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readerstephen86's review against another edition
4.0
SUMMARY - It cuts corners, but still make space in your hand luggage. This populist history comes with layers, and it's morish.
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Tom Holland's books have that WH Smith's Bestseller airport display feeling. Like the toblerone you guiltily stuff into your backpack (squashing the toothbrush to the bottom in the process), you know it's going to be all too easy just to keep devouring it. It reads like a gossip magazine and like the glinting gold of its cover art - which I do like - it's designed to catch the eye of the reader with a sweet tooth for an undemanding read.
But as other reviewers have said, I think the easy reading belies hard writing. This isn't just a biography of men-made-into-monsters, however much the portraits stand out from the page (Caligula, Nero, Claudius, Augustus, Germanicus, and not to mention the women such as Agrippina et al.). We get the politics or empire, which manages to outline the local terrain of the Germanic tribes, Gaul, British colonisation and Welsh/Icenic rebellions, Syria, Greece, and Egypt. More, we get an elaboration of the problems of governance within Italy and Rome set out so well in Holland's first book, Rubicon. The erosion of idealised civic 'virtue' and with it democracy and its institutional counterbalances is set out with a more-than-impressionistic sweep of the brush.
I didn't feel there was quite such a clearly articulated narrative thrust on any of these, perhaps because the hideous fascination of the emperors proves too compelling to ignore. Each chapter is framed around the man (and their wives and mothers) who cast mesmeric power, and perhaps even more mesmeric weaknesses that often lead to their downfall. I liked that Holland doesn't give total credence to the rumours or incest and other forms of debauchery, not least because smear tactics and grudges were the mainstays of Roman power politics. The writer (or rumour-monger) controls the message. Yet the rumours, like that lovely sugar-packed Swiss chocolate, are hard to put down.
For readability this is a five, in a way that few histories manage. Even if I didn't rate this quite as highly as Rubicon, it's a deft feat to combine unputdownable storytelling with the range of scope and scholarship that underpins the footnotes.
The shortcuts make this book as readable as it is, and yes, passing WH Smiths in the airport I'd absolutely reach up for my fourth installment of a Holland-penned history. There are certainly devils in the detail. One of the pictures is credited to Wikipedia, which made me wonder how many other liberties Holland might have taken to make his task easier. Similarly slapdash, quotes are chucked whole into paragraphs without any context or analysis; they spash into the water of words purely to make waves. So too, the sources are there to see at the end, but their relative reliability are moored to the sidelines, and too rarely examined. This is Popular, capital 'P', and history small 'h'. Don't necessarily trust everything that's said as being at face value, but if like me you want a carnivalesque introduction to ancient history full of life, human interest and broader scene-setting, go and make space alongside that toblerone - you won't regret it.
‐------------------------
Tom Holland's books have that WH Smith's Bestseller airport display feeling. Like the toblerone you guiltily stuff into your backpack (squashing the toothbrush to the bottom in the process), you know it's going to be all too easy just to keep devouring it. It reads like a gossip magazine and like the glinting gold of its cover art - which I do like - it's designed to catch the eye of the reader with a sweet tooth for an undemanding read.
But as other reviewers have said, I think the easy reading belies hard writing. This isn't just a biography of men-made-into-monsters, however much the portraits stand out from the page (Caligula, Nero, Claudius, Augustus, Germanicus, and not to mention the women such as Agrippina et al.). We get the politics or empire, which manages to outline the local terrain of the Germanic tribes, Gaul, British colonisation and Welsh/Icenic rebellions, Syria, Greece, and Egypt. More, we get an elaboration of the problems of governance within Italy and Rome set out so well in Holland's first book, Rubicon. The erosion of idealised civic 'virtue' and with it democracy and its institutional counterbalances is set out with a more-than-impressionistic sweep of the brush.
I didn't feel there was quite such a clearly articulated narrative thrust on any of these, perhaps because the hideous fascination of the emperors proves too compelling to ignore. Each chapter is framed around the man (and their wives and mothers) who cast mesmeric power, and perhaps even more mesmeric weaknesses that often lead to their downfall. I liked that Holland doesn't give total credence to the rumours or incest and other forms of debauchery, not least because smear tactics and grudges were the mainstays of Roman power politics. The writer (or rumour-monger) controls the message. Yet the rumours, like that lovely sugar-packed Swiss chocolate, are hard to put down.
