Characters / I Claudius Emperors

I, Claudius Main Character Index
Emperors | Empresses | Imperial Family | Other Aristocrats | Soldiers | Commoners

All five Emperors of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty appear in the show, although the last one, Nero, is not yet proclaimed Emperor when the show ends.

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Claudius

Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus

Played by Derek Jacobi.

The protagonist of the series, as well as the narrator. His life is essentially one tragedy after another.

• Awesomeness by Analysis: Used his historical knowledge to win battles and retrieve the last Eagle, and learns to play Caligula like a lyre after Caligula's descent into insanity.
• Beneath Suspicion: The exchange he makes for a life of humiliation is safety from all the snapping and plotting of the palace. In a Police State run by Sejanus, Claudius can get a letter to Tiberius unsearched and uncensored because nobody thinks he's even capable of being involved in anything important—and this makes him instrumental in Sejanus' downfall.
• Bit Character: Is this for the first half of the series from his birth until the rise of Caligula: Justified in that he is chronicling the lives of the people around him and so he stays in the background where he is safe from the intrigue and murder that is the daily life of the imperial family.
• Butt-Monkey: He's mistreated, mocked, abused, and humiliated by nearly everyone in his family and those who are decent to him end up dead soon. The term "disappointment" is used to describe him more than a handful of times in the series.
• Classical Anti-Hero: He really doesn't want to be a Hero. He certainly doesn't look or act like one, either. However, when push comes to shove, he always steps up to the plate and does whatever it takes to make things work.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Although it's mostly an act.
• Cradle To Grave Character: The novels' premise is that the two books were an English translation of Claudius' long-lost autobiography, with the early chapters covering the events before his birth and the last chapter being finished shortly before his death. The second book has an epilogue discussing the circumstances of his death and the subsequent reign of Emperor Nero.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Claudius practically personifies this trope.
• Face Death with Dignity: Fully aware his wife was trying to poison him, Claudius accepts the poison in his food and dies a short time later content with his lot of life and happy at the fact the copy of the biography showing all his family's dirty secrets was kept safe and buried after his wife and adopted son Nero tried to destroy the originals.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: A complete subversion. He went from "Uncle Claudius", the joke of the Imperial Family, to a well-respected and beloved Emperor.
• Guile Hero: To some extent. While he's not The Chessmaster, during Caligula's reign his Obfuscating Stupidity alone wouldn't have been enough to save him, thanks to Caligula's cask-strength insanity and psychotic urges. Several times he saves his own life, as well as the lives of others around him, by manipulating Caligula with not-inconsiderable skill. He's also a skilled administrator, and manages a long and (mostly) successful reign as Emperor largely due to extreme competence in the face of being loved by almost nobody.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Claudius and his desire to restore the Roman Republic, which is also somewhat unhistorical, since at that time there was no distinction made between the Republican and Imperial eras.
• Irony: Claudius was always a staunch Republican but it was his sane and prosperous reign that reconciled the populace to the idea of monarchy after the excesses of Tiberius and Caligula. By the time Claudius dies, no one alive still yearns for the return of the Roman Republic.
• Lonely at the Top: The isolation involved with being a member of such an important family is one of his major problems. Becoming Emperor certainly doesn't help it, either.
• Narrator: He is the narrator of his own manuscript about the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
• Not So Above It All: A darker version of this trope: Claudius thinks he can remain separate from the murderous schemes absorbing his family. Unfortunately, when Claudius himself comes to power, he finds he must get his own hands dirty in order to survive.
• Obfuscating Disability: Downplayed. His limp and stutter are both natural, but he learns to exaggerate and, later, invoke them on command. When Livia susses out that he's only been playing a fool, he visibly makes the decision to drop the stutter almost entirely and face her without his disguise.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Something like 80% of the reason that he survives for as long as he does.
• Outliving One's Offspring: He outlives his son from his first marriage, though this is stated explicitly only in the novel.
• Properly Paranoid: Claudius is convinced his (last) wife is trying to poison him. Oh, wait. She is.
• Reluctant Ruler: He even tried to hide behind curtains to avoid it. The Praetorian Guard as a united body weren't about to let him get away with that...

