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It'd be a
ridiculous notion to attack a body of water, but at least two ancient emperors
did it (or were rumored to do it).
Xerxes, the
Persian emperor from 486 to 465 BCE, wasn't actually the oldest child, or the
first in succession, but he was the direct grandson of Cyrus the Great, founder
of the Persian Empire , which got him...pretty
far.
When Cyrus founded the Persian Empire , he introduced a number of novel and practical concepts into ruling, among these was his famed tolerance towards conquered peoples (there's a lot about him in the Bible, actually). So Cyrus was a pretty great guy. Cyrus the Great, in fact. Darius came after Cyrus and expanded the empire to its greatest height, and he also earned the title "The Great."
However,
when Darius tried to invade Greece ,
his luck did not hold out, and the Greeks actually defeated him.
Which leads
us to Xerxes, Darius's son. Darius's defeat at the hands of the Greeks made
Xerxes angry, so angry that he invaded Greece again. He met his match in
the Hellespont, a narrow strait off of modern day Turkey . To cross the Hellespont , his troops built a bridge out of flax and
papyrus (rope and paper, basically). Now, on the best of days, that still
defies logic. This was not the best of days, and a storm destroyed the bridge
(leaving us to wonder if anyone was unfortunate enough to be on it).
Xerxes
didn't handle this very well. He lost his temper. He threw a tantrum at the Hellespont , ordered it whipped three hundred times, and
then had his troops throw fetters into the water. Yeah! That showed the Hellespont ! Maybe next time it would let them cross!
It did, actually,
and Xerxes led a massive invasion of Greece . He eventually lost. This
war made a certain Alexander the Great Un-creative pretty ticked at the Persians, and it
was his invasion of Persia
that would eventually bring down the empire Cyrus the Great had created. Gee,
thanks Xerxes.
In much the
same vein, we move to Caligula. Along with Nero, I think he fills the slot of
"Crazy Roman Emperor" in many modern minds. It's not a slot that we
think about much, but it's there, lurking. We certainly have a lot of stories
about him, but it's hard to tell which is myth and which is fact.
One of
these stories is his war on Poseidon. According to this story, Caligula decided
to declare war on Poseidon. He had his soldiers throw their spears into the
ocean. After he declared them victorious, he then ordered his men to take seashells
from the shore for loot.
PLUNDER!
No primary
sources endorse this story directly; however, one source, by the historian
Suetonius, mentions Caligula telling his men to gather the shells, telling them
to "Go your way happy; go your way rich." Suetonius is our major
source on this one, but his entire record of the life of Caligula reads like
he's just trying to say, "Wasn't this guy crazy? He was evil too." But
Suetonius's biography begins with a detailing of Caligula's accomplishments,
before this stark line: "So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell
of his career as a monster." Suetonius had a bone to pick with Caligula, but
if the emperor had done even half of the things purported in this account, I'd
have a whole skeleton to pick with him. The guy was disgusting.
But there's
that tantalizing bit of accomplishment in Caligula's life that speaks of wasted
potential. According to some accounts, he ruled quite well for the first part
of his reign. The fact that even Suetonius mentions some of his accomplishments
hints at a depth behind the monster in our minds. It's a maddening
question--was Caligula a depraved lunatic, or was he an able ruler? Did one
unpopular policy ruin his reputation? Or was the reality somewhere in between?
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