For readability this is a five, in a way that few histories manage. Even if I didn't rate this quite as highly as Rubicon, it's a deft feat to combine unputdownable storytelling with the range of scope and scholarship that underpins the footnotes.
The shortcuts make this book as readable as it is, and yes, passing WH Smiths in the airport I'd absolutely reach up for my fourth installment of a Holland-penned history. There are certainly devils in the detail. One of the pictures is credited to Wikipedia, which made me wonder how many other liberties Holland might have taken to make his task easier. Similarly slapdash, quotes are chucked whole into paragraphs without any context or analysis; they spash into the water of words purely to make waves. So too, the sources are there to see at the end, but their relative reliability are moored to the sidelines, and too rarely examined. This is Popular, capital 'P', and history small 'h'. Don't necessarily trust everything that's said as being at face value, but if like me you want a carnivalesque introduction to ancient history full of life, human interest and broader scene-setting, go and make space alongside that toblerone - you won't regret it.
travisantoniog's review against another edition
5.0
I've read a few fictional and non fictional accounts of the rise of Rome but I must say that Tom Holland's book Dynasty: The rise and fall of the House of Caesar is a natural sequel to his previous book Rubicon. The book is both entertaining and informative of the early days of Imperial age of Rome. The introduction of the book sets the scene brilliantly and I wish there was an epilogue after the suicide of Nero as well. Apart from that the book proceeds to effectively shed light on the inner workings of the House of Caesar while debunking some of the myths surrounding that it period.
It's quite amazing how so many incidents in history that are embedded in our collective psyche may in fact be purely rumours and have no historical basis. This is particularly true for the the reign of the House of Caesar's at the beginning of Rome's imperial age. The famous claims that Nero played the Lyre while Rome burned or Caligula unable to invade Britain had his soldiers collect sea shells may in fact be nothing more than malicious gossip.
However the main objective of the book is not to debunk everything we know about early days of Imperial Rome but instead highlights the a healthy dose of skepticism is essential when reading into the history of the house of Caesar which for the most part was penned many years later by people who sought its downfall. In fact some events were in fact stranger than fiction such as Nero killing his mother Agrippinia with a booby-trapped yacht and Caligula making his horse a Senator did in fact take place.
The book is also not an attempt to promote a particular approach to history as encapsulated in the approach taken by Herodotus writing which mixes fact with myth and the more no nonsense fact based approach of Thucydides in his account of the Peloponnese war. Tom Holland seamlessly combines these two approaches by on the one hand providing evidence to assess the validity of a rumour/gossip while on the other hand portraying the affairs on earth being mirrored as a struggle of the Gods and the role prophesy plays in it. For example, the conflict between Octavius and Mark Anthony and Nero having his mother killed has an attempt
I like how the book briefly digresses to the past or jumps ahead into the future to connect the story with socio political developments that took place over Rome's history. Was particularly interested to learn the Utopian ideal and the Martial tradition of the Roman people that was promoted with stories about Romulus which was viewed as a golden age of Rome. Was also quite surprised to learn about the conservative attitude Romans had towards sexuality and on the importance of tradition and values. The novel shows how the progress of the House of Caesar mirrored the changes in the social attitude over time beginning with the conservative Augustus and his obsession with purity to the flamboyance of Nero's reign. As Nero rightly pointed out "Everything we now believe to be the essence of tradition, was a novelty once"
Favourite Quotes
"The best cure for a civil war is to forget that t ever happened" - Seneca The Elder
For someone like Nero, scandal was corrosive to the authority of a natural showman if there was an attempt to cover it up
So perished the line of Caligula: Dead of a Joke taken too far
"No matter how many people you put to death, you can never kill your successor" - Seneca
"The surest punishment was not death but to be consigned to Oblivion"
"Time erodes both steel and stone" .."The written word defines the Years"
It's quite amazing how so many incidents in history that are embedded in our collective psyche may in fact be purely rumours and have no historical basis. This is particularly true for the the reign of the House of Caesar's at the beginning of Rome's imperial age. The famous claims that Nero played the Lyre while Rome burned or Caligula unable to invade Britain had his soldiers collect sea shells may in fact be nothing more than malicious gossip.
