A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Murder in Ancient Rome
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4.3 • 24 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
An entertaining and informative look at the unique culture of crime, punishment, and killing in Ancient Rome
In Ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common—murder. Romulus killed Remus to found the city, Caesar was assassinated to save the Republic. Caligula was butchered in the theater, Claudius was poisoned at dinner, and Galba was beheaded in the Forum. In one 50-year period, 26 emperors were murdered.
But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? In A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon examines a trove of real-life homicides from Roman history to explore Roman culture, including how perpetrator, victim, and the act itself were regarded by ordinary people. Inside Ancient Rome's darkly fascinating history, we see how the Romans viewed life, death, and what it means to be human.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Southon (Agrippina: The Most Extraordinary Woman of the Roman World) returns with a spirited look at ancient Roman history through a true crime lens. "Few other societies have revelled in and revered the deliberate and purposeful killing of men and women as much as the Romans," Southon writes. The beating death of populist politician Tiberius Gracchus over his proposed land reforms in 133 BCE set off a century's worth of political murders that culminated in the assassination of Julius Caesar and the end of the Roman Republic, according to Southon. Other case histories include Emperor Tiberius's investigation into the death of a military commander's daughter in 24 CE (her husband claimed she'd thrown herself out of their bedroom window, but Tiberius discovered signs of a struggle) and Locusta, who mixed the poisons that Emperor Nero used to kill his stepbrother and possibly his aunt (he had to kill his mother by sword because she took multiple antidotes every day). Along the way, Southon works in intriguing history lessons about Roman law, politics, marriage, and sport, and makes breezy yet enlightening analogies (obscene epigrams ridiculing elite Romans were like a "much ruder Daily Show"). This colorful chronicle of ancient Rome has an appealingly modern sensibility.
