25 wild facts about Roman emperors

25 wild facts about Roman emperors – from fish semen to lethal parties Ambitious, enormous, bellicose, retiring, cruel, long-lived, corrupt, thoughtful, fecund – the rulers of the mighty realm comprised a diverse and distinctive bunch of characters. Edward J Watts, author of The Romans: A 2,000-Year History, reveals 25 surprising facts about these ancient emperors 1. One emperor towered over all others The physically imposing Maximinus Thrax (ruled AD 235–38) tops many lists of Roman imperial superlatives. According to the late-fourth-century Historia Augusta, he stood more than 8 feet (2.4 metres) tall, making him by far the loftiest Roman emperor. He’s also reported to have drunk nearly 6 gallons (26L) of wine each day – a much greater alcohol consumption than that of any other emperor and, probably, any other human. His daily meat intake was reputedly 40 pounds (18kg) of meat, while he “abstained wholly from vegetables” – surely the most carnivorous Roman emperor. He collected his sweat in cups or a small jar and “could exhibit two or three pints of it” to those who visited him – so may have been simultaneously the emperor who perspired the most and the one with the most bizarre hobby. Unfortunately, the Historia Augusta’s account of him is not very believable – but perhaps that just means Maximinus was the emperor who attracted the most exaggerated slanders. 2. Age was no obstacle to ruling the empire The oldest man to serve as eastern Roman emperor was Anastasius I, who was 87 at the time of his death in AD 518, having held the throne for over 27 years. The oldest at the time of his accession was Gordian I, aged about 80 when he seized power in AD 238. The youngest was Theodosius II, who was under one year old when made co-emperor with his father, Arcadius, in AD 402. The youngest at the time of death was probably Leo II, who succumbed to illness at the age of seven in November AD 474. The youngest emperor to be murdered was Diadumenian, who was just nine when he was killed following the defeat of his father, Macrinus, in AD 218. 3. The first emperor boasts the most statues Imperial portrait statues adorned nearly every major public space in the empire for hundreds of years, but relatively few of those still survive. The ruler with the most surviving such portrayals is the first: Augustus, who became emperor in 27 BC. According to Radboud University’s Roman Imperial Portraits Database, 217 statues of Augustus are known to exist today. The next two emperors down the list are Marcus Aurelius (with 185) and Hadrian (178). The Roman of whom the most numerous depictions survive and who was not a member of the imperial family is Hadrian’s lover Antinous, who drowned in the Nile during an imperial tour of Egypt in AD 130. About 100 portraits of him survive. 4. It was common to re-carve the portrait busts of Roman emperors who fell from power in disgrace The most famous of these resculpted works is the colossal statue of Constantine, the huge head of which is now displayed in a courtyard in Rome’s Capitoline Museums. It’s believed to have originally depicted his enemy Maxentius. The face on that statue was replaced almost immediately after Constantine defeated Maxentius in AD 312. Sometimes such portraits remained in storage so that they could later be refashioned to represent other people. Hence many depictions of Claudius (ruled 41–54 AD) and even some of Nero (r54–68 AD) are reworked statues that originally bore the features of Caligula, but which were taken down after his death in AD 41. 5. Many men killed for the chance to become Roman emperor, but some turned the job down Two men are known to have done this twice. Lucius Verginius Rufus, a Roman governor in Germany, refused to go along with his soldiers when they asked him to claim imperial power following the death of Nero in AD 68, and did so again following the death of Otho in AD 69. Rufus’s loyalty was rewarded when, in AD 97, he was made consul for the third time and was later commemorated on his tombstone. His epitaph read: “Here lies Rufus, who many years ago defeated [the rebellious Gallic governor] Vindex and laid claim to power, not for himself but for his fatherland.” The next person who seems to have twice refused the job, Saturninius Secundus Salutius, earned equally great public esteem. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus tells us that the respected statesman turned down an offer of imperial power following the death of Julian in AD 363. And Zosimus reports that Salutius removed both himself and his son from consideration after the death of Julian’s successor, Jovian, in AD 364. Like Rufus, Salutius was celebrated by historians as incorruptible, and granted an honorary title by contemporaries in recognition of his selflessness. - Read more | Meet the “grossly underappreciated” Roman emperor who became the enemy of the ancient world 6. Some designated heirs thought the top job too difficult for one person When the 56-year-old Tiberius succeeded Augustus in AD 14, he claimed that the effort would be too much for one old man. He initially proposed dividing the job into three roles: one person would govern Rome and Italy, another would command the legions, and the third would manage Rome’s provincial subjects. “Although he became very adamant,” the senator Cassius Dio wrote later, “most of the senators opposed his plan and begged him to govern the whole empire.” Tiberius instead settled on an arrangement by which he designated two successors and announced plans to retire when they were ready to assume control. Unfortunately for him, his chosen successors both died before him, and he was stuck running the state until his death at the age of 78. Unfortunately for Rome, he decided to spend much of his last decade in power governing by correspondence from a villa on the island of Capri. 7. Some emperors stepped down – or retired The usurpers Tetricus I and Tetricus II were forced from power by Aurelian in AD 274, but were allowed to live and even to participate in the senate. The first emperor to retire voluntarily was Diocletian, in AD 305. His co-emperor, Maximian, was persuaded to do the same – but he did not want to stay retired. He died during his attempts to cling to power. The next to retire (and stay retired) was Vetranio, a general who temporarily claimed a share of imperial power in AD 350, then gave it up in exchange for an estate in Asia Minor (Anatolia, now in Turkey) and a generous pension. Although once exceedingly rare, imperial retirements – both forced and voluntary – became much more common in later centuries as Romans began to realise the toll that exhausted or incompetent emperors could take on the health of their state. 8. At least one emperor enjoyed luxury in retirement The modern Croatian city of Split is centered on the fortified palace and mausoleum complex built by Diocletian for his retirement at the turn of the fourth century AD. After stepping down from power, Diocletian lived and grew cabbages on the property until his death c311/12 AD. The Roman government retained ownership of the complex for centuries afterward until around AD 650. That was when people forced out of their homes by the destruction of the Roman city of Salona, a few miles north of Diocletian’s palace, received permission from the emperor Constans II to live in the mausoleum complex. Split grew up around their settlement. 9. The last western Roman emperor to rule in Italy was named after the city and his first predecessor The name of Romulus Augustulus, who was placed on the imperial throne in AD 475 and was deposed less than a year later, recalled the founder of the city of Rome and its first emperor. The diminutive Augustulus (literally ‘Little Augustus’) was a nod to the fact that he was still a child when he took the top job. The last eastern Roman emperor was Constantine XI Palaiologos, who ruled in Constantinople 1449–53 and was named after Constantine the Great. Like Romulus Augustulus, he also bore the name of the founder of the city on which his empire was centred. 10. The Roman emperor who ruled from overseas Romulus Augustulus had been placed in power by his father, Orestes, after the incumbent, Julius Nepos, fled across the Adriatic Sea. After Romulus resigned, Nepos continued to rule in Dalmatia, a coastal region now in Croatia, until his murder in AD 480. Romulus was more fortunate. He lived off a state pension in a Campanian castle until at least AD 511, when we know that he petitioned the Gothic king of Italy for an increase in his living stipend. - Read more | Step inside the ancient Roman empire's gladiatorial arenas, and witness 24 hours of shocking violence 11. Zeno was the first Roman emperor to lose and then regain the throne A native of the rugged Anatolian region of Isauria, Zeno took the eastern Roman imperial throne in January AD 474, but fled the capital, Constantinople, the following January when he learned that a coup attempt was about to be launched by his wife’s uncle, Basiliscus. Zeno holed up in an Isaurian fortress until he was able to return to Constantinople after generals sent by Basiliscus defected to him amid growing popular anger in Constantinople. The emperor returned to the capital in August AD 476, and Basiliscus was executed, either by beheading or by being left in a dry cistern to starve to death. Zeno continued to rule until AD 491. 