However the main objective of the book is not to debunk everything we know about early days of Imperial Rome but instead highlights the a healthy dose of skepticism is essential when reading into the history of the house of Caesar which for the most part was penned many years later by people who sought its downfall. In fact some events were in fact stranger than fiction such as Nero killing his mother Agrippinia with a booby-trapped yacht and Caligula making his horse a Senator did in fact take place.
The book is also not an attempt to promote a particular approach to history as encapsulated in the approach taken by Herodotus writing which mixes fact with myth and the more no nonsense fact based approach of Thucydides in his account of the Peloponnese war. Tom Holland seamlessly combines these two approaches by on the one hand providing evidence to assess the validity of a rumour/gossip while on the other hand portraying the affairs on earth being mirrored as a struggle of the Gods and the role prophesy plays in it. For example, the conflict between Octavius and Mark Anthony and Nero having his mother killed has an attempt
I like how the book briefly digresses to the past or jumps ahead into the future to connect the story with socio political developments that took place over Rome's history. Was particularly interested to learn the Utopian ideal and the Martial tradition of the Roman people that was promoted with stories about Romulus which was viewed as a golden age of Rome. Was also quite surprised to learn about the conservative attitude Romans had towards sexuality and on the importance of tradition and values. The novel shows how the progress of the House of Caesar mirrored the changes in the social attitude over time beginning with the conservative Augustus and his obsession with purity to the flamboyance of Nero's reign. As Nero rightly pointed out "Everything we now believe to be the essence of tradition, was a novelty once"
Favourite Quotes
"The best cure for a civil war is to forget that t ever happened" - Seneca The Elder
For someone like Nero, scandal was corrosive to the authority of a natural showman if there was an attempt to cover it up
So perished the line of Caligula: Dead of a Joke taken too far
"No matter how many people you put to death, you can never kill your successor" - Seneca
"The surest punishment was not death but to be consigned to Oblivion"
"Time erodes both steel and stone" .."The written word defines the Years"
skitch41's review against another edition
4.0
(Reviewer's Note: I just wrote a more in depth review of this book on my weekly book blog. If you like this review and would like to read more, click on the following link: https://tobereadnow.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-show-of-liberty-lessons-from-tom.html)
I loved Mr. Holland's Rubicon when I read it in high school and I've had my eye on this sequel for some time now. And while not as memorable as his previous book, Mr. Holland does not fail to deliver in this history of the Julio-Claudian line of Roman emperors.
Starting with a quick recap of the events leading up to the death of Julius Caesar covered in Rubicon, Mr. Holland follows the lives and rules of the Caesars from Augustus through to Nero. Like his previous book, he synthesizes multiple ancient sources into one exciting historical narrative. This is history told by the hand of a well practiced novelist. Mr. holland doesn't mince words either. He talks about violence and sex with a casualness worthy of his Roman subjects. This is definitely not a book for readers younger than high school.
However, there are some problems with this book. Mr. Holland has a tendency, particularly in the middle chapters, to bounce around the timeline in his narrative. This wouldn't be so bad if the Romans didn't have a nasty habit of naming their kids the same over every generation, particularly the women. Honestly, there are so many Agrippinas and Livias and Drusillas that I doubt anyone can keep their characters straight.
Still, this is a great book about the first decades of the Roman Empire that I would,highly recommend to anyone interested in the period.
I loved Mr. Holland's Rubicon when I read it in high school and I've had my eye on this sequel for some time now. And while not as memorable as his previous book, Mr. Holland does not fail to deliver in this history of the Julio-Claudian line of Roman emperors.
Starting with a quick recap of the events leading up to the death of Julius Caesar covered in Rubicon, Mr. Holland follows the lives and rules of the Caesars from Augustus through to Nero. Like his previous book, he synthesizes multiple ancient sources into one exciting historical narrative. This is history told by the hand of a well practiced novelist. Mr. holland doesn't mince words either. He talks about violence and sex with a casualness worthy of his Roman subjects. This is definitely not a book for readers younger than high school.
However, there are some problems with this book. Mr. Holland has a tendency, particularly in the middle chapters, to bounce around the timeline in his narrative. This wouldn't be so bad if the Romans didn't have a nasty habit of naming their kids the same over every generation, particularly the women. Honestly, there are so many Agrippinas and Livias and Drusillas that I doubt anyone can keep their characters straight.
