Caligula

Reading about Romans in fiction by Poul Anderson, Neil Gaiman and SM Stirling motivates us to read some Roman history and I must quote here one sentence from Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars. We have all heard of Caligula whose full name was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, also called Gaius and Caligula, and listed by Suetonius as "Gaius Caligula."

Suetonius writes:

"So much for Gaius the Emperor; the rest of this history must needs deal with Gaius the Monster."

-Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars (London, 2007), p. 156.

Suetonius pulled no punches and told it like it was. 

Fortunately, SM Stirling's time travellers do not arrive during the reign of either Caligula or Nero. However, this is not a  accident. Their destination date was carefully chosen for them both by their author and by the fellow character who is responsible for their "temporal displacement." They benefit from the experience of earlier (fictional) time travellers. (A logical way to write sf.)