• Stop Worshipping Me: He technically is worshipped as a god, but he sure as hell doesn't want it.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Claudius spends nearly the entire series being secretly one step ahead of everyone around him, surviving by appearing as weak, stupid and useless as possible while they plot and scheme and murder each other for power. Then when he becomes emperor, Messalina manages to successfully deceive, manipulate and use Claudius until his own servants and guards contrive to do away with her because he can't bring himself to order it even after he discovers the truth about her plot to usurp and destroy him. This is because in all his years being viewed (and acting) as the family buffoon, Claudius had no experience of anyone trying to manipulate him, because nobody ever had anything to gain from him before he was emperor. Nor had Claudius any experience of a woman showing romantic interest in him, so Messalina had little difficulty in wrapping him around her little finger. Later, by the time Claudius marries Agrippina the Younger, he is under no illusion that she is just as bad as Messalina was. By this time, Claudius has Seen It All to the point that he's so completely bored with her transparent schemes that he lets her pull them off because he no longer cares.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: With Messalina. It ends badly.
• Unexpected Successor: When he was born, no one in his family expected him to be eventually crowned Emperor. Many of his relatives who were actually groomed and/or chosen for the role all died young due to intrigue or mishap.
• The Un-Favourite: His mother, Antonia, was always disgusted by him in comparison to Germanicus.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Of the mother-oriented type. He wants his mother's respect, and is hurt by her constant disapproval. Note how devastated he is when he learns that she ordered her lady-in-waiting to carry out her funerary rites, instead of entrusting them to him.
• You Should Have Died Instead: Claudius' mother lobs this at him after the death of her more accomplished son, Germanicus.
• Zero-Approval Gambit: It's all part of the plan to get Rome thoroughly sick of autocratic rule.

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Augustus

Augustus Caesar

Played by BRIAN BLESSED.

The Emperor of Rome at the start of the series, a good-natured man who ends up getting manipulated by his wife Livia.

