Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

by Tom Holland

Hardcover, 2015

Status

Available

Call number

937.070922

Publication

Doubleday (2015), 512 pages

Description

"The follow-up to Rubicon picks up with the murder of Julius Caesar and vividly depicts the intrigue, murder, ambition and treachery of Emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero,"--NoveList.

Media reviews

"He leaves us with insights into the reach and sweep of its empire and an appreciation of how precarious life was for slaves and freemen and soldiers."
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"A vivid account of five Roman emperors, emphasizing their vices and vicious behavior with less attention to the vast empire, which continued to prosper despite them."
"If Tom Holland’s Rubicon was the story of what it took to gain power in late republican Rome, then Dynasty, the thrilling follow-up, is the history of what happened when power was entrusted to men who never quite got over their mothers."

User reviews

LibraryThing member JBD1
Tom Holland's Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar (Doubleday) is a chronicle of the doings of the Roman emperors so salacious it would take hardly anything extra to make an HBO series out of it. Holland focuses on the personal lives and vices of the five Caesars from Augustus to Nero:
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their paranoias, their constant machinations to keep power and get rid of anyone who stood in their way (even and perhaps especially if they happened to be related), &c.

This is a rollicking and sometimes absolutely disgusting read, but it will certainly hold your attention. Holland grapples with the source material, much of which comes from unreliable writers, and sometimes falls into what feels very much like anachronism, but also seems to make good use of recent scholarship and deploys generous pinches of salt where necessary.
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LibraryThing member Opinionated
In Dynasty, Tom Holland plots the triumphs and failures of the 5 emperors - or more correctly, Princeps - of the family of Julius Caesar, Octavius / Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. As with each of his previous books, Holland is more interested in a story or narrative, than in a
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rigorous work of history; you almost feel that he is written this with eye to it becoming the companion book to a potential BBC - or even Discovery Channel - documentary, rather than as a work of history. The best that can be said about it its that its a work of popular history - with the emphasis on popular. As such its high on drama and low on detail.

For example we are told that the youthful Octavius was something of a "terrorist" - but given little detail as to what he did to deserve that description. We are told that "like a rich perfume, the aroma of Augustus' power reached into every nook and cranny of Roman life" - a fine sounding description for sure, but what does it actually mean? The book is full of this sort of writing. We have Claudius being told of his wife Messalina's infidelity with all and sundry - but no opinion as to whether this was true (or at least believed to be true) or simply the result of palace intrigue. Those who hunger for fact rather than narrative will be disappointed.

Having said that, its entertaining enough; Augustus comes out of it well - tough and ruthless but with a feeling for politics and the mood of the populace. Tiberius tries hard but becomes withdrawn and disolute in his older years. Claudius was probably a better emperor than he's usually given credit for; Nero and Caligula incorrigible meglamaniacs, although Holland posits there was some point in Caligula's wilder excesses as he tried to emphasise the predominance of the Princeps over the Senate.

But I came away feeling somewhat gorged with all the excess, but also unsatisfied
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LibraryThing member pierthinker
Rome was a republic for its first 750 years. The switch to imperial rule took about 100 years, starting with Julius Caesar as consul in 59BCE through to the death of Nero in 68CE. This transition was driven by a single extended family, the Julio-Claudians, who supplied the first emperors of Rome -
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Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula and Nero.

Tom Holland gives a clear narrative history of the politics, events, military campaigns and, above all, the characters involved. This is soap opera of the highest order. A single family grasping power, fomenting and handling internal family strife and external threats to Rome, prepared to go to any lengths to get and keep what they want.

Holland writes for the general reader with clarity and drive from a deep knowledge of the subject.
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LibraryThing member starkravingmad
Seemingly fact based account of the first five emperors. Extremely well researched. Historical personalities brought back almost as big as life
LibraryThing member robeik
The Rome Imperium: What Julius Caesar instigated, Augustus (and Agrippa) built, Tiberius remotely controlled, Caligula played in, Claudius buttressed and Nero fiddled and fired.

Tom Holland does not attempt to retell history - there are plenty of other books that do that (even though that facts are
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a bit thin on the ground in many cases); it's his take on the individuals who played the leading role in this ancient superpower.
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LibraryThing member la2bkk
A fantastic, comprehensive and well researched overview of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. At over 400 pages, the author presents a thorough yet easy reading account of emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and finally Nero. Mr. Holland is clearly well-versed in this period of Roman history,
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and not only sets forth the basic facts, but also his observations that are not readily apparent and often overlooked by other historians.

If there was one book you want to read covering this period, this is it.
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LibraryThing member RandyStafford
In the follow up to his Rubicon, Holland takes up the story of the legendary Julio-Claudian emperors. With 419 pages of text, he covers all the stories of treachery, torture, matricide, fratricide, sexual depravity, assassinations, mutinies, and excess you’ve heard. To that, he explains how Roman
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sexual mores, religious festivals, family relations, and the plebians’ continued fascination with the dynasty that started with Julius Caesar played a part in everything.

And Holland, particularly in the chapter on Tiberius, “The Last Roman”, approaches his emperors in an empathetic if not sympathetic way.
The prose is stylish with Holland sometimes using very modern terms to give us the flavor of the strange and also familiar Roman imperial culture. He deftly shows how Rome’s own myths reveal something of their character. Specifically, Romans held their race started with a rape, and its resulting issue was suckled by wolves.

In the book’s pages, you find an emperor who tearfully and theatrically threw himself on the mercy of the Roman public (Augusta), an emperor who never wanted the job and descended into an old age of watching aristocratic children recruit mythological sex scenes (Tiberius), an emperor always ready for a very malicious and deadly joke on an aristocrat (Caligula), an emperor incestuously besotted with his niece (Claudius), and an emperor under the domineering thumb of his mother (Nero). But Holland doesn’t skimp on covering the other power players at this time, particularly the eventually divine wife of Augusta, Livia. She may have been married to Augustus, but her primary interest was always furthering the glory of her own family, the Claudians.

But Holland isn’t just writing an update of Suetonius’ salacious Twelve Caesars. He shows the change in Roman politics, how the Roman people and Senate were tamed, first by smooth talk, legal legerdemain, flattery and then open terror into accepting what they long despised – a king. It is a story dependent on the magical place the dynasty of Caesar had in the mind of the Roman public and “the exhaustion of cruelty” after decades of civil war.

Besides the usual index, bibliography, and maps, a dramatis personae list is included as well as numerous family trees so you can keep of the players through numerous banishments, executions, divorces and remarriages, and assassinations.

Recommended to readers with any degree of familiarity with this era of Roman history.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2015

Physical description

512 p.; 6.39 inches

ISBN

0385537840 / 9780385537841
Page: 0.4918 seconds