Customer Reviews

The Twelve Caesars

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(1)
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With the death of Michael Grant in late 2004, in many ways, a scholarly era came to a close. He died at 89 years of age. He outlived all of his early contemporaries, Syme, Runciman, and Frank Cowell among others. He closed his career as an independent scholar retiring from academia and government service in 1966 to devote himself to full time writing. He stayed active with his last book appearing in the year 2000. His original training was as an academic numismatist which is apparent in this work under consideration. With over fifty books to his credit, he was probably the most productive classicist and historian of the Greco Roman world of the twentieth century. He was an ardent popularizer and enjoyed an immense audience which persists to this day. Michael Grant was one of the few classical historians to win praise from both academics and the interested lay reader.

While a fine communicator, it has been noted by other reviewers that Grant can be a challenging read given his vocabulary usage. More troubling to this reader is the lack of footnotes and end notes only which complicates reading this work. Specifically, because some but not all quotes from ancient authors are unattributed in the text. Even at its publication in 1975, let alone in the year 2006, most readers do not have the background in the Greek and Latin classics to easily identify the authors of these unattributed quotes. Also, a woefully lacking suggested reading list of secondary materials is included. One star is duly deducted for these shortcomings. The book opens with a splendid and extended essay on classical sources, biography, history and things Roman. It alerts the reader to many facts and interpretations that make the subsequent text far more intelligible. This opening coupled with a short but deeply insightful conclusion can be read with immense profit without ever even approaching the body of the work. However, this would be mistake as the twelve short biographies in chronological order provide a fascinating overview of the first hundred odd years of the Roman Empire as viewed from its center and through the personages of its rulers. Therein lies both the strength and weakness of the book. Others have devoted thousands of pages to materials Grant covers in limited and truncated form in a few hundred pages.

And within those twelve short biographies, I believe he accomplishes much. By Suetonius's standards, Grant provides us with a sober and coherent explanation of the problems and challenges faced by those emperors. That overwork and fear of assassinations were debilitating to all that ruled long enough is made plain in these pages. The Senatorial nobility would sooner or later tire of any ruler and plot against him. And if overwork and sedition by the nobility in Rome were not enough, by the middle of the period under consideration, the praetorian guard would start installing emperors, and this would be followed by emperors installed by the provincial legions. In spite of the brevity of each portrait, many incisive judgements regarding each of these personalities are rendered convincingly by Grant. I find those judgements valuable to an overall understanding of the formative era of the Roman Empire. Within its limitations, this a marvelous work that can be appreciated by those with a modest knowledge of the Roman world. Equally, there is much of interest here for the well read in this area. A careful consideration of this work will reward the diligent reader with some remarkable insights on early Roman imperial rule.

I don't think this book is out of print anymore because I recently bought the hardcover edition (new) at a big chain store. You can get it used as well. Anyway, I finally finished this thing. It took awhile to read because I found myself cross referencing a few of the chapters with Grant's recommended reading list and I ended up reading three other books while I was reading this one. Overall a very good volume and an easy one to read if you are a novice in classical history. Grant has always done a great job with somehow making a complex topic easy to read for the masses. He covers the first twelve emperors adequately, but to get more out of each one you really need to purchase a separate book on each of the emperors. I liked this book because it gave a good overview of each of them and I was intrigued enough about the lives of a few of them to go out and buy an additional book. If you want a good overview of the emperors without much detail then this is a great book, but it lacks depth into the time period for obvious reasons. You could not cover everything in a volume this size. It is a good book to get you started and to find out what aspect of ancient Rome you are interested in.

Conspiracy, suspicion, power, corruption, poison, conquests, marauders, murders and more murders. Such is the history of Roman Empire. Then again there are copious examples from every nation's history of such dastardly acts to grab power, from Egyptians pharos, to Bourbons, to Indian Moguls, to British royalty. Human nature has changed very little in two thousand years. Now instead of murdering opponents, we vilify them to such an extent that populace loathes and discards them in the garbage bin. Grant discounts Lord Acton's polemical quote "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Later Lord Acton had modified in saying that too much responsibility coupled with intense fear of life corrupts absolutely. It is very hard to imagine for us, normal souls, with two thousand years separation, what would we do if we were given absolute power over everybody and every thing. But would we resort to killing our own mother like Nero, or have sexual relationships with sisters, like Caligula. It is quite possible if Nixon were the Roman Empire and Watergate exploded on the stage, he would not have hesitated in having few senators, congressmen dispatched in due haste. If there are any good emperors, the vote should go to Augustus, starting from nothing, except, Julius Caesar's adopted nephew, to emerge as victor, after defeating all his rivals, one by one including Mark Anthony and his beloved Cleopatra. Vespatian can also be called a hero to come up the ranks from an ordinary family to start a dynasty and consolidate Rome after bitter civil war.

