Overview

A unique and entertaining history of the Roman Empire's first dynasty 14 CE: The first Roman emperor is dead. A second is about to succeed. The Forum of Rome, once fought over so fiercely, has become hardly more than a museum. The house of all power is up above on the Palatine Hill, about to become the birthplace of Western bureaucracy, a warren of banqueting and bedrooms, a treacherous household where it takes special talents to survive. This is a history of ancient Rome's first imperial dynasty--the Julio-Claudians--with a cast of new men and newly dominant women, those reviled too often in the past as flatterers and gluttons, audacious slaves and former slaves, lawyers-for-hire, chancer arrivistes, and unhinged party animals. Palatine uncovers the lives of the Vitellii, perhaps Rome's least admired imperial clan, of Publius, an old-fashioned soldier snared in the politics of the new age, of Lucius, an exceptionally skilled and sycophantic courtier, and of Aulus a genial sluggard whose prowess at the table carries him all the way to the throne before collapsing his family's reputation forever. Few now remember them. Yet in their creeping ascent to the very summit of the imperial hierarchy lie neglected truths about a lasting legacy of Rome.

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9780197555286

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Reviews

This is a literary work of cultural history--a wonderful example of profound scholarship written with the verve and expertise of an accomplished novelist.... Wonderful, evocative stuff! -- The Telegraph Peter Stothard's Palatine gives us alternate Rome, the imperial palace seen from an oblique angle. It's the story of a prominent family that aimed high and fell far. Palatine is clever, learned, sophisticated, witty, and utterly readable. -- Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Anthony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium Not since Robert Graves' I Claudius has there been so exciting a book on the world of the early Caesars. Stothard shines a light on the palace insiders trying to get ahead, or just survive, one of whom, Aulus Vitellius, ended up becoming emperor himself. This is a history not only of high-level political intrigue, but flattery and food, with mouth-watering descriptions and sharp epigrams throughout. -- Josiah Osgood, author of Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic

"""With vivid prose in short, dynamic chapters, Stothard also covers the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, Jewish unrest at the time of Christ and the invasion of Britain, but this extraordinarily well-researched, exciting book is more a tale of increasing wealth and prosperity rather than war, as well as corruption, greed, gluttony and desire.... Once again, Stothard has written a brilliant picture of the vibrant realities of life in the ancient world."" -- Daily Mail ""This is a story you think you know, told through the eyes of people you don't ... Not so much an alternative history as an alternative epic, farce and satire rolled into one. Palatine is an absorbing saga of battles and banquets, as densely populated and richly depicted as Game of Thrones."" -- Rachel Cunliffe, The Times [London] ""Let us see how power really worked, in public and private. We glimpse the emperors at work and at play, in the dining room and in the bedroom. And we see how even they, despite the sycophants, were often prisoners, not architects, of the system. One false step and it would all be over.... Stothard tells this story superbly."" -- Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times [London] ""This is a literary work of cultural history--a wonderful example of profound scholarship written with the verve and expertise of an accomplished novelist.... Wonderful, evocative stuff!"" -- The Telegraph ""Peter Stothard's Palatine gives us alternate Rome, the imperial palace seen from an oblique angle. It's the story of a prominent family that aimed high and fell far. Palatine is clever, learned, sophisticated, witty, and utterly readable."" -- Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Anthony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium ""Not since Robert Graves' I Claudius has there been so exciting a book on the world of the early Caesars. Stothard shines a light on the palace insiders trying to get ahead, or just survive, one of whom, Aulus Vitellius, ended up becoming emperor himself. This is a history not only of high-level political intrigue, but flattery and food, with mouth-watering descriptions and sharp epigrams throughout."" -- Josiah Osgood, author of Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic"

"""This is a literary work of cultural history--a wonderful example of profound scholarship written with the verve and expertise of an accomplished novelist.... Wonderful, evocative stuff!"" -- The Telegraph ""Peter Stothard's Palatine gives us alternate Rome, the imperial palace seen from an oblique angle. It's the story of a prominent family that aimed high and fell far. Palatine is clever, learned, sophisticated, witty, and utterly readable."" -- Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Anthony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium ""Not since Robert Graves' I Claudius has there been so exciting a book on the world of the early Caesars. Stothard shines a light on the palace insiders trying to get ahead, or just survive, one of whom, Aulus Vitellius, ended up becoming emperor himself. This is a history not only of high-level political intrigue, but flattery and food, with mouth-watering descriptions and sharp epigrams throughout."" -- Josiah Osgood, author of Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic"

Author Information

Peter Stothard is an author, journalist, and critic. He is a former editor of The Times [of London] and of The Times Literary Supplement. His previous books include The Last Assassin: The Hunt for the Killers of Julius Caesar, Alexandria: The Last Nights of Cleopatra, and On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey through Ancient Italy.

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