• Adipose Rex: If Nero is the largest of the Julio-Claudian emperors, then Augustus is the second largest.
• Altar Diplomacy: Augustus agreed not to kill Tiberius Claudius Nero, a rival during the Roman civil-war, in exchange for divorcing and giving up his wife to him. Livia was very happy to be re-married to the man who ended the civil-war her ex-husband helped start.
• A God I Am Not: Like Claudius, he never really wanted to be called a god in the first place.
• The Atoner: When he finally faces facts about Livia, he does his best to stop her plans and make things up with Postumus.
• Benevolent Boss: We see he treats his soldiers, generals and statesmen quite well and rewards loyalty.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Even though he's a benevolent man overall, angering him is... unwise, to say the least. There are very good reasons he ended up the final victor in the Late Republic's power struggles.
• Confirmation Bias: invoked Indulges in it. Almost anything Tiberius does, deserved or not, becomes another reason Augustus dislikes him. Rather than recognize Livia's suspicious actions, he blames himself for the piling bodies of his heirs.
• Dies Wide Open: In his final moments his eyes grow steadily wider as a combination of dying with his eyes open, and realizing his wife's motivations. It is anyone's guess when in her speech to him he actually died, though she does close them for him.
• Dramatic Irony: Often thinks people like Agrippa, Tiberius, and Postumus are attempting to manipulate him to reach their goals. It never occurs to him Livia might be doing the same. In his defense, though, Livia played the part of a model wife to the hilt around him. He never had a reason to suspect her.
• Family Man: Deeply loves his daughter and wife.
• Foil: To Claudius, eventually. Both sought to maintain peace and happiness for Rome, hoping to transform it to a Republic. Yet Claudius becomes cynical, paranoid, and despised, while Augustus spends most of his life naive, yet beloved by Rome.
• The Good King: He is certainly the most beloved of all the emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He is kind and just, and even says that he is not a true king because he has no divine mandate to rule.
• Heartbroken Badass: The look on Augustus' face when he realizes he has been poisoned by his wife, is one of utter heartbreak rather than anger.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He managed to spend 5 decades married to Livia without figuring what kind person she was.
• Knight Templar Parent: Spreading rumors about his daughter irritates him, But, Olympus help you, if you hit her, he will go into a murderous rage, kept in check only by his wife.
• Large Ham: Not as much as the typical BRIAN BLESSED role, but he has his moments.
• Love at First Sight: Reportedly Augustus fell in love with Livia at first seeing her when he went to confront her husband and his rival, Tiberius Claudius Nero, but agreed to spare him in exchange for divorcing Livia and presenting her to him. Livia was very happy with the situation.
• Love Ruins the Realm: Strongly implied at first, ultimately inverted: A good many of Augustus's friends and family wind up dead because of his beloved wife. But as shown after Augustus's death, those deaths were actually Livia's way of keeping the empire together. His wife tore his life apart specifically to preserve the realm.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: A parental/daughter example. Augustus had affairs with his ex-wife a few times after remarrying and sees it as nothing more than an innocent fling, however he is utterly disgusted by the implication his daughter from said marriage would be a whore... does not take it well when he finds out the rumors are true.
• Men Act, Women Are: Deliberately averts the trope. Despite how most men of the time would assign Livia as a trophy-wife, Augustus treats Livia more like his vice-Caesar for how capable she is.
• Nice to the Waiter: Though the he thoroughly dominates the Senate, he tends to treat them as respected statesman. Even though he functionally is the reason they can't have a Senate run republic, most of the senators feel if they have to have a tyrant in charge, at-least Augustus treats them well.
• Outliving One's Offspring: His grandsons and adopted sons Gaius and Lucius meet their ends before him, prompting him to adopt Tiberius.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: Offcially he's no emperor, he's just "first citizen", he however controls Rome with an Iron Fist. The reason he is so beloved is because he just happens to be a very reasonable tyrant.
• Pet the Dog: Gives Claudius the respect he deserves after Claudius reveals Livia's plots and proves he's not a moron.
• Pull The Trigger Provocation: Maintain treaties and alliances with him, and he is a jovial pleasant guy, break treaties or openly attack him, and he will dedicate all his power to making you wish you never crossed him.
• Pragmatic Hero: He is heavily concerned with the happiness of his citizens, and while he may come off as just that nice, it is more to do with public relations.
• Properly Paranoid: Learns from the last 50 years of tragedy and refuses to eat anything touched by another human. This still doesn't save him. Livia poisoned figs he personally picked while they were still on the tree.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Flaws aside, he's a good ruler who genuinely wanted to lead Rome to a Republic. He makes several compromises and out-right allowances for many people (excluding Tiberius). Despite 50 years of marriage, he believes Germanicus' suspicions of Livia, even knowing that Germanicus' source is Claudius.
• Rambunctious Italian: He is Roman and practically a patron of Italy, that said he wears his heart on his sleeve, and you really don't want to make him your enemy.
• Retired Monster: Affable father of the nation by the time we see him. But the path of bodies to get there was long and winding. He occasionally alludes to what it took to get to the top.
• Ruling Couple: After marrying Livia and reforging the Roman empire, Augustus learn to rely on her as something of an unoffical co-ruler wife.
• Skilled, but Naive: Augustus is a decorated war-veteran, commander and a well loved ruler. Alas, he seems very easily won over by those pretending to be his friend/love.
• Skyward Scream: During one of the most Brian Blessed moments, at the late-general who lost three of his legions to the Germans.
  Augustus: Quinctilius Varus, WHERE ARE MY EAGLES!.
• This Means War!!: Literally, in the case of the Germans ambushing his legions.
• Wanted a Son Instead: Sort of; he deeply, deeply loves his daughter, Julia, but the fact that despite years of trying he never had another child, or more specifically a son, puts Augustus in an awkward position for who to make an heir.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Normally he acts like someone's lovable uncle, however piss him off and he will utterly destroy you. We see exactly what he is capable of when Tiberius strikes his daughter, and Germany attacks his legions; Augustus not gutting Tiberius is only because he is his stepson, the Germans, on the other hand...