Still, this is a great book about the first decades of the Roman Empire that I would,highly recommend to anyone interested in the period.
rbkegley's review against another edition
4.0
A good follow-on to his earlier "Rubicon", in this book Holland traces the stories of the first five Roman emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and finally Nero. If your view of Roman history has been largely informed by Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" (book or excellent BBC TV series), get ready for some surprises. It's hard to imagine how villainous these men were. While the cadence of his writing is strange at first (almost like Mark Twain's characterization of German), you get used to it quickly, and simply enjoy the lively telling of their stories.
fivetilnoon's review against another edition
4.0
I listed to the Audible version of this book. The book tells the story of the rise of the Empire and the reigns of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. The author does a good job of clearly explaining how Rome transitioned slowly but surely from Republic to Empire and why they never could (or even wanted to) go back to the Republic. The book contains a lot of vulgarity as it describes very graphically the sex lives of ancient Romans and the emperors. I thought I was prepared for the depravity of the emperors (Caligula and Nero in particular) but I was still surprised by their complete lack of morals.
megami's review against another edition
4.0
Yet another fantastic book from Holland (I am yet to find something written by him that is less than excellent), this one is a history of the end of the Roman Republic and a biography of the 'emperors' (and if you read the book you will understand what that is in quote marks) from Augustus to Nero.
As with his other book Holland manages to include just enough detail to keep you engaged without feeling the need to cram every bit of research in to show how clever he is or how much work he did researching his book. It is a detailed and informative piece but is still an easy and entertaining read. Everything you could want.
As with his other book Holland manages to include just enough detail to keep you engaged without feeling the need to cram every bit of research in to show how clever he is or how much work he did researching his book. It is a detailed and informative piece but is still an easy and entertaining read. Everything you could want.
sharon4d046's review against another edition
4.0
Engaging, very readable account of the Julio-Claudians. A great read, perfect non-fiction holiday read, you can count on the Romans for shock value and sensation, the ultimate soap- opera. Holland does move beyond the old stereotypes and tries to bring greater understanding to the behaviour of those most notorious Romans.
librarianonparade's review against another edition
5.0
We are so used to thinking of the Roman Empire in those very terms, as an empire with an emperor at its head, that it is easy to forget that it wasn't always so. Rome was a republic once, and those republican virtues were greatly cherished and defended. Indeed, Julius Caesar was murdered for even daring to presume to raise himself above his fellow citizens. And yet scant years after his death, this king-hating republic was to all intents and purposes dead, although few would acknowledge this then or later, and its death throes were prolonged.
And this all thanks to Caesar's heir and successor, Augustus, the founder of the 'House of Caesar' of the title, more appropriately the House of Augustus. For it was Augustus who stabilised the empire after the years of civil war in the wake of Caesar's death, Augustus who bit by bit chipped away at the independence of the Senate, of the traditional rights and privileges of the elite, who took on titles, eminences and positions, who established the Pax Romana and brought peace and prosperity to the city of Rome, who walked a fine line between soothing the Senate and pandering to the plebs - and it must be said, set the precedent for dynastic manoeuvrings and occasional assassinations. All of his successors - Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero followed consciously in his footsteps, and each killed off a little bit more of the republican heritage of Rome - not to mention their own relatives.
This is vivid, juicy and murderous history, and Tom Holland tells it with real dash and flair - although it would take a historian of some real skill (and not in a good way) to make this boring! This is not boring history, and this is not a boring read. I could hardly put it down. It's very much narrative history, told with a certain wry detached tone that suits the glamour and excesses of these personalities. He makes the tangled politics of the time seem simple and draws intriguing parallels with our own time - the concept of placating the masses with bread and circuses has hardly faded, after all. He takes some artistic liberties as a result of the storytelling process and it isn't overly-burdened with extensive sources and notes - I would imagine genuine historians of the periods and academicians would gnash their teeth somewhat reading this. But as a lively and fast-paced introduction to a truly breathtaking period in history, this can't be beat.
