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<\/a>Caligula. Copenhagen, New Carlsberg Glyptotek. Credit: Sergey Sosnovskiy<\/a> \/ CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a><\/p>\nIn Proceedings of the European Academy of Sciences & Arts, Andrew J. Koh of Yale University and Trevor S. Luke of Florida State University return to a brief anecdote that the Roman historian Suetonius has left us. It entails a praetorian-ranked Roman senator who traveled to Antikyra to remedy an unspecified illness with hellebore, a plant applied in ancient times to treat epilepsy, melancholy, and mental illness. When the senator kept asking Caligula to give him an extension for his medical leave, the emperor ordered his execution, reputedly stating, \u201cA bloodletting was necessary for one whom hellebore had not benefited in all that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
This sinister quip, hitherto understood to be a mark of Caligula\u2019s sadism, can be seen to represent a nuanced awareness of medical practice in ancient Rome. According to the researchers, the remark actually reflects the language of medical texts of the period. It suggests that Caligula would have known the therapeutic duration of hellebore and even had knowledge of alternatives, such as bloodletting, promoted by Celsus in De Medicina, a treatise penned during the period of Caligula\u2019s predecessor, Tiberius.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the Yale Ancient Pharmacology Program (YAPP) combined ethnobotanical fieldwork in modern Greece with close reading of ancient materials like the Vienna Dioscorides manuscript. They discovered that while large quantities of hellebore likely did not exist even in Antikyra, the town was renowned for its unique healing potions, most typically combining hellebore with another plant, sesamoides, to counteract its toxic effects. These potent potions helped build Antikyra\u2019s reputation as a kind of \u201cMayo Clinic of the Roman world,\u201d Koh explains.<\/p>\n
Antikyra\u2019s reputation as a healing center had already drawn Roman elites during the first century BCE. Caligula\u2019s own great-great-grandfather, Marcus Livius Drusus, was treated successfully for epilepsy there in 91 BCE. The town was part of a growing trend in \u201cancient medical tourism,\u201d in which affluent Romans traveled abroad for specialized care.<\/p>\n The researchers argue that Caligula\u2019s association with Antikyra and hellebore was not coincidental. Ancient texts suggest the emperor suffered from insomnia, epilepsy, and mental illness\u2014all conditions traditionally treated with hellebore. His paranoia may also have driven him to study poisons and antidotes: his father Germanicus died suspiciously, which the family believed involved poisoning. This climate of fear may have prompted Caligula to dabble in pharmacology\u2014not just because he was interested, but because he needed to survive.<\/p>\n![\"Mad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/mad-emperor-caligula-3.jpg\")
<\/a>Helleborus cyclophyllus in Dunedin Botanic Garden, Dunedin, New Zealand. Credit: Krzysztof Golik<\/a> \/ CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a><\/p>\n
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<\/a>Marble bust of Caligula with traces of original paint beside a plaster replica trying to recreate the polychrome traditions of ancient sculpture. Credit: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, K\u00f8benhavn<\/p>\n