TV review: Caligula, with Mary Beard

Wahay, thought several million people as they settled on their sofas at 9pm last night. This'll be good.

Mind you, as we all know, history is written by the victor. And in Caligula's case those victors' stories were being saved for posterity by Suetonius and other Roman historians decades after was hacked to death on the afternoon of January 22, 41AD on his way to the baths.

Nearly two thousand years later the third emperor's reputation got even more of a kicking in popular culture with the double whammy of I Claudius, which told the story of his equally nasty successor , and the producers of the notoriously bonkers Italian-American "erotic" – ahem – biopic who decided to have a crack at it themselves in 1979.

I don't know if you've ever seen that version of Caligula's life story, but I wouldn't lose sleep if you haven't. It isn't exactly Citizen Kane.

I looked in the last time Channel Five, ever the benchmark for quality, gave it a screening. But the sight of actors I admire – Malcolm McDowell, Peter O'Toole, Helen Mirren – looking deeply, deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves meant I turned off after about 10 minutes, as much for their sake as my own.

And now it turns out that, just possibly, the 1979 film might not have been the scrupulously researched historical epic the producers no doubt set out to achieve.

With gratuitous nudity.

"It's Caligula who has come to stand for the corruption, horror and excess of Imperial Rome," said Professor Mary Beard, the Shropshire-born Cambridge classicist.

And yet it turns out there's no proof that during his four years as Caesar the 28-year-old did any of the things associated with his name over two millennia.

Did he make his horse a consul? I doubt it, said Professor Beard as she wandered around the ruins of ancient Rome.

It was probably a joke, she explained. Something he said that got taken out of context.

Even the tales of his evil deeds fall apart under close scrutiny, she added.

Historical reports are not so much a case of 'He did this', as 'I've heard that he did this', or 'It's been said that he did this', which are completely different things.

After a while I was confused as to what he did, what he was supposed to have done, and what he definitely didn't do.

Apparently one of his favourite sayings was 'Let them hate me. As long as they fear me."

Now I've no idea if he actually did say that, or if it's just a quote attributed to him. And that's the trouble. It seems that we don't really know anything.

In fact, the best-known fact about Caligula is his murder, and that could have been orchestrated by his relatives, who objected to the rule of succession unless it applied to them, or by those hoping to return Rome to democracy. Either way, his reputation was being ruined almost as the fatal blow was being struck.

"One nasty rumour said that the assassins ate his flesh," said Professor Beard. Which seems a bit extreme to say the least.

Even the producers of the 1979 film drew the line at that.

Well, I certainly hope they did. I've absolutely no intention of watching it to find out.

Andrew Owen