How does it compare to I, Claudius? I bet the theme song to the HBO miniseries isn't nearly as cool as the PBS one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%2C_Claudius

I had a college professor who was an expert on Ancient Rome and she said their costumes were one hundred years off. Kind of like a portrayl of 2005 Americans wearing Victorian-era clothing.

There is also the interesting idea that Caligula wasn't so much insane as he was just a typical nasty, spoiled member of the Roman elite who upon becoming Emperor decided to have "fun" with his office and the fact that he was supreme ruler of the Roman world and all that it entailed. Thus his doing extravagant things like making his horse a senator and having soldiers colelct seashells to declare that he had stolen Neptune's treasures. To the very conservative Roman establishment - not to mention about 2,000 years before modern psychiatry - this would have seemed like insane behavior.

See here for details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula

Another interesting fact: Caligula, though even less cultured and more sadistic than Nero, was not as demonized as the later Emperor by history mainly because he did not persecute the Christians in his time. Though I think it had more to do with him not caring about the tiny Jewish offshoot sect one way or the other.