Reviews tagging 'Murder'

A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon

36 reviews

crownoflaurel's review

challenging funny informative medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery

Moderate: Murder, Blood, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Death, and Gore

Minor: Child death, Sexual violence, and Suicide

saltypiratewench's review against another edition

challenging dark funny informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.0

I enjoyed her dry humor and taking the piss out of ancient ideas.  She made following the names of all these Romans easier than in other historical audiobooks I've tried.  The subject matter was very interesting and I learned a lot of new things.  I wish there could have been more about common people, but as she says in the book repeatedly, we don't know enough about them because they weren't important enough to the Romans to write anything about.  The stuff at the end about the executions and coliseum and crucifixions was ghastly and so interesting!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture and Murder

Moderate: Rape

subatomiclaura's review

dark informative slow-paced

4.0

Hard to read cause Roman names are not easy.  Very informative.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal cruelty, and Murder

yaboywillyshakes's review

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

2.25

While there are a handful of chapters where the author evokes the humanity of ancient murder victims and makes a decent argument about the way that murder is constructed as a concept by societies, her absolute disdain for the topic of Rome makes the first half of the book very hard to read. The later chapters are too full of somewhat childish pop culture references (largely Harry Potter, which also gives me pause for other reasons) to make the book relevant to larger audiences, and I was not impressed with the level of research in the last chapter specifically. It felt like the author was cherry picking information to support her own ends, and it felt very shallow in comparison with the preceding chapters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Slavery, Suicide, Incest, Sexual violence, Rape, Murder, and Torture

It's about ancient Rome and murder, so perhaps the content warnings should be assumed, but the author sometimes shoehorns topics into places where I did not expect them, I wish I had been warned.

danimacuk's review against another edition

dark funny informative slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Slavery, and Violence

Moderate: Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Rape, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, Child death, and Physical abuse

Minor: Religious bigotry, Adult/minor relationship, and Pedophilia

debussy's review against another edition

dark funny informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

daphreads's review

4.0

A really interesting, and truly hilarious and entertaining, reflection of the way we view the Roman Empire vs what it really is. An investigation into the socially constructed concepts of life, dignity, and murder, and how the Romans viewed it as opposed to how we do now 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, and Torture

rosemaryandrue's review

dark funny informative medium-paced

4.0

This book covers murder in Ancient Rome in all its gory and multifaceted glory, examining how it was regarded when violence was so commonplace and little value placed on most lives.

This was a fascinating read that taught me as much about Ancient Rome as it did murder in it. The author writes in a dryly humorous style that engaged me well. The book covers murder in both the high and low social classes, which I appreciated as often history books focus on the high born.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Violence

another_dahlia's review

dark funny informative medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Sexism, Murder, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Rape, Domestic abuse, Racism, Slavery, War, Animal cruelty, and Classism

gringolet's review

dark funny informative fast-paced

4.5

An incredibly fascinating, well researched and thoughtful book; I would like to give it five stars but for the fact that, while I overall enjoyed the casual and witty tone, the narration sometimes went overboard to the detriment of the book. It felt at times like the book was apologizing for being itself, and felt the need to say "this information is boring, this topic is dull, here have a pop culture reference which will painfully age this otherwise excellent book". I found the information interesting, and I think a lot of people do, as evidenced by the success of the book, and I do wish it would have more faith in it's readers. That being said, I still wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject, especially for how it dealt with slavery in ancient Rome. I can easily see (and in fact, have read) lesser books which are unwilling or unable to fully acknowledge the unbearable and overwhelming ugliness of it, to the extent of revisionism and apologetics. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Rape, Sexism, Death, Blood, Sexual violence, Misogyny, Colonisation, Slavery, Suicide, Domestic abuse, Trafficking, Murder, and War