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Tiberius

Tiberius Claudius Nero

Played by George Baker.

Claudius's uncle, and the second emperor.

• 0% Approval Rating: Augustus was a hard act to follow, and Tiberius certainly doesn't win himself many friends with his sour personality. The feeling is largely mutual.
• All for Nothing: Tiberius starts out the series wanting to become Emperor (or Augustus' heir at any rate), but by the time it happens he's lost everything that would have let him enjoy it.
  Wasn't worth it, was it? I could have told you that.
• Anti-Villain: Tiberius's bad tendencies are more the result of a certain moral and ethical laziness than any sort of calculated villainy. It's implied he wouldn't even have become all that villainous if not for his mother's scheming to make him Emperor- a role he doesn't even really want all that much.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: By the time he's become Emperor, he's burnt out and can't muster the enthusiasm to rule.
• Berserk Button: Mention Agrippina's name around Tiberius and he'll want to murder everything in sight.
• Broken Ace: Tiberius is physically strong, one of Rome's greatest generals, speaks several languages and is no intellectual slouch. Too bad he's moody, resentful, jealous and depressed, and arguably suffers a nervous breakdown after his brother's death that he never really comes back from.
• Cynic–Idealist Duo: Cynic to his brother's Idealist.
• Despair Event Horizon: Crosses it after his brother's death in the first episode, and never really recovers.
• Desperately Craves Affection: From his subjects rather than individuals. As his mother points out, "he wants to be loved." He wants the masses to look up to him, as they did with Augustus, but he can't manage it even at his best.
• Dirty Old Man: Have you heard about his "nymphs" at Capri? They were basically naked girls, implied to be children, prancing around his estate on his demand.
• The Eeyore: It's extremely rare to find him actually happy at any point in the series - his introductory scene is him complaining to Drusus that nobody will ever understand how miserable he inherently is, and his subsequent speech sounds like someone without the vocabulary for it trying to explain that he has what we'd recognize today as clinical depression and possibly obsessive compulsive disorder.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His first wife, Vipsania, to the point he is willing to divorce her to make sure his mother doesn't hurt her by seeing her as an obstacle, despite being miserable without her.
  • Additionally his brother Drusus, one of the few people he could comfortably speak with.
  • To a lesser extent his mother, whom he hates and fears, but still appreciates for all she did for him.
• Evil Overlord: He's not mad like some of his successors are, but he's still a tyrannical and decadent ruler.
• Four-Star Badass: A very capable general; the series toys with the idea that everyone (himself included) would've been happier if Augustus had just left him on the battlefield instead of forcing him into politics.
• Frontline General: Despite his personality defects, he is one of Rome's most successful generals; one reason his troops respect and remain loyal to him is he always charges at their head in battle.
• Gone Horribly Right: When he's having marital trouble with Julia, Tiberius would just like to leave Rome for a while; he cruelly taunts Julia into complaining about their marriage to Augustus, hoping he'll get permission to take a vacation. He didn't take into account that Julia might attack him in the strongest possible terms, though, so Tiberius actually ends up effectively banished for a few years and in personal danger from his enemies.
• Happily Married: To Vipsania, until Livia ruins it.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Part of the reason why he ultimately chose Caligula as his successor. As both Livia and Claudius surmised that, While Tiberius is bad, Caligular will be worst. Thus, he will be remember much fondly posthumously.
• Jerkass: Constantly surly, and almost never has a pleasant thing to say about anyone or anything.
• Kick the Dog: The scene where a woman he's raped is driven to commit suicide in front of her husband and guests is pretty much there to show us he's much less pitiable since he became emperor.
• King on His Deathbed: Much to Caligula and Macro's irritation. He just refuses to go. Even when they think he's finally snuffed it, it turns out there was still a little bit of life left in him.
• Lonely at the Top: His ghost admits as much to Claudius.
• Momma's Boy: A very tragic example of one. Despite loathing his mother for her ruthless methods, he still goes along with her plans to makes him Augustus' heir in spite of not really wanting to become emperor because at the end of the day, she's still his mother.
• Morality Chain: Tiberius had three: his late father, his brother Drusus, and his wife Vipsania. He always was a troubled soul, but only started on a dark path after he lost all of them.
• Offstage Villainy: Most of his horrific actions take place elsewhere and we find out second-hand. This can be somewhat jarring as we only see him as a very sad and pathetic figure on screen.
• Outliving One's Offspring: He outlives his son Castor and his nephew/adopted son Germanicus. He also outlives Germanicus' sons, Nero and Drusus, his biological great-nephews and adopted grandsons, who die in captivity that he put them in at Sejanus' instigation.
