“Emperor of Rome”

Mary Beard

My expectation here was definitely set by John Julius Norwitch’s style, where he kinda just started at the beginning and went in chronological order. Which is… an approach to talking about history. Probably the most traditional one, really.

This, however, was more willing to bounce around. There was certainly some amount of following chronology, but the chapters were each grouped by theme rather than, say, emperor. “The Emperor Abroad,” to discuss the various travels about the empire that they dead; “Face to Face” for an absolutely fascinating discussion of the art of the emperor, and the degree to which everything we have these days is the result of ancient PR campaigns.1 In general, the book isn’t about an emperor, or even a succession thereof, but about the emperor; the concept of the emperor, the office of the emperor. The continuity of imperial power.

It’s an interesting approach, and one that made the book more enjoyable to read. I’m never going to be able to keep track of the years in which things happened, the order of the emperors, any of that. But I’m going to remember that dinner parties were an effective way to express soft power, that imperial edicts were more performative than actually implemented, that politics has been politics for thousands of years. Human nature doesn’t change that much, really.

A great read overall, and an interesting approach to the broad cultural background that is the Roman Empire. Totally worth the read; check it out.2

Also, some mind-blowing discussion of the amount of unofficial merch that there was for the emperor; ‘the ancient equivalent of refrigerator magnets,’ locally-made stuff that made the emperor, a distant figure even for those living in Rome itself, very clearly match the same vibe we have for the British royal family, or just random celebrities, now. ↩

This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