And this all thanks to Caesar's heir and successor, Augustus, the founder of the 'House of Caesar' of the title, more appropriately the House of Augustus. For it was Augustus who stabilised the empire after the years of civil war in the wake of Caesar's death, Augustus who bit by bit chipped away at the independence of the Senate, of the traditional rights and privileges of the elite, who took on titles, eminences and positions, who established the Pax Romana and brought peace and prosperity to the city of Rome, who walked a fine line between soothing the Senate and pandering to the plebs - and it must be said, set the precedent for dynastic manoeuvrings and occasional assassinations. All of his successors - Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero followed consciously in his footsteps, and each killed off a little bit more of the republican heritage of Rome - not to mention their own relatives.
This is vivid, juicy and murderous history, and Tom Holland tells it with real dash and flair - although it would take a historian of some real skill (and not in a good way) to make this boring! This is not boring history, and this is not a boring read. I could hardly put it down. It's very much narrative history, told with a certain wry detached tone that suits the glamour and excesses of these personalities. He makes the tangled politics of the time seem simple and draws intriguing parallels with our own time - the concept of placating the masses with bread and circuses has hardly faded, after all. He takes some artistic liberties as a result of the storytelling process and it isn't overly-burdened with extensive sources and notes - I would imagine genuine historians of the periods and academicians would gnash their teeth somewhat reading this. But as a lively and fast-paced introduction to a truly breathtaking period in history, this can't be beat.
taile's review against another edition
Enjoyable, wow I really did not know anything about this period outside what Horrible Histories taught me so it was good to learn that.
kamreadsandrecs's review against another edition
5.0
It’s hard to talk about ancient Roman history without mentioning the Roman emperors. They loom large in it, after all, both literally (in the form of historical artefacts and documents) and figuratively. From William Shakespeare to Ridley Scott, Robert Graves to Steven Saylor, imperial Rome has provided imaginations both fertile and febrile with a setting and a cast of characters worthy of the stage, the page, and the screen both silver and small.
But of all the emperors who ruled Rome, few were as famous as the emperors of the House of Caesar. On one hand, they defined the heights of greatness an emperor could achieve: they shaped Rome into the vision of marble buildings and wide squares that we in the twenty-first century associate with the words “ancient Rome”. On the other hand, they delineated the depths to which an emperor could descend: when one thinks of the quintessential “mad emperor”, it is emperors from the House of Caesar who form the template for that image.
It is these highs and lows, in both their extremes, that Tom Holland seeks to document in Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar. In this book, Holland tells the story of what scholars would later dub the Julio-Claudian dynasty: Rome’s first imperial house, whose story begins with Augustus’s rise to power, and ends with Nero’s ignominious suicide. While doing so, Holland attempts to navigate the grey area between truth and fiction, for though much has been written about the Julio-Claudian Emperors, so much of that material is of questionable factuality. How great, really, was Augustus? For that matter, how mad, really, was Caligula?
Dynasty is divided into into two parts, with seven chapters overall. “Part I: Padrone” covers Chapters 1 to 3, and is about beginnings: the founding of Rome, the creation and destruction of the Republic, all the way to the rise and death of Octavian, more famously known as Augustus - the first emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. “Part II: Cosa Nostra”, which covers Chapters 4-7, deals with what Augustus’ successors did with the enormous shoes their predecessor left for them to fill: some tried to live up to his legacy, some tried to tear it all down, but all sought, in their own way, to be honoured and loved as Augustus had been honoured and loved.
The first thing the reader will notice about the book is Holland’s prose. It is lucid and easy to read, with a certain beat to it that resembles fiction more than non-fiction. This may have to do with the fact that Holland is a presenter for BBC Radio, and a writer of TV documentaries as well as fiction. These influences have done wonders for his non-fiction, which he writes with the cadence of a born storyteller - indeed, Dynasty reads in such a manner that makes it seem like it would translate very well into audio format.
It certainly helps that his chosen subject lends itself very well to this approach, as Holland himself notes in the Preface:
When people think of imperial Rome, it is the city of the first Caesars that is most likely to come into their minds. There is no other period of ancient history that can compare for sheer unsettling fascination with its gallery of leading characters. Their lurid glamour has resulted in them becoming the very archetypes of feuding and murderous dynasts. Monsters such as we find in the pages of Tacitus and Suetonius seem sprung from some fantasy novel or TV box-set… For those who like their tales of dynastic back-stabbing spiced up with poison and exotic extremes of perversion, the story might well seem to have everything. Murderous matriarchs, incestuous powercouples, downtrodden beta males who nevertheless end up wielding powers of life and death: all these staples of recent dramas are to be found in the sources for the period. The first Caesars, more than any comparable dynasty, remain to this day household names. Their celebrity holds.
