1) Emperor Augustus brought peace and stability to Rome after years of civil war, but established an autocratic system that ended the Roman Republic. 2) Caligula completed public works projects but became an oppressive and erratic ruler, putting some senators to death and humiliating others. 3) Nero blamed Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE and had many executed in cruel ways, increasing persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.

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Imperial Roman Emperors: Printable Documents
Important: You do not need to print these documents if you are working online.
Rome under Augustus (approximately 15 CE)
The Roman historian Tacitus describes the attitudes of Romans under the rule of
Emperor Augustus Caesar (Octavian).
At home all was tranquil ... there was a younger generation, sprung up since the victory of Actium, and even many
of the older men had been born during the civil wars. How few were left who had seen the republic!
Thus the State had been revolutionised, and there was not a vestige left of the old sound morality. Stript of
equality, all looked up to the commands of a sovereign without the least apprehension for the present, while
Augustus in the vigour of life, could maintain his own position, that of his house, and the general tranquillity. When
in advanced old age, he was worn out by a sickly frame, and the end was near and new prospects opened, a few
spoke in vain of the blessings of freedom, but most people dreaded ... war.
from The Annals
The Life of Caligula (37-41 CE)
The Roman historian Suetonius describes the career of the third Roman emperor, Gaius
Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, usually known as Caligula.
He completed the public works which had been half finished under Tiberius, namely the temple of Augustus and
the theater of Pompey. He likewise began an aqueduct in the region near Tibur and an amphitheater beside the
Saepta, the former finished by his successor Claudius, while the latter was abandoned. At Syracuse he repaired
the city walls, which had fallen into ruin through lapse of time, and the temples of the gods. He had planned,
besides, to rebuild the palace of Polycrates at Samos, to finish the temple of Didymaean Apollo at Ephesus, to
found a city high up in the Alps, but, above all, to dig a canal through the Isthmus in Greece ...
So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell of his career as a monster ...
...
He had his brother Tiberius put to death without warning, suddenly sending a tribune of the soldiers to do the
deed; besides driving his father-in-law Silanus to end his life by cutting his throat with a razor. His charge against
the latter was that Silanus had not followed him when he put to sea in stormy weather ... against Tiberius, that his
breath smelled of an antidote, which he had taken to guard against being poisoned at his hand. Now as a matter
of fact, Silanus was subject to sea-sickness and wished to avoid the discomforts of the voyage, while Tiberius had
taken medicine for a chronic cough, which was growing worse ...
...
He was no ... more respectful or mild towards the senate, allowing some who had held the highest offices to run in
their togas for several miles beside his chariot and to wait on him at table, standing napkin in hand either at the
head of his couch, or at his feet. Others he secretly put to death, yet continued to send for them as if they were

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alive, after a few days falsely asserting that they had committed suicide. When the consuls forgot to make
proclamation of his birthday, he deposed them, and left the state for three days without its highest magistrates. He
flogged his quaestor, who was charged with conspiracy, stripping off the man's clothes and spreading them under
the soldiers' feet, to give them a firm footing as they beat him. He treated the other orders with like insolence and
cruelty.
from The Lives of the Caesars: Caius Caligula
Nero Persecutes Christians (64 CE)
Despite the rumors that he ordered what is called the Great Fire of Rome, Emperor Nero
was actually 30 miles away in Antium. Nero's unpopularity contributed to the spread of
the rumor. According to the historian Tacitus, Nero decided to blame the Christians for
the fire.
... [A]ll human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the
sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero
fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called
Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty ... at the
hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition ... again broke out not only
in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of
the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty;
then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of
hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they
were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a
nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.
Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the
people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and
exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but
to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.
from The Annals
Emperors Improve Rome (75-77 CE)
In this excerpt from his encyclopedia Natural History, Pliny the Elder describes public
water projects in Imperial Rome.
But let us now turn our attention to some marvels that ... remain unsurpassed. Quintus Marcius Rex [praetor in
144 BCE] upon being commanded by the Senate to repair the Appian Aqueduct and that of the Anio, constructed
during his praetorship a new aqueduct that bore his name, and was brought hither by a channel pierced through
the very sides of mountains. Agrippa during his aedileship, united the Marcian and the Virgin Aqueducts and
repaired and strengthened the channels of others. He also formed 700 wells, in addition to 500 fountains, and 130
reservoirs, many of them magnificently adorned. Upon these works too he erected 300 statues of marble or
bronze, and 400 marble columns, and all this in the space of a single year! ... [H]e also informs us that public
games were celebrated for the space of fifty-seven days and 170 gratuitous bathing places were opened [to the
public]. The number of these at Rome has vastly increased since his time.

