A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

December 14, 2020
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.

March 15, 2021
Southon illuminates the violent side of Roman life in her latest (after Agrippina, 2019). From politics to gladiators to poison, magic, and execution, death was a constant presence in the Republic and the Empire. Despite the vicious and sometimes tortuous events described, the tone of the book is friendly and conversational. Southon talks about fighty bastard Romans and shares opinions on the accuracy of scholiasts as though the reader were a casual colleague with whom to trade the most bizarre and horrible parts of history. This narrative style provides not only humor but a sense of relevance to today's world, whether it touches on watching violent media, debating the death penalty, or wanting someone to blame when a child dies young. Even the story of Caesar resonates, as he refuses to give up his political position, invades the capital, and, building golden statues of himself, ends up dead at the hands of those who'd fawned over him. Brutal, graphic, amusing, and enthralling, this work is a must-read for true crime fans as well as history lovers.

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