• Perpetual Frowner: Claudius writes that his uncle Tiberius would have been a handsome man except for his facial pimples, his over-prominent eyes, and his "almost perpetual frown." Later generations are misled because his statues leave out those defects.
• The Peter Principle: Tiberius was a very skilled commander, and as much as Augustus didn't like him, he couldn't deny Tiberius's military success. As emperor, Tiberius's failings become far more apparent as his confrontational personality and sour demeanor frequently lead him to fight with officials and his callousness is further highlighted when he starts running the realm into the ground for his own selfish reasons. Other characters note that he ran the technical aspects of the empire well enough and that his reign was very much Repressive, but Efficient, but by the end of his rule he just let it all fall apart.
• Pet the Dog: Tiberius' scenes with Drusus are there to establish that he did in fact have some redeeming points in his youth, and probably suffered from severe mental illness the Roman medical establishment didn't understand, let alone have any treatments for.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: As harshly as he treated the troops under his command, many actually preferred service in his campaigns because he was not squeamish about releasing them to looting when an enemy town or city was sacked.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: After Tiberius strikes Julia in a rage for mocking his first wife, Augustus clearly wants to have Tiberius killed or imprisoned, but due to him being his wife's son, he instead settles on banishing him to Rhodes. Tiberius spends many years in a small manor with functionally no power off the shores of Rhodes, before Augustus calls for his return, only upon running out of other heirs.
• The Reliable One: Augustus didn't ever like him, but gave him important positions and lots of responsibility because he consistently got the job done. Later averted after Augustus and Livia died and there was no one left who could tell him what to do.
• Reluctant Ruler: Tiberius was fairly reluctant about the role his mother planned for him, too. The power went to his head pretty quickly, though.
• Repressive, but Efficient: Well, until he stops caring about actually governing the empire.
• Sergeant Rock: "They say your drills are bloodless battles, and your battles are bloody drills." According to Claudius, Tiberius never praised his soldiers and often overworked them ("Let them hate me as long as they obey me"), but they respected him because he shared their hardships on campaign, including sleeping without a tent and eating the same food as them.
• Sketchy Successor: Played with. As a heir to Augustus he is, for the most part, portrayed as a depraved tyrant; yet Claudius acknowledges that he was competent at governing the empire and that the majority of the population had little reason to complain during his reign, with only the upper classes (specifically the Senate) suffering from his repressions. However, the trope is played completely straight during the last years of his reign, when he just stops caring about the administration of the empire whatsoever.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Easily one of the series's most notable examples. While most other particularly depraved antagonists hide their true nature when they debut (i.e. Caligula and Messalina), Tiberius started out with a decent amount of sympathy. He wasn't a particularly good person but he had a number of good points and was more pressed into the climb to power by his mother. After ascending to power, Tiberius becomes a much more malevolent character, turning spiteful, cruel, and paranoid, and displaying pedophilic and sexually predatory tendencies that weren't there in the beginning. At the end of his rule, he grooms Caligula to be his successor so he may bring ruination to the Empire and make everyone suffer.
• Training from Hell: His take on army training.
• Vetinari Job Security: No matter how anti-social, violent or what scandals Tiberius was involved in, Augustus knows he can't have him killed or imprisoned because he is his wife's son.
  • As Emperor, Tiberius lacks any of Augustus's popularity, but he is nonetheless "from the perspective of the Empire as a whole, a wise and just ruler." He is judged so even by Claudius, whose own family members are among the minority of Romans who suffer the brunt of Tiberius's paranoia and mercurial temper.
• Villain Respect: It's evident that despite their frequent fights, Augustus's obfuscation of Tiberius's path to the throne and Tiberius's many moral short-comings, he genuinely respected Augustus as an emperor, reverently commenting that the "The Earth will shake" in response to finding out Augustus has died.
• Vorpal Pillow: Tiberius's fate. When he falls ill and seemingly dies, Caligula is declared emperor. Tiberius then revives, and Macro quickly suffocates him with a pillow.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: He never particularly wanted to be Emperor, but once he was forced into the role he was initially at least pretty decent at it. However the power began to go to his head in concert with his worsening depression, leading to him becoming both increasingly depraved and increasingly apathetic towards reigning properly.
• Yandere: After divorcing Vipsania, he becomes this. Subverted in that he was forced into a divorce, and his love of his wife was one of his few redeeming qualities.

