The Twelve Caesars

The Twelve Caesars
Matthew Dennison

Matthew Dennison’s revisiting of Suetonius is probably unnecessary even for the general reader, adding little to the familiar story of the first dozen Roman emperors either in terms of new scholarship or fresh interpretation. Still it’s hard to go wrong with these colourful illustrations of how the power of an office corrupts. It may be that some of the worst of the bunch in fact wanted to do a better, more responsible job, but that was never in the cards. Following Augustus, though with less restraint, they resigned themselves to playing their part in the comedy.