True Crime Campfire - Ancient Evil: A Grab Bag of Real Life Monsters

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Do you think people will still be talking about Scott Peterson or Chris Watts in a hundred years? How about five-hundred? Probably not, right? But there are some acts of cruelty and depravity that echo down the centuries, becoming entwined with myth and legend. This week, we’re going to take a look at two of these famous perpetrators. Sources: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/transactions-of-the-royal-historical-society/article/counting-the-stakes-a-reassessment-of-vlad-iii-draculas-practice-of-collective-impalements-in-fifteenthcentury-southeastern-europe/F1B68C737C004D494BBE3B8B9B5E0FF7 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vlad-the-Impaler MJ Trow, Vlad the Impaler Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Do you think people will still be talking about Scott Peterson or Chris Watts in a hundred years? How about 500?

Probably not, right? But there are some acts of cruelty and depravity that echo down the centuries, becoming entwined. with myth and legend. This week, we're going to take a look at two of these famous perpetrators. This is ancient evil, a grab bag of real life monsters. So, campers, we're starting this one in the year 1431 and probably in Transylvania. And you're going to have to forgive us some probabilities and maybes here. This was 700 years ago in a very chaotic time and place. A lot of this stuff is kind of fuzzy, with so many different versions of events that we'd be here all day if we tried to cover them all. We're going to tell you one story.

There's a mountain of things to look into if you want to know more. 1431 was a big year for Vlad, illegitimate son of Mircha of Wallachia. First, King Sigismund of Hungary inducted him into the Order of the Dragon, an order of chivalric knights dedicated to combating enemies of the Christian faith, defending the royal family and having the most metal name in all of medieval Europe. Wicked and wikinawows! And later in the year, his second son, also called Vlad, was born. It's like George Foreman.

All my sons are called Vlad. He even named his daughter's Vlad. Why not? With his new knighthood, the elder Vlad was now known as Vlad the dragon, which translated locally as Vlad Dracul, which by the naming conventions of the time made his Tiny Sun, the Son of the Dragon, or Vlad Dracula. That's right, y'all. We're kicking off spooky season with the real-life Dracula. Well, kind of. The creature of the night stuff is all Bram Stoker's

creation, but Vlad Dracula was already a figure of dark legend long before his vampiric namesake was immortalized in print. You've almost certainly heard of him under his famous nickname, Vlad the Impaler. I'm sorry, it's like naming serial killers, like the night stalker. Like, you just made him sound cool. I'm sorry. I know. I know. Sorry. Wellakia in the 15th century was an incredibly dangerous place, sandwiched between the powerful Christian kingdom of Hungary and the even more powerful Muslim Ottoman Empire. If a Wallachian prince was too closely aligned with Hungary, the Ottomans would send in an army to oppose him. If a prince was too close to the Ottomans, the Hungarians did the same thing. There was no shortage of distant

relatives and illegitimate sons, like Vlad the Dragon, willing to pledge their loyalty to a greater power in exchange for the throne. It's like Game of Thrones up in here, isn't it? Like dragons and all. That is how Vlad, with Hungarian support, became prince in 1436. But the Hungarian king died the next year, weakening the kingdom. And Vlad, seeing which way the wind was blowing, swore fealty to the Ottoman Sultan instead. You know, if you can't trust a Dracula, who can you trust? Vlad even kind of sort of supported an Ottoman invasion of Hungary in 1442, but didn't exactly give it his all against his former allies. Like, no, I'm really trying. When the Ottomans got their asses handed to him, the Sultan correctly thought that Vlad was trying to play for both

sides and summoned him to court, demanding that two of his sons stay there as hostages to ensure his future good behavior. These hostages were Vlad Dracula, then 11 years old, and his younger brother Radu, who would be known as the Fair. Their younger brother, another Vlad, would be called the monk. The fair, the monk, and the impaler. I guess meatloaf was right, two out of three ain't bad. Being a hostage didn't mean being shut up in a cell. The boys were kept in comfort and educated well. The Ottomans wanted to mold the young princes to be sympathetic to them, so they might be installed as compliant rulers in the future. It didn't take with Vlad, who was rebellious and defiant from day one. This was the 15th century, and unless you were literally a king, there was pretty much just one way to deal with a rebellious child.

His captors beat the crap out of him, frequently, trying and failing to get him to behave. His younger brother Radu was maybe five years old, so of course he was much more pliable. and adapted more smoothly to autumn and life. There was another brother, the oldest one, Mircha, a teenager that Vlad the dragon kept with him and groomed to be his successor. In 1447, the Hungarian crusader John Huniadi invaded Walecha and defeated Vlad in battle. Vlad fled, but was betrayed, hunted down in a marsh and decapitated. Mircha was captured, blinded with a red-hot poker and buried alive.

