fart” has been recorded since the 13th century and comes from the Old English word “feortan,” making it the oldest swear word ever recorded. It has been used as a vulgar slang term for flatulence, and its usage has been recorded in various works of literature and poetry throughout history.
The year 1310 would be a couple of centuries before a monk reportedly scrawled the word on a manuscript by Cicero, which has commonly been considered the first appearance of the F-word in English writings. Paul Booth says he has alerted the Oxford English Dictionary.