12. Emperor Claudius was a prolific author Having spent his early life as a scholar, Claudius’s works include an eight-book history of Carthage and a 20-book history of the Etruscans written in Greek. In Latin, he wrote a 43-book history of Rome – begun at the suggestion of the famous historian Livy – a defence of Cicero’s rhetorical style, and an autobiography. Claudius’s oddest book argued for the invention of three new Latin letters. The antisigma would have looked like two linked C’s (Ↄ+Ϲ) and made a ps sound. The digamma inversum (Ⅎ) was an upside-down F and sounded like a W. The half H (Ⱶ) made a y or short-u sound. A few years after he became emperor, Claudius ordered these letters to be adopted by people writing in Latin. The new characters appear in a number of inscriptions carved between AD 48 and AD 54 but disappeared from use soon after Claudius’s death. 13. Imperial dinner parties could be drunken, jape-filled or homicidal Feasts hosted by Claudius often ended with the emperor falling asleep on his couch, snoring loudly. Guests would then prank him by putting slippers on his hands, so that he would rub his eyes with that footwear when he woke up. Other emperors entertained their guests in notable ways. Elagabalus (r218–22 AD) staged elaborate feasts with wine served in such abundance that his guests regularly passed out. He would then let his pet leopard wander across the couches on which his drunken guests slept, startling them awake. His successor, Alexander Severus (222–35 AD), reset expectations by forcing his guests to drink wine from small goblets as they listened to lectures by famous legal scholars and watched puppies and piglets play on the floor. The most shocking Roman-era dinner party of all was held when Odoacer, the man who deposed Romulus Augustulus in AD 476, hosted the Gothic king Theoderic at a feast celebrating their reconciliation following a civil war. Soon after they sat down to dinner, Theoderic “drew his sword and struck [Odoacer] on the collarbone,” killing him. 14. Notoriously cruel emperor Domitian pranked partygoers with unsubtle death threats Domitian once made light of his reputation for cruelty by inviting senators to a party celebrating Lemuria, a Roman holiday similar to Halloween. Entering a pitch-black room, each senator found that his seat was marked by a slab shaped like a gravestone and a lamp like those hung in tombs. A servant wearing full-body black paint that made him look like a funeral spirit stood behind each place setting. After the party concluded, Domitian sent the servants, unannounced, to the homes of all of the guests. When the startled senators opened the door expecting to be arrested, they were instead given the slabs and lamps, made of solid silver, as presents. 15. Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina had at least 14 children – more than any other imperial couple Faustina gave birth to at least 14 children during her 30-year marriage to the emperor, but most of them died before reaching adulthood, including eight of the nine sons. Among the boys, only Commodus (born AD 161) – who succeeded his father as emperor – lived to be older than nine. The children who survived did not always get along. When Commodus was 21 years old, his sister Lucilla organised an assassination attempt on him that failed only because the assailant cried out that he “had been sent by the senate to kill him” before attacking. Lucilla and the other plotters were executed. Commodus fell to another assassin on New Year’s Eve AD 192, but his three remaining sisters all lived until at least their mid-fifties. - Read more | Was Maximus Decimus Meridius real? These five historical figures inspired Gladiator’s hero 16. Father-to-son imperial successions were rare in the early empire During the first 200 years of imperial rule, only Titus (79–81 AD) and Commodus succeeded their fathers. The first father-son-grandson succession came even later. It happened in AD 238, when the child Gordian III was appointed emperor during a civil war. He followed his grandfather, Gordian I, and uncle, Gordian II, who had reigned together for a total of 22 days earlier in the same year. That three-generation dynasty ended when Gordian III was killed in AD 244. It had lasted for less than six years. 17. The oldest surviving handwriting by a Roman emperor dates from the fifth century AD On a petition recovered from Aswan in Egypt dated c425–30 AD, Theodosius II wrote “we desire that you be well”. 