9 Fecking Insane Roman Scandals That Would Make Our Tabloids Blush!
'Who knew soccer moms were already ascendant back then?'
Buckle up, scandal hounds! We're traveling back through the ages to unearth some of the most fecking outrageous, jaw-dropping scandals from the glorious dumpster fire that was Ancient Rome.
From blasphemous palace orgies and enough inbreeding to make a Hapsburg blush, to political backstabbings so utterly loony they'd make the Underwoods reconsider their careers - consider this your bacchanalian binge-pass into the real-life House of Sadiusculls!
Don't forget to pack your metaphorical sick bag, because these aren't the tidy, whitewashed stories of valor they peddle in the schoolbooks. We're talking full-frontal historical truth straight out of Suetonius' secret diaries.
So prepare those eyeballs for a fecking ocular assault of debauchery, vice and lascivious 'blessed' excess that'll have even died-in-the-wool pagans clutching their pearls! Senators and vestal virgins beware - this chronicle is about to go full-tilt R-rated.
1. The Fecking Caligula Birthing Fiesta
Speaking of completely unhinged Emperors driven mad by power, let's kick things off with Gaius "Caligula" Caesar Augustus Germanicus and one of his most profoundly off-the-rails funks.
According to the delightfully scathing historian Suetonius, Rome's third Emperor was an utter basket case who presided over literal orgies of religious sacrilege - like the time he assembled his royal harem of concubines into a blasphemous cult mimicking the Bona Dea fertility rituals...only to take things gloriously too far.
As the ceremony reached its climax with Caligula portraying the goddess giving ritualistic birth, the Little Boots demanded his hoes act as literal midwives and witness his own"fecking" entranced from a phallus-shaped tent as he wailed in simulated labor-pains.
The whole charade ended up with the crazed Emperor cosplaying as a newborn swaddled in baby's clothes while being slapped, spanked and suckled on-demand before a captive audience. Drop Palace Kids on Netflix when?
2. The Inbred Grandson-Nephew Bromance Spectacular
While we're on the subject of dysfunctional families, the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula also provide one of history's cringiest bro-mances blurring bloodlines. Turns out that in addition to being the most famously paranoid Emperor and trailblazer of exiled beach bum chic, Tiberius was head-over-heels in love with his nephew...who also happened to be Caligula, his grandson through adoption and successor!
The two were inseparable in the weirdest way, with Tiberius showering the youth with lavish gifts and political power at every opportunity while whispers of their more intimate relationship set Roman tongues wagging.
Even by the admittedly lax standards of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, having an Emperor openly fawn over someone who was both nephew AND stepgrandchild was pretty fecking wild.
Did their rumored physical entanglement somehow explain why Caligula later descended into such tormented lunacy on the throne himself? Food for depraved thought...
3. The Cunning Linguist Scandal
For all their accomplishments in jurisprudence, architecture and civic works, you just knew there had to be at least one vintage Roman scandal involving extremely problematic fellatio etiquette.
I give you Mallonia, wife of the esteemed consul Lucius Caninius Gallus back in 19 BCE, whose fearsome oral talents caused a right ruckus amidst the annoyed aristocratic pearl-clutchers of the imperial court.
Of course the act itself was no big whoop by licentious Roman standards, but Mallonia proved so shockingly gifted in the carnal arena that scandalized colleagues eventually turned her into a verb - "malleodare" literally meaning "to perform cunnilingus like Mallonia!"
How insulting is that? All that hard work, only to be linguistically reduced and memed into the Illiblurt of her era. Couldn't have been good for their marriage counseling sessions, let me tell you...
4. Elagabalus' Fecking Arabian Orgy Road Show
While the tales of Caligula's debauchery remain unmatched in the Roman record books, nobody was quite as devoted to public indecency and tasteless sexual sacrilege as young Emperor Elagabalus.
After rising from relative Syrian obscurity to don the purple robes, the 14-year-old promptly set about turning the hallowed Roman streets into his own licentious fantasyland - chariot-racing through crowds completely nude, setting up cabal-ordained orgies inside the Imperial palace and even going so far as marrying a vestal virgin charitably described by historian Cassius Dio as "well past his prime."
The real kicker though was importing his entire cult of exotic Arabian sun-worshipers into Rome to help redefine the meaning of "throupling."
Under Elagabalus' reign, sacred Phallic carvings decorated the city while he cavorted with temple courtesans flown in weekly from modern Lebanon and Syria - guzzling fine wines and indulging freely in his favorite pastime of cosplaying different Greek deities mid-coitus! You think Vatican shindigs get lit now...
5. Messalina's Masquerade Gauntlet
What's the sign of a fecking power-hungry Roman seductress with too much time on her silken hands? For the Empress Messalina, third wife of Emperor Claudius, not enough carnal conquests in the palace apparently drove her into the city's seediest bordellos for an extra dose of forbidden passion and public notoriety.
Dressed in disguise, Messalina would allegedly traverse Rome's most debased underbelly - ducking into taverns, entertaining whole cohorts of male patrons in VIP rooms, while even being rumored to have bested the capital's most famous prostitute Julia Rufina in a masochistic "Gauntlet of the Gods" orgy competition spanning 24 hours!
