Ancients Behaving Badly

Ancients Behaving Badly is an eight-part series that recounts the antics of rulers throughout history. Each episode examines the actions of a single ruler, educating the audience about the individual through consultations with historians and animated shorts. Each episode concludes by charting the featured ruler’s actions on a ‘psycho graph’, where they are rated from goal-driven killer to psychopathic murderer on one axis, with their individual pathologies measured on the other.

With the sole exception of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, the series addresses only men. The seven men featured are Caligula, the hedonistic Emperor of Rome from 37–41 CE; Attila the Hun, the feared ruler of several European tribes; Julius Caesar, who transformed Rome into an empire; Alexander the Great, the youthful conqueror; Nero, a Roman emperor widely considered responsible for the Great Fire of Rome; Hannibal, a Carthaginian military genius; and Genghis Khan, ruler of the Mongol Horde.