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Caligula

Emperor Caligula (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus)

Played by John Hurt.

Claudius's insane nephew, and the third emperor of Rome.

• 0% Approval Rating: By the end of his reign, he's alienated pretty much everyone in Rome.
• Asshole Victim: Nobody, save his German Guard, are saddened by his murder. The Praetorians who were not part of the assassination are more angry over potentially losing their comfy jobs than having any love for the man. Claudius admits to the main instigator, Cassius Chaerea, that he bears the latter no grudge for killing his nephew (but still orders his execution for killing Caligula's wife and child along and planning to kill Claudius and Messalina, who had done no wrong to Cassius).
• Ax-Crazy: And how. Claudius comes the closest he ever comes to being killed during Caligula's reign solely due to Caligula's lack of inhibition and murderous temper.
• Bait the Dog: Both In and Out of Universe.
  • From the perspective of the Senate and Rome at least. He starts by making up for Tiberius' mistakes and honoring his father. Within five minutes, they're proven just how wrong for the job he is.
  • To the audience he is initially introduced as Agripinna's sweet child; then the rest of the episode plays out and we see flashes of the man Caligula's to become, from his bratty nature, sexual advances towards his own sister, and key role in his father's death.
• Bald of Evil: Well, balding. His hair starts off fine, but towards the end it's visibly thinning up top.
• Beware the Silly Ones: While his insane antics are occasionally entertaining (his performance as Dawn, for example), they also highlight just how dangerous he is — Claudius is nearly killed several times because his usual Obfuscating Stupidity act doesn't work on someone as erratic and capricious as Caligula.
• Big Bad: Takes over this role after Livia's death.
• Brother–Sister Incest: With Drusilla. "And you know how I love my sisters..."
• The Caligula: The Trope Namer is on full display here. One minute, he's about to execute his brother-in-law in a fit of rage, the next he's laughing at Claudius covered in mud (because he ordered his guard to throw him in the river) and he's forgotten what he was so angry about.
• Creepy Child: He becomes partially responsibly for the murder of his father when he was just hitting puberty.
• Creepy Crossdresser: Performed before three utterly baffled men who assumed they were to be murdered.
• Enfant Terrible: Is already a murderer before he even hit puberty.
• Enmity with an Object: He declares war on the sea. Because he believes he's Jove, and that Neptune is against him. He wins... somehow, and has his soldiers take several chests of sea shells as spoils of war.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Caligula hated his father but he did seem to have some affection for his mother. When Claudius begs him to try and talk Tiberius out of exiling Caligula's own brothers and mother, Caligula does seem to give thought to helping his mother all the while admitting he doesn't care about whether his brothers die or not. Whether or not Caligula pleaded on her behalf is unclear though Tiberius's hatred of her wouldn't have had him listen anyway.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Likes giving Cassius embarrassing codewords to repeat to his fellow guards, because he knows it makes him look stupid. He marries Claudius to a beautiful girl because he thinks and expects it'll make him miserable, and gets very upset when Claudius doesn't seem that bothered. Being miserable is the point, dammit!
• Evil Is Petty: Again and again and again. One of his last actions is giving a beaten gladiator the thumbs-down despite the crowd calling for the gladiator to spared. His reason? He'd lost too much money betting on the guy's fights.
• Evil Nephew: Inspired the page and Caligula's actions even provide the page quote.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Starts off higher pitched, but once he's made emperor and goes really insane, his voice gets raspier.
• Expectation Lowerer: In-Universe. Tiberius' choice to make him his successor is deconstructed by Livia as a last-ditch attempt to get the people to love him, even if only after he's dead: he expects Caligula to become so cruel, incompetent, and dreaded as Emperor that the Senate and people will actually start to miss the "good old days" of Tiberius's reign. He's right.
