Mary Beard answers 'which Roman Emperor is Donald Trump most like?' The Today Podcast BBC

[Aristus]

6. Actually, you can make it up.

Historians are coming around to the idea that a great deal of the salacious stuff written about Caligula, Nero, and Tiberius was invented or exaggerated by contemporary historians in order to discredit the Principate.

This becomes especially clear when you realize that at least one of the more frequently read historians, Suetonius, was a Roman Senator.

This doesn’t exonerate any of them, of course. Since they were all rich and powerful, they did shitty things, the way rich and powerful people have always done, and still do today.