Good God. What was wrong with people back then? The whole Middle Ages was just one long game of let's see who can come up with the most creative torture. Jeez, Louise. And that's not even almost the worst thing I've heard, but it's pretty fucking bad. A cousin of Vlad's Vladislav was installed as a prince friendly to the Hungarian crowd. They got a little bit creative. It's not just Vlad. It's Vladislav. Oh, man. That's the rebel of the family. Vlad Dracula was, as you might imagine, not happy. The next year, when he was 17 years old, and with the help of the Ottomans, he briefly usurped control of Walecha, but was quickly defeated and forced to flee. He first stayed with an uncle in Moldavia before moving to Hungary, where he kind of astonishingly managed to reconcile with the crusader John Hunyadi.

The new prince, Vladislav, was the one directly responsible for the deaths of Vlad's father and brother, but it was Hanyadi's invasion that had kicked everything off. But, you know, backstabbing and side-switching were so endemic to the region that if you let every betrayal grow into a lifelong vendetta, you'd have no friends and no allies. That latter was unacceptable for somebody with ambitions, which Vlad most definitely had. I know we try to talk about, like, the beauty of humanity

and how we try to help each other, but I do think treachery is a little bit part of human nature as well. Hell yeah. literally last night I learned that there is a Wikipedia page about historical poisonings, which I find endlessly amusing. And one entry in particular reads, Artaxerxes the third, died 338 BC, Persian king, possibly poisoned by his vizier, Bagoas. Artaxerxes the fourth, died 336 BC. Persian king, poisoned by his vizier, Bagoas. then Bagoas died 336 BC Persian vizier and kingmaker poisoned by Darius the third

Oh my God, it's the funniest thing I know It's just it's like dominoes and like it is Are you really even in power if your vizier isn't plotting against you? I don't know Anyway Hungary soon had the same problem with Fladaslav that they had with Vlad the dragon He was getting too friendly with the Ottomans The Ottomans weren't only powerful, they were rich. The Hungarians were seeing an infuriating pattern.

They'd put an ally on the Wallachian throne, and soon after, a combination of gifts and threats would win the new prince over to the Ottoman side. Oh, come on. No loyalty here. It's all money and presents. But if the problem was familiar, so was the solution. Ride in, depose the sitting prince, and put somebody new on the throne. That was why the Hungarians had been keeping Vlad Draken.

in their back pocket. And in 1456, they supported an invasion that quickly led Vlad Vlad into direct conflict with Vladislav. Oh my God. It's a Vlad Vladislav standoff. I can see the UFC title part right now. Vlad versus Vladislav, one night only. In the most widely told version of their meeting, the two cousins agreed to face each other in single combat rather than pit their armies against each other. They fought with swords until Vladislav was slain in Vlad Dracula once again became Prince of Valaitia. There are other versions of what might have happened to Prince Vladislav.

When you cover really old stories where the facts are kind of foggy, there's a temptation to think that the most mundane version of events is much more likely to be true, but the fact is, history is full of things that sound like they should be in a movie. It's absolutely possible that the two rivals for the throne fought a duel to the death. Vlad Dracula is not known to history as Vlad the Just or Vlad the Kind. Soon after taking power, he held a great Easter feast for his nobles. When they'd gathered, he furiously accused them of betraying his father and had most of them and their family seized. The families and the lords, too young to have betrayed Vlad the dragon, were sent north for forced labor building fortresses.

But he had the older and more powerful lords impaled. Oh, Lord. This, my friends, is some gnarly shit. Without getting too deep into the anatomy of it, a victim was skewered on a long stake, which was then raised and shoved into the ground to make a grotesque display of the victim. There were different methods of impalement, which corresponded to how much mercy the victim was to be shown. They were intended to still be alive when lifted up, but depending on the technique used, they might die quickly or stay alive for days.

This was not something Vlad invented. It was a method of torture and political terror that had been used for millennia going back to the ancient Persians and beyond. What made Vlad Dracula unique was his enthusiasm for it. Oh, yeah. When you look at how far he went with this, it seems pretty clear that he wasn't just using impalement as a tool. My dude enjoyed it. Like, a lot. Turning his enemies into Satan's shish kebabs was one of his fun little hobbies.

It's like on the verge of being Katie's King. shaming corner time is what she's saying. Medieval historians often exaggerate numbers. There were stories of Vlad executing hundreds, even thousands of people this way, at the Easter feast. A recent reconstruction brings the number down a lot. You know, just the incredibly violent and prolonged public execution of maybe 50 people at the same time.

That's really no big deal, right? It was, of course, a pretty big deal. Well, Leachia had a population of under half a million people, less than one. Wyoming or some mid-sized U.S. metro areas, your Asheville's, your Lexington's, your Tallahassees. Put 50 people up on sharp sticks in Tallahassee, folks are going to notice. There were German-speaking settlers in Transylvania, and they sheltered rival claimants to Waleche. Not a safe thing to do. Flood responded with raids, arrests, and random executions at first via hanging, beheading, and being burned alive, before region again for his old trusty,

Mass impalings, his favorite. It didn't matter if the victims had nothing to do with sheltering Vlad's enemies. His goal was to spread indiscriminate terror. Men, women, and children were raised up into a forest of stakes. Just get a good mental image of that for a second. Like, you're walking up. Maybe at dusk, and you just look up and see that against the sky. Oh, my God.

