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You know the ones... They're so crazy, very possibly tyrannical, but being so far removed from events makes some of what they did almost funny. Almost. No entries that are more recent than 300 years, please. It's hard enough to deal with debates over people from different time periods, but when you put more recent rulers/dictators/presidents (either real or imagined,) things can get really heated really quickly. Let's try to keep this civil so that we can hopefully all learn something.
Commodus- Roman Emperor. Featured in the (rather inaccurate) movie Gladiator. If you don't want my whole "in depth" look at him, he can be summed up thusly: The Pax Romana, which began with the first Emperor Augustus around 40 BC, is said to have ended when Commodus was born. He also renamed mostly everything in Rome after himself and considered himself the new Hercules. He had an obsession with gladiators that made him go so far as to compete in the games (which were considered lower class entertainment.) He killed thousands of animals as well from the safety of the stands. In the end, he was killed by his wrestling partner, who had been bribed to kill him. (No one really minded, though. His girlfriend was the one who bribed the man to kill him when she discovered her name on the list of those to be executed.)
Caligula- It says something about him that among the tamest things he was said to have done was to declare war against Neptune. (No, not a man named Neptune, THE Neptune.) Also, as mentioned in another post, named his horse a consul. Was well known to have considered himself a god, removing the heads from statues so that he could put his own there. Despite the Romans worshipping dead emperors (the much beloved Augustus and his wife Livia Druscilla being examples,) it was completely unheard of for a Roman emperor to declare himself a god while living. He was eventually killed by his own guards and was replaced by his uncle Claudius, (No relation to Hamlet!) who had apparently been hiding behind a curtain when they found him.
Commodus- Roman Emperor. Featured in the (rather inaccurate) movie Gladiator. If you don't want my whole "in depth" look at him, he can be summed up thusly: The Pax Romana, which began with the first Emperor Augustus around 40 BC, is said to have ended when Commodus was born. He also renamed mostly everything in Rome after himself and considered himself the new Hercules. He had an obsession with gladiators that made him go so far as to compete in the games (which were considered lower class entertainment.) He killed thousands of animals as well from the safety of the stands. In the end, he was killed by his wrestling partner, who had been bribed to kill him. (No one really minded, though. His girlfriend was the one who bribed the man to kill him when she discovered her name on the list of those to be executed.)
Caligula- It says something about him that among the tamest things he was said to have done was to declare war against Neptune. (No, not a man named Neptune, THE Neptune.) Also, as mentioned in another post, named his horse a consul. Was well known to have considered himself a god, removing the heads from statues so that he could put his own there. Despite the Romans worshipping dead emperors (the much beloved Augustus and his wife Livia Druscilla being examples,) it was completely unheard of for a Roman emperor to declare himself a god while living. He was eventually killed by his own guards and was replaced by his uncle Claudius, (No relation to Hamlet!) who had apparently been hiding behind a curtain when they found him.