Incitatus Dio (155-235 AD) indicated that the horse was attended to by servants and was fed oats mixed with gold flake, and that Caligula made the horse a priest. The accuracy of the received history is generally questioned. Historians such as Anthony A. Barrett suggest that later Roman chroniclers such as Suetonius and Dio Cassius were influenced by the political situation of their own times, when it may have been useful to the current emperors to discredit the earlier Julio-Claudian emperors. Also, the lurid nature of the story added spice to their narratives, winning them additional readers. One suggestion is that
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II (Joseph Benedikt Anton Michael Adam; 13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg lands from November 1780 until his death. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor Francis I, and the brother of Marie Antoinette. He was thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled Habsburg-Lorraine. Joseph was a proponent of enlightened absolutism; however, his commitment to modernizing reforms subsequently engendered significant opposition, which resulted in failure to fully