Roman orgies Archives - Tales of Times Forgotten

Was Caligula Really Insane?

The Roman emperor Caligula, who ruled from 16 March 37 AD until his assassination on 24 January 41 AD, is undoubtedly one of the most notorious Roman emperors. Unfortunately, over the centuries, a tremendous mythology has grown up around him and many of the things that are popularly believed about him are simply not true.

Caligula is best known to the general public as an insane, sexually depraved emperor who thought he was a living god, murdered a little boy for coughing too much, had sex with all three of his sisters, murdered his sister who was pregnant with his child and ate the fetus, turned his palace into a brothel, drank expensive pearls dissolved in vinegar, made his horse a senator, and waged war against Neptune to collect seashells as “loot.”

These are all stories that have accumulated over the years. Most of them are definitely or probably false; others are based on historical facts but have been greatly misrepresented. Caligula was many things—including a jerk, a narcissist, a sadist, and a tyrant—but he probably wasn’t really insane.

No, the Ancient Romans Didn’t Overharvest Silphium to Extinction Because It Was a Highly Effective Contraceptive

Chances are, many of my readers have seen articles on the internet about how, supposedly, in ancient times there was a kind of giant fennel plant called silphium that was grown in North Africa in the region around the Greek city of Kyrene that was a highly effective contraceptive, perhaps even the most effective one of all time. According to the articles on the internet, the ancient Romans were so horny and they loved having sex so much that they overharvested silphium, leading it to go totally extinct in around the middle of the first century AD.

There is some truth to this story, but much of it is false. Silphium was a real plant that really was grown in the region around Kyrene in North Africa and some Romans did believe it to possess contraceptive properties. Likewise, there is a Roman source that seems to support the idea that some Romans thought that, by the middle of the first century AD, the particular variety of silphium from Kyrenaïka had become extremely rare, if not extinct.

Nonetheless, it is unclear whether silphium was actually effective at all as a contraceptive and, although a few ancient texts claim it to have possessed contraceptive properties, its primary use in antiquity was never as a form of birth control. In antiquity, silphium was, in fact, always primarily desired as a food item because people thought it was a culinary delicacy. There is far more ancient evidence for silphium’s consumption as a food item than there is for its use as a method of birth control.

Who Was the Strangest Roman Emperor?

A number of ancient Roman emperors have acquired reputations for being very strange. In particular, emperors such as Caligula, Nero, and Domitian are well-known for their alleged bizarre antics. It is unclear, however, to what extent these reputations for bizarreness are warranted, since many of the most famous stories concerning these emperors are apocryphal. (For instance, Nero definitely never played the fiddle while Rome burned and Caligula definitely never made his horse a senator.)

I think it is generally agreed, though, that the strangest Roman emperor—at least in terms of how he is portrayed in our extant sources—was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, known to later generations as Elagabalus. Elagabalus had a brief, but notoriously bizarre reign, which lasted from 16 May 218 AD until 11 March 222 AD. According to historical sources, Elagabalus was highly eccentric and his reign was ridden with scandal.

Why “Roman Orgies” Weren’t Really a Thing

For decades, ancient Rome has been associated in the popular imagination with orgies. Indeed, perhaps the very first thing most people think of when they hear the words “ancient Rome” are Roman orgies. The problem is that there is no good evidence that orgies were ever at all common in ancient Rome. In fact, we do not even have a single reliable, first-hand, nonfiction account of one; all we have are salacious rumors, propaganda, and works of erotic fiction. In other words, the idea of “Roman orgies” is a complete misconception. The story of how we all came to believe in Roman orgies, however, is truly bizarre and fascinating.