The Caligula dock

Caligula it’s maybe one of the strangest emperors of all Romans history. He was very weird, no doubt about this: the sources tell about an unsociable person, very self-centred and ready to obtain everything he wanted no matter what. He had all the characteristics to become a perfect tyrant. In Pozzuoli, Caligula showed all his madness asking to build a dock. If we tell you this it doesn’t seem so strange, the great emperors of the past always took care of the public works. The thing that highlights its madness is that he wanted this dock to make a long bridge to connect Ischia with Pozzuoli. Why? Because he wanted to reach Ischia riding his horse. Recent studies revealed that maybe Caligula suffered from personality disorders due to “lead poisoning”. This illness was very diffused at that time because Romans used to bottle the wine in lead amphorae to keep it fresh. This is a plausible reason of his insanity, but not complete in our opinion: don’t forget that Caligula was the emperor who nominated his horse for consul!