What would Caligula do? What the worst Roman emperors can teach us
about how not to lead
If recent history has taught us anything, it's that sometimes the best
guide to leadership is the negative example. But that insight is hardly
new. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Suetonius wrote Lives of the Caesars,
perhaps the greatest negative leadership book of all time. He was
ideally suited to write about terrible political leaders; after all, he
was also the author of Famous Prostitutes and Words of Insult, both
sadly lost. In How to Be a Bad Emperor, Josiah Osgood provides crisp
new translations of Suetonius's briskly paced, darkly comic biographies
of the Roman emperors Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero.
Entertaining and shocking, the stories of these ancient anti-role models
show how power inflames leaders' worst tendencies, causing almost
incalculable damage.
Complete with an introduction and the original Latin on facing pages,
How to Be a Bad Emperor is both a gleeful romp through some of the
nastiest bits of Roman history and a perceptive account of leadership
gone monstrously awry. We meet Caesar, using his aunt's funeral to brag
about his descent from gods and kings--and hiding his bald head with a
comb-over and a laurel crown; Tiberius, neglecting public affairs in
favor of wine, perverse sex, tortures, and executions; the insomniac
sadist Caligula, flaunting his skill at cruel put-downs; and the
matricide Nero, indulging his mania for public performance.
In a world bristling with strongmen eager to cast themselves as the
Caesars of our day, How to Be a Bad Emperor is a delightfully
enlightening guide to the dangers of power without character.
