Were Caligula and Nero really as bad as they're stereotyped as...

Were Caligula and Nero really as bad as they're stereotyped as, or is this just a case of history being told by the victors (in this case, the people not assassinated young)?

Nero was pretty well liked by the populace, so I doubt he was that bad.
Caligula I don't recall that much about apart from the horse thing being an incredibly big way to say 'fuck you' to the senate.

Caligula was just a troll that liked fucking with the snobby upper-class senators, and mostly left the common people alone. As such his name was slandered by senators (who wrote all of the histories and biographies at the time).

Nero was ruthless to the Christians by torturing and executing hundreds to thousands of them, and thus was slandered by Christians/Christian monks and priests (who wrote all of the histories and biographies of the early medieval age).

Neither were particularly good emperors, but I doubt either of them were anywhere near as bad as they were portrayed. It would be like believing everything a hardcore Hillary voter said about Trump.

as regards Nero's alleged persecution of Christians, recent scholarship suggests that some Christians did participate in helping propagate the disastrous fire in Rome as they believed it to be the coming of a prophecised apocalypse, and it seems to be generally accepted that many confessed to this whether or not they had in fact participated. The result was that many were rounded up and arrested, however, legal documents discovered suggest that, far from persecuting them summarily, it was actually Nero himself (who had previously served as a consul) who insisted on proper investigations and trials (which is consistent with the account of Suetonius).

Historical accounts of Nero are hugely problematic as during his reign he had managed to alienate and infuriate almost all of the wealthy, the powerful and influential, the Senators and upper classes (from whose ranks the writers of the subsequent accounts came), and also because he was apparently so popular amongst the lower populace that, even though he was declared public enemy after his death and serious attempts were made to erase his image and memory from public consciousness, belief in the popular legend that he would return after death persisted for several centuries.

BASED nero blowing christcucks the fuck out to the point where the very mention of his name is considered blasphemy.
>he also showed what they all are, murderers who stab you in the back the first chance they get

Nero didn't actually burn Rome, he even lost his favorite palace in the fire and spend thousands to provide help to the people.

Concerning Caligula, it seems that he indeed was kind of crazy, inviting some patricians to dinner and fucking their wives during the meal in a backroom.

Source: Les douze Césars, Régis F. Martin

>Concerning Caligula, it seems that he indeed was kind of crazy, inviting some patricians to dinner and fucking their wives during the meal in a backroom.

If by crazy you mean the ultimate chad who JUSTed the Senate on a constant basis, sure.

I mean, in regards to Caligula, I'm sure it makes you all sorts of fucked up to have family members around you assassinated, living in captivity, constantly fearing for your life. But yeah, that guy was pretty koo koo, especially in his later days. I suggest listening to the History of Rome podcast, Mike Duncan has some interesting things to say about Nero and Caligula.

Nero was so loved by the population that multiple pretenders rose after his death claiming to be him or him reborn, so I doubt he was nearly as bad as history makes him out to be.
Caligula wasn't bad either, paranoid and murderous to the aristocracy and a wastrel, sure, but he wasn't that bad to the general population, and he also wasn't insane as it is wildly believed today, every thing that we consider proof of his insanity can be explained with the fact that he wanted to ridicule people, the senate with the horse thing, his army for being afraid to cross to Britain by making them pick seashells and fight the sea, etc.

Yeah? And the incestous relationship with his sister, which I'm sure the Romans greatly approved of?
For the first part of his reign he wasn't THAT bad. But in the end, he got increasingly paranoid and arbitrary in his punishments and humiliations of the ruling class. That isn't the hallmarks of a good or even decent ruler.