Medieval Europe was a bizarrely cruel place when it comes to physical torment. but even in that environment, Vlad Dracula was on a whole other level. He quickly became infamously cruel and brutal. But here's the thing. Cruelty and brutality don't often solve the problems you want them to solve. The settlers sheltered one man in particular, Dan the Younger, the brother of the recently deposed Prince Vladislav, that is, someone with a solid claim to the throne.

Vlad wanted the settlers to be too scared to support Dan, but instead he'd made them so furious that Dan was able to raise an army in 1460 and make a play for the throne. Vlad Dracula was not particularly skilled at running a nation, but he was very good at leading an army. Dan's forces were defeated in battle,

and he was captured. Vlad forced him to dig his own grave and then attend his own funeral service. Then he had Dan beheaded and buried. This was actually Vlad being nice, all of Dan's followers that had been captured were impaled. By the way, it kills me that this dude's name was Dan. I just can't. I did not know there were any 15th century Dan's. You know, on one side we got Vlad the Dragon and then we got Dan. Another killer UFC title card. I'm just saying.

Oh, my God. Vlad raided Transylvania to punish the people who had supported Dan and escalated things enormously impaling hundreds of people in an attempt at political terror. There's a story that Vlad had a table set up in amongst dozens of impaled victims who had died and started to decay and just calmly sat there and ate his dinner. When a servant complained about the smell of the corpses, Vlad had him impaled on an especially long stake so he'd be high enough that the smell wouldn't bother him. Oh my God! Yeah, and we think the devil wears...

Prada like she was a bitch, right? Like, imagine this is your employer. Lord. Did it happen? Who knows? But the meal, at least, could have happened. Vlad wanted people to think he was a callous monster. That was the whole point. Vlad didn't have much peace

after putting down the invasion of Dan the Younger, because the Ottomans were setting up to make another play at controlling Welachia. They were ruled by the Sultan Mehmed II, a brilliant leader who had recently conquered Constantinople. Mehmed had eight beautiful concubines and a harem of equally beautiful men, but his favorite companion was Vlad's famously handsome younger brother, Radu the Fair.

Radu had been a hostage of the Ottoman since he was a kid, and now in his early 20s, was a favorite in the Sultan's court and a commander in his armies. He was also, of course, a viable replacement for Vlad. The Ottomans expected the princes of Walecha to act as tributary rulers to send wealth south under the implied threat of invasion. As you can probably guess by now, our boy Dracula was not someone who liked being told what to do. He ignored demands that he pay up,

so the Ottomans started scheming to replace him. I think anyone who has listened to True Crime Campfire knows that Whitney and I are dessert fiends, so you could say that we're experts when it comes to sweetness. It's our professional opinion that in life, and on the podcast, sweet is best with a little salt. I am so excited to introduce Kachava's newest flavor, salted caramel. When I first saw this flavor in Kachava's repertoire, I knew that I couldn't wait to try it.

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salty side. Go to kachava.com and use code campfire for 15% off your first order. That's Kachava, K-A-C-H-A-V-A-com. Code Can't Fire. The plan was to summon Vlad to the Ottoman court, and while he was on his way, ambush and capture him with a military force led by the respected commander Hamza Bay. Vlad could be compelled to abdicate and Radu installed in his place without the expense and complication of a full invasion. But Vlad had spent a big chunk of his childhood in the Ottoman court. He knew how things worked, and he was immediately suspic.

Somehow he learned the details of the plan to ambush him and set up an ambush of his own. The ancient military strategy known to historians as Uno Reverse. When Hamza Bay made his move, he was attacked by a much larger Walachian force and overwhelmed with Hamza Bay captured. Vlad, predictably, impaled everybody with a persnickety observation of rank, regular soldiers close to the ground, officers higher up, and Hamza Bay on an especially especially long stake all by himself, towering over everyone else. Then he invaded the Ottoman Empire, taking over a border fortress by using the Turkish he'd learned in his youth, and pretending to be Hamza Bay returning with his prisoner. You don't know, people don't know what each other looks like back then. You know, there's no internet. So you could do stuff like that.

Yeah. He moved south, burning, looting, and, of course, impaling. This wasn't just a rebellious prince anymore. It was the start of a war. That was what Vlad wanted. He sent letters to the new Hungarian king Matthias, explaining what he'd done and asking for Hungarian aid in a great war against the Ottomans. Matthias, a sensible man, declined to get involved in a war that a reckless fool had started and was unable to finish by himself. Yeah, no thanks.

I'm good. Off you fuck, you freaking psycho. Vlad was in trouble. Mehmed raised a great army and invaded. There was no way Vlad could defeat him in the field, so he resorted to guerrilla tactics and psychological warfare. He certainly didn't want to be captured. A few years earlier, Mehmed had had a captured Hungarian general executed by slowly being sawn in half. Oh, my God.