It’s hard to miss the Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire references in the above - indeed, using the term “House of Caesar” in the book’s subtitle taps into the idea of the “Great Houses” in George R.R. Martin’s creation. The book also contains maps, family trees, and a list of Dramatis Personae: features that are obvious echoes of contemporary fantasy epics.
Whether or not Holland is deliberately targeting that fanbase, Dynasty has no problem appealing to those “who like their tales of dynastic back-stabbing spiced up with poison”, and so on. Take, for example, this excerpt from his discussion of Tiberius’s Capri retreat, which tackles the Romans’ approach to privacy, and why Tiberius’ decision to ensconce himself there was so disturbing to them - and even to Tiberius himself:
To the Roman people, privacy was something inherently unnatural. It permitted aberrant and sinister instincts free reign. Only those with sexual tastes they wished to keep veiled from their fellow citizens could have any reason to crave it. …Tiberius, for eleven years, had enjoyed the run of an entire island. People in Rome were not fooled by his high-flown pretensions to scholarship. …in the playground that Tiberius had made of Capri, there were no censorious mobs to keep the Princeps’s fantasies in check. … Rapes and fantastical copulations were rife in the tales told of the gods. What greater pleasure, then, for an old man fascinated by their doings than to watch their couplings being graphically restaged?
…
Naturally, [Tiberius] despised himself for it. Tiberius, heir to the Claudian name, the greatest general of his generation, a man who by virtue of his many services to the Republic would have deserved to rank as Princeps even had his divine father not adopted him, knew the standards by which he would be judged - for he shared them.
However, the above excerpt also shows one of Dynasty’s potential pitfalls. Holland acknowledges that he has taken much of his information from the histories of Suetonius and Tacitus - something which might cause alarm bells to go off in the heads of some readers. Anyone who has read Suetonius and Tacitus (whether in translation or in the original Latin) with any kind of rigour knows that it is difficult to trust their accounts - particularly Suetonius, who appeared to write as if there wasn’t a scandal or whiff of a scandal he didn’t like. Holland, however, attempts to balance the more questionable material by turning to other contemporary sources such as Josephus and Cassius Dio. Aside from referencing ancient historians, Holland also includes any contradicting ideas and theories put forward by classics scholars both past and present in his footnotes.
Another thing that readers will note is that while Holland adjusts his focus from time to time to include discussions of Roman cultural norms whenever necessary, he does not really move the metaphorical camera out of Rome to the rest of the empire. Momentous events that might have taken up considerable space in other histories, such as Boudica’s revolt or the beginnings of the First Jewish-Roman War, are only mentioned in passing; the exception to this is the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, which Holland tackles at length. The reason for this appears to be that Holland wishes to focus exclusively on the personal drama of the Emperors, both as people and as leaders. As Holland notes in the Preface:
The depravities for which [Tiberius and Caligula] would end up notorious rarely had much impact on the world at large. It mattered little in the provinces who ruled as emperor—just so long as the centre held.
Though the emperor wielded great power and privilege, and hence was of great importance within Rome itself, those in the provinces had other concerns. As long as there was an emperor, as long as there was a fulcrum upon which the vast Roman Empire could turn, the identity of that fulcrum didn’t really matter to those who could not directly participate in Roman politics and cultural life. This is why Holland doesn’t tackle any revolts and wars unless one of the emperors of the House of Caesar directly participated in it. As for the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, it is the exception because of the way Augustus reacted to its outcome, and because of the influence it exerted on Tiberius and (to a lesser extent) Caligula.
But then, with such characters as the emperors of the House of Caesar, Holland doesn’t really need to look very far afield in order to find interesting (and disturbing) stories to tell. This frees him up to thoroughly explore each one as best as the ancient sources and current scholarship will allow, developing them into as fully-fledged characters as he can possibly make them. By approaching history as if it were a novel or a movie, Holland brings greater readability to what might otherwise be a subject made dreary by the numerous times it has been discussed and dissected by other historians and scholars.
