Moments subpages, including Nightmare Fuel, are SPOILERS OFF. You have been warned!
- When Augustus is presented with the evidence of his daughter Julia's adulteries and all the men she's slept with, he interrogates each one with deadly calm and sarcasm. The last few are so terrified, all they can do is nod that yes, they have slept with Julia. Augustus, enraged and utterly humiliated, finally lets loose with "IS THERE ANYONE IN ROME WHO HAS NOT SLEPT WITH MY DAUGHTER"!?! and orders for the men to be dragged out. BRIAN BLESSED, talking about the scene decades later, remarked:
- "Now we see, the full power of Caesar [...] Take them out! They're going to be vaporized. They're going to be vaporized!"
- The overall effect of Blessed talking calmly and quietly (for once) is not unlike watching the inexorable burning of a slow fuse leading to a very large barrel of gunpowder.
- Caligula. What he does to his sister Drusilla (getting her drunk before chaining her up on his bed, stripping her naked, cutting her open and eating her unborn child, all while assuring her that it won't hurt) is disturbing enough, especially with her absolutely bloodcurdling scream when he stabs her, but at least happens offscreen, and the audience doesn't see the result. His cousin Gemellus, on the other hand... Gemellus has a weak chest, and won't stop coughing. Caligula finds this incredibly aggravating, and eventually sends him to his room in the middle of dinner, but insists later that evening, when Claudius comes to see him, that he can still hear him coughing. Midway through their conversation, he says that it has finally stopped, much to his relief. Shortly, they are interrupted by Macro... carrying Gemellus' severed head. Which is so mutilated that Claudius doesn't recognise it. And Gemellus is only twelve years old.
- We do see Caligula come out with blood on his mouth and telling Claudius 'Don't go in there. Don't...go in there.' Claudius looks in, then looks revolted. And this is the toned-down version of the scene.
- While Caligula's actions post-apotheosis are horrifying, the lead-up to his mental breakdown takes the cake for creepiness. He is in a meeting with the senators as he starts changing the topic suddenly, repeating things he's already said, and complaining about a headache that is like "a galloping in his head" - and as the scene proceeds, the viewers can hear the sound of galloping horses, too. Eventually, he collapses on the floor, screaming in pain and begging Augustus (whom he believes is invading his mind) to make it stop. It's enough to make you feel sorry for him. The galloping sound effect returns later when he is cutting up Drusilla, only to resolve into the sound of Claudius who is desperately banging on the door.
- He got started very early as well. Livia, when asking Martina the poisoner how she murdered Germanicus, is genuinely disturbed to learn that it was actually Caligula who poisoned his own father (albeit manipulated by Martina) in an effort to prove that he was a god. "He's not a god, he's a monster!"
- The description of Tiberius' actions at his villa is horrific. A woman describes how she was raped by him when she offered herself in place of her daughter and kills herself.
- When Sejanus is overthrown, Livilla - whom he conspired with - is locked in her room by her own mother and left to starve to death, screaming to be let out. What's even worse is that Antonia tortures herself by sitting outside the locked room, listening to her daughter's cries, since that's her own punishment for giving birth to - and taking it upon herself to murder - such a monstrous woman.
- In the same episode and almost the same scene, Sejanus' children, a daughter and son — neither of whom is over the age of 10 — are murdered by soldiers. Roman culture viewed killing a virgin as abhorrent, and one of the soldiers points out this fact to Macro. Macro's response is "Then make sure she's not a virgin when you kill her. Now get on with it." Suetonius wrote that this was the practice under Tiberius when executing virgins. It's mentioned by Claudius' wife that the soldiers who killed Sejanus' children raped his daughter before killing her, and dressed the boy in his 'coming of age' robes (so that he was legally an adult) before doing the same. Apicata killed herself after finding out what was done to her children's bodies. Ugh.
- It's easy to forget that most of these people are FAMILY, and actively plotting to murder, imprison, or exile one another for their own selfish personal gain. Very few of the Julio-Claudians seem to have any familial love for one another, and those who do often have that love exploited by other family members. Livia, in particular, has little to no love for her own offspring, plotting to murder two of her own grandsons (Gaius and Lucius) and admitting she would have killed a third (Germanicus) and even her own son (Drusus) if she had been given the opportunity. Meanwhile, Augustus sends his own daughter into exile never to see her again, and Claudius' own mother never misses an opportunity to make him feel bad about himself, asking him to be with her when she commits suicide and then doing the deed before he arrives as one final act of spite. Livilla tries to poison her own daughter, and in turn is starved to death by her own mother, who barricades her in her bedroom and sits outside her door to listen to her final moments. Caligula not only disembowels his own pregnant wife but then consumes the fetus. When even most wild animals will put themselves in harm's way to protect their families, it's downright terrifying to imagine being a part of the Julio-Claudians, where your own parents or siblings may be actively plotting to harm or kill you on a constant basis. Possibly worst of all is that however terrible events are depicted or implied on screen the real life historical events are even worse.