Honestly, I... I do think, though, that they were a little bit soulmates. Like, I think that if I was writing fan fiction in the 1440s, I would be writing Mamed Vlad fan fiction, probably. Mehmed Vlad slash. Oh, my God. Saw in half. Slowly sawn in half. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Oof. Horrific. Vlad's forces burned fields and drove animals away ahead of the Ottomans. They poisoned water and sent people suffering from tuberculosis, leprosy, and bubonic plague into the Turkish camp to spread disease and fear. They couldn't defeat the Ottomans in battle, but they could make staying in Wollatia as unpleasant as possible. Vlad disguised himself as an Ottoman officer and walked through their camp to find out where the Sultan's tent was.

That night, he led a raid that cut straight through the camp aiming to assassinate Mehmed. The attack failed and was beaten back, but according to one Willachian soldier, Mehmed was so scared he just ran out of the camp and had to be caught and brought back against his will. Yeah, that tells you right there. Vlad had accomplished his goal, right? Like to just be absolutely feared. Yeah. When Mehmed's army arrived at the capital, it was surrounded by a forest of thousands of impaled bodies.

Some of them Turkish captives, many more of them, Vlad's own subjects. The mind game seemed to have worked on Mehmed, who said that a man who's willing to perform such acts would not be easily conquered. In fact, he seems to have been genuinely impressed. He was like, wow, this guy really knows how to run a country. This is a great guy. I'm telling you the fan fiction writes itself, okay? Mehmed headed for the coast, enslaved thousands of people, and made a classic move for generals in a campaign that turned out to be much more difficult than he expected.

He declared victory and got the hell out of there. But he left a sizable force with Vlad's brother, Radu. And although Vlad won two battles against him, Radu was able to convince the Wallachian nobles that the only way to prevent more Ottoman invasions was to support his claim to the throne. They weren't hard to convince. Arguments like, I won't impale your family, are a good way to win support. Radu promised peace and swore he wouldn't seek vengeance against any of Vlad's followers. Vlad's support evaporated. Radu was enthroned and Vlad was enthroned and Vlad was forced to flee to Hungary and beg King Matthias for help retaking Wallachia. Instead, Matthias had him

arrested and imprisoned. It's not clear why, although I guess Matthias just thought, Vlad would cause a lot of trouble if he was free. And I mean, do you blame him? Yeah. If you can get older, this guy, definitely put him in prison. Yeah. Like, this little freak shows up at his door and is like, help me, help me take back my throne over all the people that fucking hate me. And theice was like, fuck no.

Help me impale my own subject. No, you're going in a box. I'm sorry. Before we leave the Ottomans, there's the extremely vague story of Vlad's first wife whose name isn't recorded. God, women in history got the short stick, no pun intended, I'm sorry, but Jesus. The story goes that when the Ottomans invaded, Vlad retreated to a fortress along with his wife. Someone fired into the castle an arrow carrying a message, warning that the Ottomans were approaching and that the fortress was doomed to fall. Vlad started planning to escape, but his wife thought they were doomed and declared she would rather die than be captured by the Ottomans.

She threw herself from the fortress walls into the river below. If you've seen Coppola's Dracula movie, you'll know that a version of the story has been woven into the Dracula myth, but the core story is a Romanian folktale that doesn't seem to have been actually recorded in print until the 1970s. Doesn't mean it was invented in the 70s, but there were a ton of stories about Vlad's circulating around the time he was actually alive, and this wasn't one of them. The wife, although unknown, was presumably real, as shortly before this story, Vlad's first son, Mina was born. He would be known to history as Minia the Evil. You know, it's nice to see the young people keeping up with the family traditions, right? Vlad was not kept in prison for long.

There are weird stories of him locked in a dungeon, catching mice and impaling them on tiny stakes, which I think we can safely say were invented by his enemies, mostly because it's just a scoge too whimsical for a guy like Vlad. I mean, I don't know. I wouldn't put it past him. He was soon moved to Matthias' court. The Hungarians, just like the Ottomans, knew it was useful to keep a potential Wollachian prince around.

Matthias even arranged for Vlad to marry one of his cousins. Vlad's brother Radu had not been able to hold on to the throne, and by 1476, Walecha was controlled by Basarab the Old with Ottoman support. That's rude. Well, did they call him the old when he was dead? Like, what? I'm confused. I hope so. That makes it so much funnier if he's like a little kid running.

around. They're like, the old. With Hungarian backing, Vlad invaded and won the throne again, but not for long. Basarab returned with an Ottoman army, and just three months after he was crowned, Vlad Dracula was killed. Possibly by an Ottoman assassin sneaking into his camp, possibly by his own soldiers on the battlefield who mistook him for an Ottoman officer. Either way, there'd be no vampiric resurrections for Vlad the Impaler. His body was hacked to pieces by the Ottomans. The head sent to Constantinople where Sultan Mamed had it placed on a high stake. Ew, it's like the worst hand puppet ever. I was thinking like a very gory popsicle.