Overall, Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar is remarkably entertaining: Holland’s prose is easy to read, and though his decision to focus nearly exclusively on the first five Roman emperors might be puzzling to some readers, it is in fact a very good decision to make. This allows him to treat the span of history he covers, and the personages he focuses on, in a way that’s more like fiction: setting each emperor up as a central character surrounded by side-characters, and telling the story of their lives in a manner familiar to anyone who reads epic fantasy. Though he relies on Suetonius and Tacitus for some of the more lurid bits, he does attempt to counterbalance those somewhat questionable details with accounts from other ancient historians, and by putting forward alternate or contradictory ideas from present-day scholars in the footnotes. Classics scholars and avid students of ancient Roman history will probably not find anything new here, but readers who are new to ancient Roman history, or who picked the book up after watching shows like Rome or Spartacus or even Game of Thrones will find plenty to enjoy.
But of all the emperors who ruled Rome, few were as famous as the emperors of the House of Caesar. On one hand, they defined the heights of greatness an emperor could achieve: they shaped Rome into the vision of marble buildings and wide squares that we in the twenty-first century associate with the words “ancient Rome”. On the other hand, they delineated the depths to which an emperor could descend: when one thinks of the quintessential “mad emperor”, it is emperors from the House of Caesar who form the template for that image.
It is these highs and lows, in both their extremes, that Tom Holland seeks to document in Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar. In this book, Holland tells the story of what scholars would later dub the Julio-Claudian dynasty: Rome’s first imperial house, whose story begins with Augustus’s rise to power, and ends with Nero’s ignominious suicide. While doing so, Holland attempts to navigate the grey area between truth and fiction, for though much has been written about the Julio-Claudian Emperors, so much of that material is of questionable factuality. How great, really, was Augustus? For that matter, how mad, really, was Caligula?
Dynasty is divided into into two parts, with seven chapters overall. “Part I: Padrone” covers Chapters 1 to 3, and is about beginnings: the founding of Rome, the creation and destruction of the Republic, all the way to the rise and death of Octavian, more famously known as Augustus - the first emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. “Part II: Cosa Nostra”, which covers Chapters 4-7, deals with what Augustus’ successors did with the enormous shoes their predecessor left for them to fill: some tried to live up to his legacy, some tried to tear it all down, but all sought, in their own way, to be honoured and loved as Augustus had been honoured and loved.
The first thing the reader will notice about the book is Holland’s prose. It is lucid and easy to read, with a certain beat to it that resembles fiction more than non-fiction. This may have to do with the fact that Holland is a presenter for BBC Radio, and a writer of TV documentaries as well as fiction. These influences have done wonders for his non-fiction, which he writes with the cadence of a born storyteller - indeed, Dynasty reads in such a manner that makes it seem like it would translate very well into audio format.
It certainly helps that his chosen subject lends itself very well to this approach, as Holland himself notes in the Preface:
When people think of imperial Rome, it is the city of the first Caesars that is most likely to come into their minds. There is no other period of ancient history that can compare for sheer unsettling fascination with its gallery of leading characters. Their lurid glamour has resulted in them becoming the very archetypes of feuding and murderous dynasts. Monsters such as we find in the pages of Tacitus and Suetonius seem sprung from some fantasy novel or TV box-set… For those who like their tales of dynastic back-stabbing spiced up with poison and exotic extremes of perversion, the story might well seem to have everything. Murderous matriarchs, incestuous powercouples, downtrodden beta males who nevertheless end up wielding powers of life and death: all these staples of recent dramas are to be found in the sources for the period. The first Caesars, more than any comparable dynasty, remain to this day household names. Their celebrity holds.
It’s hard to miss the Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire references in the above - indeed, using the term “House of Caesar” in the book’s subtitle taps into the idea of the “Great Houses” in George R.R. Martin’s creation. The book also contains maps, family trees, and a list of Dramatis Personae: features that are obvious echoes of contemporary fantasy epics.
