I've just read Lindsey Davis' "Course of Honour" (Thanks for the nudge, Jean, I'd been meaning to for ages!) and enjoyed it very much. However, I was getting a mite confused by them there Romans' habit of marrying their step-daughter who was also their nephew's widow (you know what I mean!).
I was also losing track of who was doing what, where and to whom. I tried going back to the tie-in from the telly series "I, Caesar" which helped a bit, but I'm still muddled, hence this appeal.
Can anyone recommend a concise but accurate and easily digestible equivalent of Gibbons? Preferably with genealogical tables. One that was reasonably readily available through a public library would also be useful!
Hope someone can help.
PS This also appears in Another Forum - if you read both, ignore the second one you read!
You should be aware that I, Caudius is fiction although the characters were real enough. Some historians did publish a book at about the time the TV series was first aired attempting to put the record straight but I expect it will be out of print.
"From The Gracchi, To Nero" by HH Scullard is a little dated now, but still a good starting point for the chronology of the late republic and early empire.
Tom Hollands book "Rubicon" is a very readable more recent account as well, and seems to cover most of the period fairly well.
what you see is what you get with the Romans? a whole string of engaging but unsavoury emperors - theres Nero, Caligula, stuttering Claudius by the time we get to Constantine things have got a bit less interesting he became a christian for gods sake how dull is that! no more orgies or gluttonous feasts
Originally posted by saffron_hill: what you see is what you get with the Romans? a whole string of engaging but unsavoury emperors - theres Nero, Caligula, stuttering Claudius by the time we get to Constantine things have got a bit less interesting he became a christian for gods sake how dull is that! no more orgies or gluttonous feasts
Diocletian had his moments as well Tony. Tiberius had a high old time on Capri as well, with his "speciality" acts. Have to go a long way to top Augustus / Octavian though. Was he the most powerful man who ever walked the earth? No psychotic, not mad, just deliciously single minded. Early in his career he was dispatched to Spain to pacify the remaining rebellious tribes in the north of the country. He of course used the alternative meaning of the word "pacify", ie, "The systematic annihalation of every living creature on the Iberian peninsular".
I really enjoyed 'The Enemies of Rome' by Philip Matyszak. It looks at the history, politics and society of the Roman Empire from the point of view of those who opposed it. And though the the stories of those like Spartacus, Vercingetorix and Boudicca are well known, they are entertaingly re-examined here in their impact on Rome, as are the lives of lesser-known (to me, at any rate),freedom-fighters such as Jugurtha, Viriathus and Orodes. It gave me a much greater sense of just what made Rome so successful. And it's a cracking read.
Originally posted by saffron_hill: what you see is what you get with the Romans? a whole string of engaging but unsavoury emperors - theres Nero, Caligula, stuttering Claudius by the time we get to Constantine things have got a bit less interesting he became a christian for gods sake how dull is that! no more orgies or gluttonous feasts
This is more a function of the absence of good histories for the late Roman Empire rather than due to the lack of interesting Emperors. How about Diocletian - the only emperor to go into voluntary retirement, not once, but twice - the second time so succesfully that his death is not accurately recorded. As for Constantine I, don't be confused by the Christianity thing - Christians then thought very differently. Added to which, he did not convert to Christianity until he was on his deathbed - he felt that being an emperor meant that he might from time to time have to undertake un-Christian acts. An for sheer unbridled lunacy have a look at a biography of the emperor Julian.
there are plenty of Late Roman characters out here if you look hard enough