It's a cake pop. Gross. What is wrong with these people? Like something was wrong with these people. I mean, we haven't progressed a lot, but at least we're not doing that, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's true. We're not impaling people on stakes. They are still awful. The bar is low. The bar's in hell. Oh, Lord. The legend of Vlad's cruelty persisted for centuries, but it didn't have any supernatural

elements until the late 1800s, when Bram Stoker read a brief description of him in a history book and decided that Count Dracula was a much cooler name than his original idea, Count Wampere. I have to agree. Although, I can't really see a vampire. impaling his prey, like it seems just like a waste of good food, you know, keep him in the dungeon slash pantry instead, you'll have snacks for months. All right, moving on now from one famous historical monster to another, the Emperor Caligula.

When he was born in 12C.E, it was hard to imagine a more illustrious heritage for the boy named Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus. He was the great grandson of the first Roman Emperor Augustus and the son of the immensely popular general Germanicus, who himself was the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius, who would become emperor when Augustus died two years later. Germanus took his young son with him on campaigns against the German tribes, and the soldiers made the little boy a mini uniform, which included tiny versions of the hobnailed military sandals, or Kelligay. Oh my God, so cute. Can you imagine? Like a cute little uniform. They gave him...

I just love tiny things. I'm sorry. I know this is a monster. It's so true. No, it's a monster. But he's a, yeah, he wasn't a monster yet. He was a cute little kid running around it, like all the soldiers adopting him. It's like, honestly, if you made that a movie, I would watch the shit out of it, okay?

They gave him the nickname Caligula or Little Boot, which I'm sure he loved as a kid, but hated later on. He wanted to be called Gaius only, and he's only known to history as Collegiol. because the people writing the early histories freaking hated him. Oh, you want to be respected? Tough shit. You're going to be immortalized under your least favorite childhood nickname. I want you to all call me Biggest Dickus. Too fucking bad.

Caligula's privileged upbringing took a dark turn when he was seven years old when his father suddenly died. Without getting too bogged down in the mess of Roman politics, we've got to look at why this mattered so much. When Augustus adopted Tiberius and named him as his heir, it was under the condition that Tiberius in turn adopted Germanicus, then a competent 19-year-old as his own heir. There's no solid evidence of this arrangement causing Tiberius to resent his talented young nephew, but it's easy to imagine how it could. I mean, we've seen Game of Thrones, right? And importantly, it was just as easy for the average Roman citizen to imagine that he resented him. Even more so as Germanicus grew older and racked up a succession of military victories becoming hugely popular, much more popular than Tiberius. Routro. Routro indeed.

In 19C. Tiberius sent Germanicus to handle problems in the valuable eastern provinces, which included Syria. The governor of Syria was a man named Pizzo, appointed by Tiberius. You ever meet someone and he just... hate each other on site. There was a girl at a party a couple of years ago. Like, I think that might be the only time this has happened to me in my life. We just hated each other from the second we laid eyes on each other. You could feel it just like across the room, just the hostility all the way across the room. It was based on absolutely nothing. But I guarantee you,

if, if that girl and I were in each other's lives, somebody's going to go to jail. It's just so weird. It's so weird, but it happens sometimes. The best, though, is when you turn out to be right. And you're Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That person does suck. I was right. I'm sure. I'm right.

That bitch is still out there somewhere and she's doing bad things. I know it. I'm on your side. Like, obviously. Like, this is not even a competition. I believe you that she was evil. Yeah. But anyway, that was Germanicus and Pizzo.

And their relationship and squabbles over authority quickly got so bad that Germanicus just ordered the governor to leave the country. Please just fuck off. Shortly afterwards, Germanicus got sick and went downhill fast. Rapid fatal illness wasn't exactly unusual at the time, but on his deathbed, Germanicus apparently accused Pizzo of poisoning him. Conspiracy theories are not a modern creation. As long as there have been humans, some of them have been wearing tinfoil hats, even before tinfoil was the thing. As news of their hero's death spread through the empire, people wondered, did Pizzo kill Germanicus himself?

Or did Tiberius put him up to it? there's no evidence of this, but since when did a lack of evidence get in the way of a good conspiracy theory? Tiberius didn't help matters. He believed that Roman rulers should display the traditional aristocratic trade of calm dignity. But to the common citizens, he just seemed cold and uncaring. Pizzo went on trial in the Senate the following year, but he took his own life before the proceedings were complete, which just, of course, added more fuel to the conspiracies. A decade later, Tiberius moved to the island of Capri, noped out of public life,

and invested much of his authority in a man named Sejanus, the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, and someone ambitious enough to imagine himself becoming emperor. But there were a few people in the way of that. Sejianus seduced the wife of Tiberius' son and fatally poisoned him with her help. Skank? Right? What the fuck? That left the sons of Germanic. Caligula had two older brothers, Drusus and Nero.

Sejanus engineered their arrests for plotting against the emperor, and with the help of a complicit Senate, had them imprisoned and exiled. The same happened to Caligula's mother. All three would die in custody, either by suicide or from being starved to death. And then there was Caligula, now 19 years old. Tiberius ordered him to come to Capri. Caligula must have thought he was about to suffer the same fate as the rest of his family, and that might have been the idea.