• A God Am I: It eventually becomes incredibly more insane to fellow Romans when Caligula declares himself as Zeus and his wife as Hera, while disowning the Roman God Jove as an imposter. The delusion only becomes worse over time.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: After going insane.
  • After his "glorious" campaign against the god Neptune, Caligula is enraged that the senators did not order a celebration to greet his triumphant return to Rome, replete with with streets covered in flowers and lined with cheering Romans. The senators beg his forgiveness and remind him that he expressly ordered them not to arrange this, as he had made sure everyone knew that defying an order from a god-emperor invited a death sentence. Still, Caligula is deeply hurt and offended that they didn't defy his order and throw a welcoming celebration for him anyway.
  • Celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Actium, and he throws a fit for dishonoring Mark Antony, his great-grandfather. Don't celebrate it, and he throws a fit for dishonoring Augustus, his other great-grandfather. And please don't mention the fact that his grandfather was a commoner.
• The Hedonist: What he is before becoming emperor, mainly interested in sex and food.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Even the same ancient sources that painted him as a deranged mass-murderer say he wasn't particularly bad before a terrible fever claimed his sanity. While he still goes crazy here, he was already a murderous degenerate even before losing his mind.
• Hypocrite: Claims to be a man of "natural humility", despite literally declaring himself to be a god.
• I'm a Humanitarian: He cuts out and eats Drusilla's unborn child, fearing that it will become more powerful than him.
• Insane Equals Violent: Subverted. His violent/psychopathic tendencies are explicitly shown NOT to follow from his psychotic delusions: he's a killer from childhood, but doesn't go mad until after he becomes Emperor years later. Livia and other murderous characters are described as "mad" by other characters, but are not shown as irrational - even Nero, explicitly called "as mad as... Caligula", is clearly nothing of the kind and is actually tame in comparison.
• The Insomniac: The sounds of horses galloping only he can hear cause him to develop trouble sleeping.
• It Amused Me: Caligula has some shades of this - he does things like set up the young, beautiful Messalina with unattractive Claudius because he thinks it's funny.
• Jerkass: Even before going insane, he's a jerk to pretty much everyone in regular conversation.
• Kick the Dog: A few minutes before he dies he's at the games, not bothering to watch as he's busy taking Claudius and Marcus to the cleaners, when a gladiator is defeated. The audience start cheering for the guy to be spared, and Caligula gives the thumbs down, apparently just because.
• Large Ham: He is played by John Hurt, by the way.
• Laughably Evil: It's somewhat scary that someone as psychotic and crazy as him could be so funny. Especially when He invites Claudius and two senators to the palace and makes it sound like an execution threat, waits until the atmosphere reaches nerve shredding levels, only to surprise them with an outlandish cross dressing performance as Dawn
• Laughing Mad: As time goes on, he can become prone to sudden bursts of manic laughing. Joining in is not required.
• Light Is Not Good: As his picture shows, he is very fond of dressing up all in white and often puts on a godly appearance. Don't let it fool you for a second.
• Manipulative Bastard: Right up until he loses all touch with reality as Emperor.
• The Mentally Ill: First it's headaches and the sound of horses galloping only he can hear. His first day as Emperor goes off the rails as he starts zoning out, forgetting what he's already been told, and telling a story about how he was hearing voices as a child, when he wanted to murder his father, as if this is perfectly normal. Then he collapses and goes into a coma. When he comes out, he's gone right through madness and out the other side, convinced he's a god in human form. Oh, and paranoid. Very, very paranoid.
