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?