He was deliberately goaded by people trying to get him to defend his family or complain about their treatment. But Caligula didn't take the bait. He gave every impression of being completely indifferent to his family's fate and was totally submissive and obedient to Tiberius. The Roman historian Suttonius later summarized

Caligula with the line, No better slave, no worse master. Were some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era, of billionaire athletes. A fad to some, the future of money to others. We see crypto's trillion dollar swings,

the end of jobs, or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds fueling the AI hype. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. You've got your favorite blanket, a freshly poured drink, and a cold case burning a hole in your streaming. you. You're not just watching true crime. You're running the investigation from the comfort of your couch. Welcome to Murder She Watched. The podcast where we recap, dissect, and slightly overanalyze

some of the best and craziest true crime documentaries on our favorite streamers. Did the spouse do it? Why is the shady neighbor wearing leather gloves in July? Why did this guy agree to be interviewed in this documentary? We asked the tough questions that you're often just screaming at your TV. So every week, we break down the twists, red herrings and absurd documentaries that have kept you up all night. It's high drama, cozy vibes, and absolute couch detective energy. Grab your throat blanket and hit subscribe. Search Murder She Watch wherever you listen to podcasts and let's solve this thing together. From the parents behind law and order comes a mystery the whole family can enjoy. Patrick Picklebottom

Everyday Mysteries. Step into the whimsical world of Patrick Picklebottom, a precocious 11-year-old, with a love for reading and an uncanny ability to solve mysteries. Inspired by the beloved children's book of the same name, this podcast vividly brings Patrick's tales of deduction and everyday adventures to life as he unravels baffling enigmas and solves clever cases. Patrick Picklebottom Everyday Mysteries is perfect for kids and is just as entertaining for grownups who love a good mystery. The whole family can listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Ashley, host of Crime Salad, and every week my husband Ricky joins me as my partner in crime. We know the true crime space is crowded, so we skip the loud, bubbly small talk and get straight to the facts of the most gripping cases. If you want to see what we're all about, check out our recent two-parter deep dive. She saved him. Can You Save Her? Covering the baffling Rebecca Zahaw case. If you want to see what you want to see, if you want to see what, want a true crime podcast that feels authentic and respects the details, come check us out. Search crime salad wherever you get your podcast. Most likely, Sejanus would have gotten around to removing Caligula, but a few months after the boy arrived on Capri, Tiberius finally found out about Sejanus's involvement in his son's death. He was quickly arrested, executed by strangulation,

and then his body was given to the common people, who beat it and trampled it for three days before throwing it into the Tiber River. Dang, these people were not messing around. I guess that's what you do when you can't like doom scroll on Instagram or whatever. We've got to get our frustrations out somehow. Caligula was safe. Well, as safe as anyone could be in Roman politics,

which wasn't saying much. Soon Tiberius began to consider him a viable heir. Some ancient historians tell us that while Caligula was publicly cool and in control on Capri, he also had a secret life sneaking out at night in disguise, drinking, screwing around, singing, dancing, eager to watch torture and executions. Except for the last part, none of this seems that weird for a 19-year-old,

but to the stick-up-your-ass Roman elite, it would have been disqualifying. It mainly suggests that he had gotten very good at wearing a mask to disguise his true self, which is about as red of a flag as you can get. How many times have we seen that on this show, right? Mm-hmm. In 37 CE, Tiberius died and Caligula became emperor. Of course, nothing in ancient Rome happened as easily as that. Tiberius' will divided things equally between Caligula and his own grandson, Gamelis,

but Gamelis was only 17, and while Caligula himself was just 24, he'd had a much harsher education in Roman politics. After Sejanus fell, the new prefect of the Praetorian Guard was a man named Macro. He'd figured out early on that Caligula might be able to. the next emperor and had made an effort to get close to him, possibly even sending his wife Ennia to Caligula's bed, like some fucked up ancient Roman version of indecent proposal. Oh my God, Enia, honey, I'm so sorry. The Praetorian Guard were the only military force allowed inside Rome, and with them behind

Caligula, the Senate soon fell into line, because it's a smart idea to stay on good terms with big men holding swords. The Senate's choice was made easy. by the rumors that Gamalus might not have even been Tiberius' grandson. It was his father who'd been cuckolded and murdered by Sejanus. Maybe Gamalus was Sejanus's son. Tiberius had been unpopular. Sejanius was absolutely hated, as you could probably gather from the fact that the good citizens had stomped his dead body into a fine paste, and Caligula's father was a still beloved hero. The direction of the tide was clear. The Senate ignored Tiberius'

will, and Caligula became sole emperor. He formally adopted Gamalus as his heir, for now, anyway. Now, initially, everybody loved Caligula. He had the ashes of his persecuted family brought back to Rome and taken to the mausoleum of Augustus, and had coins minted to honor them, as well as his three sisters. The message was clear enough. After the dark later years of Tiberius, the family of Augustus was back in control. He gave away money, held extravagant games, treated the Senate with respect. He was everything you could want in an emperor, and the people thought he was the bees' knees. Then seven months into his reign, he got sick. It's not clear how. Romans loved to be all judgey about people having a good time, so ancient historians attributed the illness to Caligula having too much food, wine, and sex after he

became emperor. Who knows what actually made him sick, but like we said earlier, sudden dangerous illnesses were pretty par for the course in the ancient world. Caligula almost died, and afterwards, well, afterwards things got weird. There are theories that whatever his illness was, it caused some kind of change in Caligula's brain. It might also be that the close brush with death caused Caligula to shrug off the meek little mask he'd had to wear to survive under Tiberius. He'd almost died, and when death seemed likely, he'd seen people scurrying around. to try and figure out the next successor. It seemed likely that Gamalus might become emperor after all.

