Random Sadistic Rulers From Ancient History (16 items)

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  (#15) Akhenaten

  • Royal Title: Pharaoh of Egypt (Lord of the Two Lands) (1353-1336 or 1334 BCE)
  • Crazy Cred: Arguably the first recorded monotheist in history, Akhenaten devoted his life to the worship of one god, the sun disk Aten. Needless to say, that didn't go over well in ancient Egypt, a land of many, many gods, especially since the priesthood of the god Amun was powerful enough to challenge the Pharaoh himself! Focusing on an abstract divine image rather than the traditional, often-anthropomorphized gods, Akhenaten organized a religious rebellion, naming himself as the sole representative of this new god on Earth. He portrayed himself as a god on Earth during his lifetime, a result of decades of religious reform. Akhenaten also moved his country's capital city from along the Nile to the middle of nowhere in the desert.

  Perhaps most intriguingly, Akhenaten introduced a new style of portraiture: a so-called "naturalism" that showed the pharaoh himself as a curvy, feminine figure with an elongated skull. Was Akhenaten suffering from a disorder that distorted his body and drove him insane? Was he attempting to embody both male and female divine powers within himself in one statue? We may never know.
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  (#16) Dionysius II of Syracuse

  • Dec. at 54 (396 BC-342 BC)

  • Royal Title: Tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily (367-357 BCE, 346-344 BCE)
  • Crazy Cred: This ruler of the city of Syracuse wasn't a particularly effective tyrant. His uncle Dion invited Plato to come advise his nephew, but the philosopher wrote in a letter that he "found the court of Dionysius full of intrigues and of attempts to create in the sovereign ill-feeling against Dion." Only a few months after Plato's arrival, conspiracy-crazy Dionysius accused his uncle of plotting against him and sent Dion out to sea in a tiny boat. In an attempt to appease his tutor, Dionysius faked philosophic sincerity.

  Despite some military success (and failure), Dionysius achieved most renown as a committed drunk. Honoring his namesake, the Greek god of wine, Dionysius reportedly went blind from drinking too much. Some said that he was once inebriated for 90 days in a row! 
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  (#3) Phalaris

  • Royal Title: Tyrant of Acragas in Sicily (570-554 BCE)
  • Crazy Cred: In the sixth century BCE, Phalaris, a citizen of Acragas on the island of Sicily, seized power and made himself tyrant of that city. He crucified his rivals, but his most famous torture technique came by roasting his enemies alive in a bronze bull.

  Phalaris stuck the smith who built the animal into his own creation, which the craftsman had given Phalaris as a gift. Unwisely, the coppersmith told Phalaris he could torture enemies by sticking someone in the bull, putting it over a fire, and telling everyone the victim's groans were those of the animated bull. By putting tiny tubes in the bull's nostrils, air would shoot out and sound like flutes were playing. Of course, Phalaris took him up on his advice and made the smith the first test subject.
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  (#14) Mithridates VI of Pontus

  • Dec. at 69 (131 BC-62 BC)

  • Royal Title: Mithridates VI, King of Pontus (120-63 BCE)
  • Crazy Cred: This king was famed for his paranoia over getting poisoned and inventing the Mithridatum, a cure-all for any poisons.

  One of the Roman Republic's fiercest enemies in the first century BCE, opposing its expansion in the east, King Mithridates had a lot to worry about on the home front. He was terrified of dying by poison, which wasn't that unreasonable, considering his dad had kicked the bucket after eating tainted food at his mother's hand. To learn about the properties of his ingredients, Mithridates experimented with poisons on his prisoners and wrote down the results; he ingested an almond-sized dose of theriac (a poison antidote) each morning to start his day and a little bit of poison daily to up his tolerance.

  Eventually, the Romans defeated the people of Pontus, and Mithridates wanted to kill himself before his enemies dragged him to their city in chains. He tried to off himself with poison, but his remedies had proven too effective; Mithridates eventually had to ask one of his guards to run him through with a sword.
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  (#7) Caracalla

  • Dec. at 29 (188-217)

  • Royal Title: Emperor of Rome (211-217 CE)
  • Crazy Cred: Best known for granting citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Roman empire in 212 CE, Caracalla didn't do it to be nice. He wanted the cash benefit that came with it! Though he was a nice kid when he was young, in an attempt to mimic Alexander the Great, he got sort of mean. Caracalla suspected his brother, Geta, of plotting against him and ordered him slaughtered. Truly bloodthirsty, he organized massive beast hunts in and out of the arena, as he "was for ever killing vast numbers of animals, both wild and domesticated, forcing us to furnish most of them," wrote Cassius Dio. In true nutty emperor fashion, he even drove his own chariot during chariot races.

  Caracalla always wanted to look like he knew everything, so he never asked for help and wasn't fond of many people. Dio quipped, "He never loved anyone, but he hated all who excelled in anything, most of all those whom he pretended to love most; and he destroyed many of them in one way or another." He killed lots of his rivals, sometimes exiling the sick to provinces with bad weather to kill them slowly. Caracalla's victims included tons and tons of foreign people he slaughtered in and out of battle.
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  (#9) Cleomenes I

  • Royal Title: King of Sparta (519-491 BCE)
  • Crazy Cred: One of the most successful kings of Sparta, Cleomenes I consolidated his city-state's power in ancient Greece. He even extended his power all the way to Athens, ousting that city's tyrant, Hippias, in 510 BCE. Unfortunately for Cleomenes, though, the new government in Athens was too democratic for Spartan tastes, so he led an army against his rival city again and again. It didn't entirely work: When he tried to install his own tyrant (whose wife he allegedly slept with), Sparta's allies weren't for it.

  One of his Spartan rivals for the monarchy, a fellow named Demaratus, annoyed Cleomenes, so he rigged a prophecy from the Delphic oracle against Demaratus. Everyone found out, though, and he was deposed from his throne. While in exile, he went insane, either out of guilt, religious sacrilege, or because he drank unwatered wine, according to Herodotus. When the Spartans brought him home, Cleomenes wasn't in a good state of mind. Eventually, Cleomenes committed suicide by slicing himself to pieces with a dagger.

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