18. Several women ruled the Roman empire The first woman to lead the Eastern Roman empire permanently and in her own name was the empress Irene, who reigned 797–802 AD. However, several other women before her had ruled temporarily. After the death of her husband, Valens, at the battle of Adrianople in August AD 378, the empress Domnica organised the defence of Constantinople. She appears to have continued to manage affairs in the capital until the selection of Theodosius I in January, AD 379. 19. As many as eight emperors ruled in one year AD 69 is known as the ‘Year of the Four Emperors’, with Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian all holding power over the course of those 12 months. In 193, Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Septimius Severus, Clodius Albinus and Pescennius Niger all pressed imperial claims, making it the ‘Year of the Five Emperors’. The following century brought the ‘Year of the Six Emperors’: 238, in which Maximinus Thrax, Balbinus, Pupienus and all three Gordians held power. The year in which the most emperors ruled was probably 260, during which at least six – and perhaps as many as eight – men claimed the imperial title. We know that Valerian, Gallienus, Saloninus, Macrianus, Quietus and Postumus all held power for a time that year. The short-lived regimes of Regalian and Ingenuus are harder to date, but may also have been in 260 – which could thus be called the ‘Year of the Eight Emperors’. 20. Claudius was the first Roman emperor born outside Italy Claudius was born in Lugdunum (modern Lyon) in 10 BC. The first non-European emperor was Septimius Severus (r193–211 AD), who was born in the Libyan city of Leptis Magna in AD 145. Elagabalus, born in AD 203 in Emesa, the modern Syrian city of Homs, was the first emperor to hail from Asia. 21. Not all emperors came from the senatorial class Macrinus, a man of Amazigh heritage from what’s now Algeria who took power in AD 217, was the first non-senator to become emperor. He was also the first known to have worn an earring – a detail that was represented accurately in Gladiator II, as portrayed by Denzel Washington. 22. At least one emperor devised recipes The rotund ruler Vitellius was so famous for his love of gourmet food that a cookbook authored by the Roman Apicius identified recipes for beans, peas and suckling pig that were created by that emperor. Other authors tell us that Vitellius enjoyed dishes featuring a patina of calf brains, and a fabulous concoction called “The Shield of Minerva” – flamingo tongues, peacock brains and milt of lamprey (the seminal fluid of a fish) cooked in a casserole and served on a silver platter resembling a shield. Vitellius was not always a glutton. When he was younger and more svelte, Vitellius used to race chariots with the emperor Caligula until he suffered an accident that badly injured his leg and left him with a limp. 23. Various emperors died of bizarre causes In AD 161, Antoninus Pius died after eating unpasteurised Alpine cheese, and Carus was allegedly struck by lightning in AD 283. But the most shocking natural death was probably that of the emperor Jovian, who died at the age of 33 in Dadastana, north-west Anatolia, on the night of 17 February AD 364. When the excited villagers heard of the emperor’s impending stay, they hastily painted the designated room – which was a nearly airtight room, sealing in the fumes and ensuring his demise. 24. All three women who ruled in their own names died of natural causes Irene died in Lesbos in 803, shortly after being deposed by Nicephorus I. Zoe Porphyrogenita died in 1050, eight years after she stepped down in favour of her third husband, Constantine IX Monomachus. Her sister Theodora, who had also shared power with Zoe in 1042, died in office in 1056 after reigning alone for a little more than a year and a half. 25. Nero may have celebrated five marriages – including two with men The record for the most marriages to women is shared by Caligula, Claudius and Leo VI (886–912), with four each. However, ancient authors claimed that Nero, who married three different wives, also celebrated wedding ceremonies with two men. Elagabalus may have been even more prolific. He married three different women, though enjoyed four weddings – he remarried his second wife, Aquilia Severa, after divorcing his third wife. He may also have been involved in two additional wedding ceremonies. The historian Cassius Dio asserts that the emperor had a chariot driver named Hierocles as his “husband”, while the Historia Augusta speaks of Elagabalus marrying a well-endowed male athlete named Zoticus. If both of these reports are true, Elagabalus’s six weddings to five different people (in less than four years) would be the record. Edward J Watts is Alkiviadis Vassiliadis Endowed Chair and professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. His latest book is The Romans: A 2,000-Year History (Basic Books, 2025)