Once he'd recovered, Caligula decided to make sure nobody's thoughts were still moving in that direction and sent a military tribune to force Gamalus to kill himself. Oh, my God. Gamalus, who was still just a kid, didn't know the Roman traditions of suicide, so the tribune had to show him how to open up his own veins with his sword. Jesus, Jones. Oh, that's awful. Shortly after that, Caligula sent the executioners after Macro, the Praetorian Prefect, who'd shared his wife with him.

It's not clear why, but I'd guess that maybe Macro had moved too quickly to suck up to the assumed future Emperor Gamalus. Caligio had Macra's wife Ennea killed as well. Again, like, women are just props in history. It's fucking awful. I'm mad every time. This was just the start of a reign of political arrests and executions that kept the elite of Rome and fear for the next few years.

And things only got worse in the next year when Caligula's favorite sister, Drusilla, died. Now, when we say favorite sister, there's a long tradition in ancient Roman histories that once you've decided someone is a villain, you don't hold back. And one of the favorite ways to dirty someone up was to accuse them of some kind of sexual perversion.

Within a few decades of Caligal's death, there were written accusations of incestuous relationships with all three of his sisters, and also that Caligula would offer knights with his sisters as rewards for his favorites. court. Ew. Yeah.

I think incestuous pimp is a new one for TCC, which is kind of shocking with how much we've covered. I guess I'm mostly surprised it took this long. This is so Game of Thrones. I can't get over the Game of Thronesiness of this entire episode. Yeah, and I'm sure Georgia R. Martin took notes when he was studying Roman history. Calicula was unusually devoted to his sisters, particularly Drusilla, who he sometimes asked to take on the traditional duties of his wife at social events, even though they were both

married. When he was sick, Caligula had named her as his heir. When she became ill herself and died soon after, Calicula was devastated, mourning in the ways that Romans usually mourned a spouse and having the Senate officially declare her a goddess, Diva Drusilla. Ooh, diva Drusilla. That's going to be my karaoke name from now on. Yeah, like, anybody need a roller derby name? Like, you can have that one for free. So we know for sure that he was unusually devoted to a sister. Just how far that unusually stretches, I guess we'll never know. With the caveat that people writing his early histories really hated Caligula,

here are some more stories from his brief reign. He had a favorite racehorse in Catatos, who had his own servants, a marble stable and a jeweled collar. This isn't so far out of line with the average crazy, rich person behavior. But Caligula wanted to make the horse console one of the highest positions in Rome and reserved only for senators, which is adorable. I'm sorry, it's cute. It's cute. Oh, man, it's like that town that has a cat as the mayor. I love it. This is sometimes presented as Caligula being completely off his rocker, but it's more likely an insulting joke by

Caligula who thought the emperor should have supreme power. Like, this is what I think of the Senate. A horse could do your job. And he could wear a little toga. It'd be so cute. At dinner parties, if a senator's wife caught his eye, Caligula would sometimes leave the dining room with her. He could have anyone in the city killed. What are either half of the couple going to do? Then he'd come back and publicly critique the poor woman's performance in bed, right in front of her husband and everybody else. Wow. If he was bored, Caligula would sometimes order executions just to entertain himself. Sometimes at banquets or parties where everyone else would be forced to watch. and pretend they enjoyed this stuff too.

Caligula developed a habit of cosplaying as various gods, Jupiter, Apollo, even Venus one time, and sometimes whispered to statues of the gods as if they were carrying on a conversation. Caligula's future reputation as being insane was exaggerated, but it's not hard to imagine him trying to keep people off guard by pretending he had some kind of divine madness. It also fit with him trying to establish a divine monarchy

similar to what existed in Egypt. He also forced senators to prostrate themselves and kiss his feet, something which struck at the core of the Roman belief that their supposedly Republican government was superior to the monarchies of the time. That, or he just had a foot thing. I mean, who can say? So how much of this is all true?

It's impossible to know. We do know that Caligula pursued the more usual activities of tyrannical Roman emperors. He had political opponents prosecuted and sometimes killed, he invented new laws to allow him to seize land and property, and he spent enormous amounts of public money on monuments and games. He also managed to make every powerful group in Rome absolutely hate him, and this was not smart. We're just two emperors removed from Julius Caesar being stabbed to death in the Senate at this point, and Caligula was no Julius Caesar.

