This week, we offer three short tidbits on some famous ancients and their connections to tattoos. It's obvious from these examples just how controversial tattooing was in ancient Greek and Roman times:

The Greek philosopher Plato felt that those guilty of the crime of sacrilege should be tattooed and exiled from the Republic.

Another ancient Greek leader, the emperor Theophilus is said to have taken two monks who openly criticized him and had eleven verses of an obscene poem tattooed on their foreheads. 

And finally, the decadent and infamous Roman emperor Caligula was said to take great pleasure in randomly ordering members of his court to be tattooed however and wherever he wished.