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The preceding aqueducts, however, have all been surpassed by the costly work which has more recently been
completed by the Emperors Gaius [Caligula] and Claudius. Under these princes the Curtian and the Caerulean
Waters with the "New Anio" were brought a distance of forty miles, and at so high a level that all the hills—
whereon Rome is built—were supplied with water. The sum expended on these works was 350,000,000
sesterces. If we take into account the abundant supply of water to the public, for baths, ponds, canals, household
purposes, gardens, places in the suburbs and country houses, and then reflect upon the distances that are
traversed [from the sources on the hills], the arches that have been constructed, the mountains pierced, the
valleys leveled, we must ... admit that there is nothing more worthy of our admiration throughout the whole
universe.
from Natural History
Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE)
This 4th-century biography describes the decisions and talents of Emperor Hadrian, who
reigned from 117-138 CE.
In many places where he visited the frontiers, which were not separated from the Barbarians by rivers, Hadrian
raised a kind of wall, by driving into the ground great piles. He set up a king over the Germans, and he quenched
the seditious movements of the Moors—for which deed the Senate ordered thanksgivings to the Gods. A single
interview was sufficient for Hadrian to stop a war with the Parthians that seemed to threaten.
...
This ruler loved poetry, and cultivated carefully all branches of literature. He understood likewise arithmetic,
geometry, and painting. He danced and sang extremely well ... He made many verses for his favorites, and wrote
love poems. He handled weapons with much skill, and was a master of the military art. He also devoted some
little time to the exercises of gladiators. Now severe, now merry, now voluptuous, now self-contained, now cruel,
now merciful, this Emperor seemed never the same. [He enriched his friends liberally, but finally growing
suspicious of some put them to death or ruined them.]
...
He took away the right of masters to kill their slaves, requiring that if the slaves deserved it, they should be
condemned [to death] by the regular judges. He abolished the special dungeons for slaves and freedmen. Also,
hereafter, not all the slaves of a master who was murdered in his home [by a slave] were to suffer death [as
formerly], but only those within reach of his outcries.
...
He had a remarkable memory, and great talents (for oratory), preparing his own orations and responses [without
aid of a secretary]. He had a great faculty for remembering names without prompting; it was enough to have met
persons once ... He remembered all the old veterans whom he had pensioned off. He wrote, dictated, heard
others, and conversed with his friends; and all at the same time!
from Life of Hadrian

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The Life of Commodus (180-192 CE)
This 4th-century biography describes the character of Emperor Commodus, who reigned
from 180-192 CE and whose life was portrayed in the movie Gladiator.
Even as a child he was gluttonous and lewd ... Whosoever ridiculed him he cast to the wild beasts. And one man,
who had merely read the book by Tranquillus containing the life of Caligula, he ordered cast to the wild beasts,
because Caligula and he had the same birthday. And if any one, indeed, expressed a desire to die, he had him
hurried to death, however really reluctant.
In his humorous moments, too, he was destructive. For example, he put a starling on the head of one man who,
as he noticed, had a few white hairs, resembling worms, among the black, and caused his head to fester through
the continual pecking of the bird's beak—the bird, of course, imagining that it was pursuing worms. One corpulent
person he cut open down the middle of his belly, so that his intestines gushed forth. Other men he dubbed one-
eyed or one-footed, after he himself had plucked out one of their eyes or cut off one of their feet. In addition to all
this, he murdered many others in many places, some because they came of his presence in the costume of
barbarians, others because they were noble and handsome ...
from Historia Augusta