He also managed to make individuals hate him. And there was an officer named Cassius Chyria, a soldier who'd won recognition for bravery in Germanicus's army, and who now served in the Praetorian Guard. Caligula thought Cassius had a sort of effeminate vibe, and the emperor took every chance he could to make fun of him for it, putting on a stupid girly voice whenever he spoke to Cassius, prancing around, you know, you get it. You know, if you're going to pull that shit, I don't know if I'd pull it with somebody who's gone toe to toe with Cray's seven-foot-tall Germans. I'm just saying. Cassius wanted to kill Caligula, partly, maybe a big, part out of vengeance, but also because he hoped Rome might give up on having emperors altogether

and go back to being a real republic. He started a plot to assassinate the emperor and quickly learned that he wasn't the only one who felt this way. There were like four separate plots going on to rub out Caligula. He'd only been emperor for four years. It's almost impressive that he'd managed to fuck up so badly so fast. The various plots coalesced into one, and in January of 41C.E, as Caligula left a theatrical performance. Cassius hacked into his neck with a sword while another conspirator stabbed him. Caligula fell to the floor and called out, as if surprised,

I'm still alive. That didn't last long. More people joined in the assassination, and he was stabbed 30 times, with some killers making a particular point of stabbing him in the groin. Ugh. Then some conspirators went and killed Caligula's wife and infant daughter, which is just objectively not freaking coolest,

It's not their fault. Geez, Louise. Cassius' dream of reviving the Republic was not to be. Caligula's reign proved that the Praetorian Guard could both make and break an emperor, and the guard in general thought that their interests would be served by having an emperor, but like a weak one. They searched the palace for Caligula's scholarly Uncle Claudius, Germanicus's brother. He had hidden behind a curtain at the sound of violence,

but a soldier noticed his feet sticking out and pulled the curtain open. Claudius dropped to his knees expecting to be assassinated, but instead the soldier addressed him as emperor. I feel like I'd want my emperor to be better than that at hide and seek. I'm just saying, you've got to make sure your toesies aren't showing, y'all. Caligula would soon become a byword for insane extravagance and indulgence, but I think his brief reign goes to show how easily great power can make someone act completely bonkers. He certainly wasn't the last Roman emperor to have the cheese slide off his. Cracker. Maybe there's just something to be said for this whole democracy thing. You think?

Hmm. So there you have it. Two of history's most unhinged creeps. One of whom inspired one of the greatest monsters in literature and one ancient Roman Patrick Bateman. Tell us campers, would you rather go up against Vlad the Impaler or Dracula? Bateman or Emperor Caligula. Roman Psycho. I like it. That is what he was. He was. Yeah. Like a psycho. A charming psychopath, who then became less charming. I decided to just whip that mask right off. Now, before we go, don't forget about our true crime cruise, Crime Wave 2.0, February 8th through the 12th, 2027.

If you want to come to the Bahamas with us and some of the biggest true crime and paranormal podcasts in the world, like case file, unexplained, last podcast on the left and true crime garage, here's what you got to do. Tickets are on sale now, but they are like almost so. sold out. So if you want to go, make sure you get over to CrimeWaveatC.com slash campfire and book your cabin ASAP. You'll get $100 off plus a private meet and greet with us. The great thing is you can pay all at once or set up a payment plan and pay it off over time. So get on it all. That's crimewave atc.com slash campfire. So that was a wild one, right campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week.

But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the True Crime Campfire. And as all ways we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Kate, Calford, Vicky, and Gaia. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you are missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus tons of extra content, like patrons-only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions. And we're going to start up Love After Lockup again. Yes. We watch. Love after Lockup and react to it. And it is like.

like hurt yourself funny. We laugh so hard. And once you join the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff, a free sticker, a rad enamel pin, a fridge magnet while supplies last virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. Do you ever watch a TV show set in a historical time period and think, how accurate is this really? But also, does it matter if it's accurate or not? Nefer TV is a new podcast about shows set in ancient times. This season, we're recapping every episode of the show, Spartacus, Blood and Sand.

I'm Anne Foster, and I have never seen this show before. And I'm Gina Barry, and I have watched this show maybe too many times. Join us every other Monday on the Nefer TV podcast as we discuss the real history behind Spartacus, Blood, and Sand. Follow Nefer TV. That's N-E-F-E-R-T-V-V-E-E-E-E-R-T-V. whatever you get your podcasts. Hi listeners. We want to tell you about a podcast we love. It's called Rebel Girls,

formerly known as Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. It's about real-life women who are changing the world with their courage, creativity, and big, bold ideas. Want to know how Taylor Swift became a superstar or hear how Simone Biles became the greatest athlete of all time, from immersive stories to heartfelt, interviews to super smart advice. Rebel Girls brings you stories that will get you fired up to become your best self. There are over 400 episodes for you to explore with new episodes every week.

So check it out. Listen to Rebel Girls wherever you get your podcasts. And find us on YouTube.com slash Rebelgirls. And whatever you do, stay Rebel.