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These days, when we hear about the emperors of ancient Rome, it's usually the stories of their crazy behavior or incredible cruelty.

Tiberius had tons of orgies. Caligula made his horse a senator. Nero fiddled while the city burned.

And the problem is most of these stories, maybe all of these stories just aren't true.

And so when writing her book about the emperors, the historian Mary Beard, had to decide whether to include the stories at all.

But Beard says serious history is about more than just the bare facts.

And she realized this when she was writing about one of the emperor's Elagabalus.

He's an emperor at the beginning of the third century, CE.

Came the throne age about 14 and was assassinated when he was 18.

And the stories about him, they make Nero look like a kind of sweetie pussycat, honestly.

He does things like showering his guests with rose petals,

but so many rose petals that they smother and die.

He has a shoe fetish.

So it said that he never wore the same pair of shoes twice.

Now, one of the best is the invention, or I think it's the invention of the whoopee cushion

that he invites people to dinner.

And he sits them on inflatable cushions.

And gradually during the evening he has slaves go round and let the air rush the cushions

so the poor guys end up on the floor.

Most of these still risks. A few of them might be half true, a few of them might be exaggerations,

but most of these, they're told after the assassination of Eligabalus to blacken his name.

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