Eventually her libidinous exploits became so numerous and audacious that even the tamest gossip columns were buzzing with embarrassing details of citizens bedding the masquerading Empress without ever realizing it.
The scandal ostensibly fueled her second marriage's demise - though if Claudius already deluded himself into overlooking her affair with his own freedman chamberlain...yikes.
6. The Curiously Peculiar Priapic Censorship
For any budding classicists out there, allow me to pose a quick historical inquiry: just why the hell did some ancient Roman lawmakers find it so hard to distinguish actual pornography from...fruit still life paintings?
Trust me, this pans out to an absolutely fecking bonkers scandal when you discover that the prudish Senate once ordered the very public mutilation and desecration of a lavish artistic mosaic depicting...a floral arrangement with some ‘mens wear’ tossed into the stylized acanthus leaves.
No really, that happened - our toga-wearing ancestors awfully misconstrued an intricately-wrought decorative miracle commissioned for a lavish villa in AD 115 as depicting a wildly salacious secret garden orgy scene simply because the image featured a few "subtle" protrusions contributing to the "decadent milieu."
Cue dramatic clutching of the family pearls as elite lawmakers saw red and ordered the mosaic smashed into rubble on sight. Sure, Rome later built a grand tradition of actual artistic erotica - but apparently someone skipped mosaic literacy class that year. So much for that refined aesthetic!
7. Serica, The Most Prodigious Bimbo of Antiquity
If you thought latter-day pop divas going too hard on the Ecstasy were a modern scourge, wait'll you hear about Serica. A legendary female celebrity from the reign of Vespasian, she lorded over an unparalleled rep as pretty much the flakiest and most promiscuous floozy in all the Empire.
At one point, her degenerate peccadilloes extended to an epic tally of 25 abortions - all self-induced through an intensely acrobatic regimen of launching herself gut-first onto her solid marble apartment floors from significant heights (these tricks literally killed for attention).
But the real kicker? Homegirl was so fecking dedicated to topping herself that she craved the most elaborate fan acclaim whenever in public - like the time she made her official debut entrance at the massive Roman Colosseum riding bareback atop a massive gilded stallion with an unfeasibly-huge member jutting obscenely from its underbelly.
Leave it to a brash blonde bombshell starlet to totally eclipse the Equus cast! Debased celebrity truly hasn't evolved at all, folks.
8. That One Oedipus Complex Guy Who Just Had To Try It
Okay, look - even by the standards of fecked-up imperial vices we've unpacked so far, this one's going to seriously boggle the gourd with its sheer repulsive audacity.
Around 4 BCE, a wealthy patrician beast by the name of Fulvus Plautius Nobelior decided to boldly take the term "mother issues" to the next bone-chilling level.
Not content with the usual run-of-the-mill mistresses and concubines, ol' Fulvus was found procuring his own living, breathing biological MOTHER as sexual chattel on some creepy ritualistic Oedipal trip.
Look, I know the ancient Romans were perverts who constantly pushed those boundaries, but bedding your literal source of origin is just incestuous lunacy beyond forgiveness or reason.
How Nobelior managed to navigate that particular minefield of revulsion without getting permanently ousted from society remains a mystery. But hey, at least he never had to worry about disappointing disapproving in-laws!
9. The Depraved Matron Soccer Ball Injunction
Alright, let's close out this delicious dossier of depravity with perhaps the single most lurid yet situationally mundane scandal to ever rock official Rome.
In 93 BCE, the dignified Censor Lucius Licinius Crassus was overseeing a spartan round of potter-ted youth soccer in the Campus Martius District when the exhibition took a decidedly X-rated turn thanks to some mischievous spectating matrons.
Out of fecking nowhere, a cabal of idle aristocrat housewives bored during the match suddenly stripped stark naked and cheerfully began engaging in brazen exhibitionism by tumbling on the field - gleefully rolling around in the grass, making audible gestures and generally just bringing the whole unseemly flesh-baring escapade dangerously close to the action.
Crassus was so flustered he immediately snapped a public injunction against baring bosoms within 800 meters of any official athletic events! Who knew soccer moms were already ascendant back then?
Well, history fans, I think we've all earned a breather after that odyssey through the steaming pits of Imperial Rome's dankest societal stink-holes!
From unimaginably blasphemous cults of personality, to bromidic excess, spawning festivals of fellatio, and nipples literally flopping onto the soccer pitch, it's pretty clear those permissive ancients took "wine, women and song" to the absolute raunchiest extremes possible.
Thanks for reading! Hope this article gave you a chuckle or two.
Enjoyed the content? There are a few ways you can show your appreciation:
1. Free Subscriber: You're awesome! All content remains free for you. Forever.
2. Supporter: Your choice to support empowers writers and fuels creativity.
3. Founding Member: You're a champion of our mission, ensuring writers thrive.
Can't commit to a subscription? No worries! You can still...
[Buy That Fecker A Coffee] ☕
Remember, every contribution, while optional, is invaluable. You're not just funding content, you're nurturing a community of fellow 'That's Fecking Nuts' enthusiasts! Have a nice fecking day ;-)