Aggripina the younger stands out among all the women ,( if one can discount Livia, Augustus wife in Graves incomparable "I, Claudius", where he portrays Livia as villai) who is married to aging Claudius, the fourth emperor. She runs the kingdom in his name and manages to bypass Claudius own son and places her son, Nero on the throne. How does Nero reward her? He lets her go out on a faulty boat to drown. What are sons for?

Few emperors, imperators were tyrants, megalomanias and sadists and most of them were murdered by conspiracy. Why any body wanted to be one is puzzling as no doubt they all knew the history so well. So Lord Acton is right. It is human nature to lust for Absolute power.

The Roman history is fascinating read of human nature, ambition, treachery, power and above all its glory.

This is my first time reading a Michael Grant book. I'll agree with other reviewers that his writing style is a little difficult to follow. He routinely makes five sentences into one which sometimes leaves you forgetting the subject of the sentence before you reach the end. Despite this I find his analysis of Roman history and its historians very interesting.

The Twelve Caesars recaps the lives of the first twelve emperors of Rome. Starting with Julius Caesar's takeover of Rome as dictator and continues recounting the lives of the Julio-Claudian dynasty (Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero), the short lives of the civil war emperors (Galba, Otho, and Vitellius), and the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian). The book is written in chronological order with the beginning of each chapter giving a quick synopsis of how the emperor came to power, the major events of his life, and how he met his end. I felt all of these were well written and made the rest of story much easier to understand despite Grant's difficult writing style.

The meat of the story provided by Grant is the work of the Roman historians, but what makes the book important is Grant's evaluation of the historical records provided on the emperors based on the prejudices and politics of the writers. Reading Suetonius, Tacitus, or Dio Cassius in a vacuum would lead the reader into an erroneous view of their lives, but Grant digs through the stories and tries to reflect the most likely truth. Of course, Grant would be the first to say that even his well researched analysis may not always be correct since the lives of the Caesars were cloaked in secrecy.

This is a great addition to anyone interested in ancient history, Rome, or even the mind of a dictator. Grant's forward is enlightening in itself. His logical evaluation of the character and actions of the emperors gave me an appreciation for their challenges and abilities. I recommend reading as much of the ancient historians as possible, but having a modern evaluation of the subject is equally important.

I have to say that although Grant is clearly an expert in his field and often provides terrific insights, his Erudite and wordy style fails to provide the easiest of reads at times(especially for beginners). Nevertheless I think this is my favorite of all Grant's works that I have read so far(I've read 3). Part of that is because I love Roman History and perhaps another factor is that this book tends to stick more or less to a chronological narrative(preventing it from becoming too dry). My favorite part in this book is the conclusion. Grant's enlightened insight into the job of being an emperor is outstanding! Yeah, although the book as a whole I would give 4 stars that conclusion is definitely worth 5. So, to sum up although this book may not be the greatest page turner the insights are fabulous, and I would recommend it to people with a love of Roman History, but I would recommend the curious beginner try an easier read first before tackling a book like this.

[This is an excellent look at the Caesars!] From the DJ. The personalities of the Twelve Caesars of ancient Rome - Julius Caesar and the first eleven Roman emperors to follow him - had a profound influence upon the world. Grant penetrates the fog of superstition and rumour that has gathered around these astonishingly powerful men who governed an empire comparable in its magnitude and diversity to the United States or the former Soviet Union. Using original documents - inscription, papyri, buildings, works of art and coins - the author investigates how the Caesars wielded such vast might, how they coped or failed to cope with their task, and considers the effects their intensely demanding public careers had on their private lives.

This book is trying to give an overview of each of the twelve Roman Caesars. Overall I was looking for more of an exciting telling of the story with some action, suspense, and maybe a little decadence thrown in for good measure. What I got was a textbook best suited for a college campus. The writing was so labored I wondered why the author chose this line of work, recipes have more punch and creativeness in the writing. I truly struggled to get to the half way point of the book before I gave up. Now let me add that this is not a main interest topic for me so maybe my review is not reflective of a person that is really into the Roman's.