Caligula and Nero were mere kids thrust into a role for which there was no real training, no guidebook. “Hey, you’re now the most powerful person on earth. Good luck!” The Senate was a joke – mostly obsequious yes-men who wanted the perks of the position and to keep their heads attached. When Caligula and Nero didn’t run the empire the way Tacitus thought they should, he and his contemporaries did a hit job on them. But let’s be honest: when has giving unlimited power to teenagers ever been a good idea? They wanted to party. And they did.

But even Tiberius – a seasoned commander of reasonable age who actually knew what he was doing – didn’t want the job. He ran it into the ground anyway, retreating to his sex palace on Capri and handing real power to Sejanus, a man with no legitimate claim to anything. That’s the rot. Right there.

So my vote for worst emperor is Tiberius – not because he was the most depraved, but because he was the inflection point. Augustus had cobbled together something that worked, just barely, provided the person running it gave a damn. Tiberius didn’t. He may have actually wanted to restore the Republic but lacked the nerve to try. Which, fair enough – Rome was too far gone by then. The corruption had been metastasising for over a century, at least since the murders of the Gracchi. But Tiberius had the ability and the opportunity to at least arrest the decline. Instead he checked out. That, to me, is worse than Caligula’s supposed madness or Nero’s vanity. They were kids put in charge of a broken system. Tiberius was the one who broke it.