Gordian III: The Young Emperor Of Ancient Rome

The most interesting thing I found in my research about Rome was that Gordian III took the throne at age 13, becoming the youngest emperor of Ancient Rome. I also found that many of the Roman emperors were psychotic. Mad emperor Caligula ordered his legions to collect shells on the beach in order to prove that he had "conquered the sea". Nero killed his mother and his wife and attempted to instate his favorite horse, Incitatus, as a priest and consul, and ordered a marble stable built for him with chairs and couches on which the horse never sat. Emperor Commodus once ordered all the cripples, hunchbacks, and generally undesirables in the city to be rounded up, thrown into the arena, and forced to hack one another to death with meat cleavers. I feel like the emperors were over-glorified. They were allowed to do whatever they wanted, and killed whoever got on their way. Roman emperors had no limits. I feel like both the emperors and the patricians were greedy, eating the finest foods and wearing the finest clothes while the majority of the Romans were very poor. They did not take much consideration for the poor.

I would have disliked the slavery, cruelty, and imperialism of the Roman Empire. The Ancient Romans as people are very cruel and somewhat heartless. They forced slaves (gladiators) to battle dangerous animals and other slaves to the death for entertainment and money. The wealthy Romans (the Patricians and the emperor) ate and gorged on the finest foods, and purposely vomited when they were full just so they could eat more! They did this while a vast amount of Romans in their city were very poor and starving just outside their