Ancients Behaving Badly

[Ash]

I recently caught Ancients Behaving Badly on the History Channel and was completely fascinated.
It examines powerful men (and women) throughout history and takes a look at all the horrible and nasty things they did.  

They bring in psychologists to try to break down why these men did the things they did...starting when they were young.  They also create a CGI image of their faces to show you what they actually looked like.
At the end of the show, they rate them on a scale between "Psychopathic Killer" and "Goal Driven Killer".

They cover many people such as Nero, Atilla the Hun, Alexander the Great, Julius Ceasar, Genghis Khan, Hannibal, and Cleopatra. (each person has their own episode)

Some of the acts these guys committed were simply beyond belief.
Like Caligula for example.  I'd heard about how bad he had been, but had no idea just how psychotic he really was.  Caligula was clearly a psychopathic killer who murdered just for kicks.  He would be having dinner with his guests and have people killed right in front of them while they were all eating.  He would also have people killed just for looking at him wrong or for no reason at all other than his own personal amusement.
Alexander the Great, on the other hand, was clearly more of a goal driven killer.  He wanted to conquer and conquer until there was no more world left.  (though psychologists do agree he had a touch of psychopathic killer in him)

If you haven't seen it yet, you've gotta check it out.

Watch the entire Caligula episode HERE.
It's pretty interesting!

What do you think?

[Newt]

So it is about applying some sort of forensic psychology on key figures of history?  Sounds fascinating: I'm in!

Hasn't it been suggested that it takes at least a touch of sociopath to make an individual ruthless enough to succeed in a *big* way in modern society?  Seems to me it makes sense that it would have been even more necessary in times past.  Certainly would explain a lot.

[Ash]

So it is about applying some sort of forensic psychology on key figures of history?

That's exactly what they do.

Take Caligula for example...
Why was he such a sadist?  Why did he get off on killing innocent women and children?
The show wonders if maybe Caligula suffered from some sort of mental illness. 
For other leaders, they theorized that they may have had some sort of brain damage.

It's all quite fascinating.   

Check out that episode I posted.  It goes much deeper than what I've mentioned here.

[Newt]

I just stumbled across this series on the History Channel tonight!  It was episode 1 (Caligula).  I will be making a point of catching them all.  Thanks, Ash!

[Trevor]

Hasn't it been suggested that it takes at least a touch of sociopath to make an individual ruthless enough to succeed in a *big* way in modern society?  

That is exactly why my name is known and feared in the SA film industry.  

No joke: I had a client here once who told me that the last guy he dealt with here on the phone was a person by the name of Trevor who was, in his words, a real "hard case to get anything out of, he stuck to the rules, no short cuts, no nothing, a real ballbreaker."

You should have seen his face when I told him who I was.  

[Silverlady]

                      Love it!   

[Newt]

Hmm. "Crapologist and Ballbreaker": has a certain ring to it.

[JaseSF]

I really enjoy watching this show. I've caught the ones based on Caligula, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar and Hannibal so far. Great stuff but then I've always been fascinated with History.