• Morton's Fork: Caligula was descended from both Augustus and Mark Antony; not celebrating Actium would be an affront to the first, and celebrating the occasion would insult the latter's memory. A sycophant tries to Take a Third Option by saying that Agrippa, another ancestor of Caligula's, was the main victor at Actium so he had more reason to celebrate than not to - turns out reminding him of his common descent was his Berserk Button.
• Oh, My Gods!: Still swears by Jove, despite thinking he is Jove, and so every time he does adds that, naturally, he means himself.
• The Paranoiac: The first thing we hear him doing after reviving from his coma is attacking his sister because he was convinced she didn't love him. She does eventually manage to assuage him, before buying into the madness herself. But when she gets pregnant, he starts worrying that the child will be more powerful than him, and there's only one way to prevent that...
• Puppet King: Averted when the senators assume his madness will make Caligula pliable and subservient to their whims. It backfires badly.
• Spanner in the Works: In more ways than one. Livia consents to him being made Tiberius' heir because of a complex scheme that will result in her elevation to godhood (and thus avoid eternal damnation). When Livia is on her deathbed, Caligula gleefully turns on her, and later comes very close to destroying the empire Livia worked so hard to build.
  Caligula: And what makes you think that a filthy, smelly old woman like you could become a goddess? I don't need you anymore, you see, great-grandmother. My secret will die with you. You are going to stew in hell forever and ever.
• Suddenly Shouting: He can go from eerily quiet and calm to full-force bellowing on a dime.
• Terrible Ticking: Two flavors.
  • The constant sound of pounding hooves, getting louder and louder, often accompanied by severe headaches.
  • Gemellus's coughing, once he really goes insane. He starts thinking he can hear it everywhere, even when the boy's on the other side of the palace. He has Macro "take care" of that.
• Third-Person Person: Briefly slips into it when upbraiding the senators for not throwing him any sort of celebration when he got back.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Tells Macro he'll never forget the service he did him by making sure Tiberius was actually dead. However, per the novels, he eventually becomes paranoid about Macro and gets rid of him.
• Villainous Incest: With his sister. He also kisses his stone-faced great-grandmother on the lips.
• What Could Have Been: In-Universe. Claudius reflects ruefully that Caligula had everything going for him at the start of his reign: the treasury was bulging (due to Tiberius' miserliness), the Empire was practically running itself (thanks to Livia's efficiency), there were no major wars in progress, everyone in Rome was heartily glad that Tiberius was dead, and assumed that, as Germanicus's son, Caligula would be an even better emperor than Augustus had been.
  What a splendid chance he had of being remembered in history as "Caligula the Good", or "Caligula the Wise", or "Caligula the Savior"! But it is idle for me to write in this way, for if he had been the sort of man that the people took him for, he would never have survived his brothers, or been chosen by Tiberius as his successor.

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Nero

Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus

Played by Christopher Biggins.

Claudius' stepson, Agrippina the Younger's son and the last Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

• Adipose Rex: Very notably the largest of the Julio-Claudian emperors.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Alongside Agrippina, Nero acts as the final antagonist of the series.
• Domestic Abuse: Implied to subject his wife to it.
• Faux Affably Evil: Puts on a very thin veneer of affability and niceness that is utterly see through, and disappears the instant anything even slightly displeases him. It also does nothing to hide what a horrible, depraved person he is.

• Self-Made Orphan: The Sibyl reveals he will kill his mother once she's no longer useful.

• Smug Snake: Bleeds self satisfaction and arrogance in every appearance.
• Villainous Incest: With his mother.

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