Whether or not Holland is deliberately targeting that fanbase, Dynasty has no problem appealing to those “who like their tales of dynastic back-stabbing spiced up with poison”, and so on. Take, for example, this excerpt from his discussion of Tiberius’s Capri retreat, which tackles the Romans’ approach to privacy, and why Tiberius’ decision to ensconce himself there was so disturbing to them - and even to Tiberius himself:
To the Roman people, privacy was something inherently unnatural. It permitted aberrant and sinister instincts free reign. Only those with sexual tastes they wished to keep veiled from their fellow citizens could have any reason to crave it. …Tiberius, for eleven years, had enjoyed the run of an entire island. People in Rome were not fooled by his high-flown pretensions to scholarship. …in the playground that Tiberius had made of Capri, there were no censorious mobs to keep the Princeps’s fantasies in check. … Rapes and fantastical copulations were rife in the tales told of the gods. What greater pleasure, then, for an old man fascinated by their doings than to watch their couplings being graphically restaged?
…
Naturally, [Tiberius] despised himself for it. Tiberius, heir to the Claudian name, the greatest general of his generation, a man who by virtue of his many services to the Republic would have deserved to rank as Princeps even had his divine father not adopted him, knew the standards by which he would be judged - for he shared them.
However, the above excerpt also shows one of Dynasty’s potential pitfalls. Holland acknowledges that he has taken much of his information from the histories of Suetonius and Tacitus - something which might cause alarm bells to go off in the heads of some readers. Anyone who has read Suetonius and Tacitus (whether in translation or in the original Latin) with any kind of rigour knows that it is difficult to trust their accounts - particularly Suetonius, who appeared to write as if there wasn’t a scandal or whiff of a scandal he didn’t like. Holland, however, attempts to balance the more questionable material by turning to other contemporary sources such as Josephus and Cassius Dio. Aside from referencing ancient historians, Holland also includes any contradicting ideas and theories put forward by classics scholars both past and present in his footnotes.
Another thing that readers will note is that while Holland adjusts his focus from time to time to include discussions of Roman cultural norms whenever necessary, he does not really move the metaphorical camera out of Rome to the rest of the empire. Momentous events that might have taken up considerable space in other histories, such as Boudica’s revolt or the beginnings of the First Jewish-Roman War, are only mentioned in passing; the exception to this is the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, which Holland tackles at length. The reason for this appears to be that Holland wishes to focus exclusively on the personal drama of the Emperors, both as people and as leaders. As Holland notes in the Preface:
The depravities for which [Tiberius and Caligula] would end up notorious rarely had much impact on the world at large. It mattered little in the provinces who ruled as emperor—just so long as the centre held.
Though the emperor wielded great power and privilege, and hence was of great importance within Rome itself, those in the provinces had other concerns. As long as there was an emperor, as long as there was a fulcrum upon which the vast Roman Empire could turn, the identity of that fulcrum didn’t really matter to those who could not directly participate in Roman politics and cultural life. This is why Holland doesn’t tackle any revolts and wars unless one of the emperors of the House of Caesar directly participated in it. As for the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, it is the exception because of the way Augustus reacted to its outcome, and because of the influence it exerted on Tiberius and (to a lesser extent) Caligula.
But then, with such characters as the emperors of the House of Caesar, Holland doesn’t really need to look very far afield in order to find interesting (and disturbing) stories to tell. This frees him up to thoroughly explore each one as best as the ancient sources and current scholarship will allow, developing them into as fully-fledged characters as he can possibly make them. By approaching history as if it were a novel or a movie, Holland brings greater readability to what might otherwise be a subject made dreary by the numerous times it has been discussed and dissected by other historians and scholars.
Overall, Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar is remarkably entertaining: Holland’s prose is easy to read, and though his decision to focus nearly exclusively on the first five Roman emperors might be puzzling to some readers, it is in fact a very good decision to make. This allows him to treat the span of history he covers, and the personages he focuses on, in a way that’s more like fiction: setting each emperor up as a central character surrounded by side-characters, and telling the story of their lives in a manner familiar to anyone who reads epic fantasy. Though he relies on Suetonius and Tacitus for some of the more lurid bits, he does attempt to counterbalance those somewhat questionable details with accounts from other ancient historians, and by putting forward alternate or contradictory ideas from present-day scholars in the footnotes. Classics scholars and avid students of ancient Roman history will probably not find anything new here, but readers who are new to ancient Roman history, or who picked the book up after watching shows like Rome or Spartacus or even Game of Thrones will find plenty to enjoy.