Dynasty Paperback – June 2, 2016

A very readable and engaging account of Rome as the Republic died (with more than a little help from its most prominent leaders) and was succeeded by the Empire. It’s also a cautionary tale. If you can read Ovid’s words (quoted in the preface) that “Caesar and the state are one and the same” without thinking about whether and how much they apply to our own time, 2000 years after they were first written, you probably should be paying more attention.

"Dynasty" is a trip through well-traveled country. My own shelves have a dozen books on similar subjects, ranging from Suetonius and Tacitus to modern works by Alan Massie and Robert Graves. The Julio-Claudian era seems to be ever-popular, and for good reasons. Politically, it provides a fascinating study of what can happen to a republic that goes wrong. And then there are lots of good sexy bits, too. Generations of schoolboys have found excitement in their classical studies, when they discovered the randy parts of Suetonius. They are good for keeping up one's interest, when otherwise things might be getting dull.The question is, why yet another book? In what way does this treatment differ from all the others? Well, Mr. Holland is a modernizer. His intent seems to be to render the imperial history in a modern idiom, so it will be understandable to readers today. To this end, he avoids the use of Latin names and expressions, and uses modern jargon. This does allow him to draw similarities between ancient figures and modern-day politicians, thugs, and mafiosi. It is a rather surreptitious process: he doesn't exactly say "So-and-so was like a mafia capo," he just implies it through the use of vocabulary. And I fear this may be misleading. After all, the ancients were quite different from us; they thought and behaved in different ways, and had thoroughly different morals and standards of behavior. It is an oversimplification and something of an error to interpret them as though they were living now.On the other hand, this is a richly researched book, full of interesting detail--perhaps the most thorough of its kind. It may shade ever so slightly over into the novelistic: there are incidents, speeches, and rhetorical flourishes that seem unlikely to exist in the ancient sources. But when you have read this book, you will--unless you have read and remember the entire corpus of Roman writers--know more about the period than when you started. As a consequence it is long and slow-paced; and toward the end, with Nero's reign, becomes downright tedious. (Perhaps by this time we have simply had enough of madness, cruelty, and sexual deviance.) If what you want is an enjoyable, exciting read, it would be better to start with the excellent semi-fictional writers: Robert Graves would be a good choice, or (for a slightly earlier historical period) Robert Harris. But for those who are interested in politics and psychology, and who wonder at how we have ever gotten to where we are today--this book has something to add. I will find room for it on my overcrowded shelf.

Well written and researched. Deadly and dangerous times for those aspiring for power. Portrays Tiberius’ early years somewhat sympathetically. Caligula removed the mask Octavian had placed over the power he had accumulated and revealed to the Romans what they had become and the type of rule they lived under. Portrayed as a shrewd monster, Great read.

Tom Holland has a true gift for taking certain periods of history and crafting a meaningful, coherent narrative from the names, times, places, and events. As such, he is a wonderful popularizer whose non-fiction books read with all of the pacing of a well-written novel. “Dynasty” follows the bloodline of the house of Caesar to its ultimate end, concluding with the death of Nero. Along the way there is triumph, tragedy, blood, death, sex, torture, drama and intrigue that is all the more compelling because it happens to be true. The book moves along at a breakneck pace but never lacks for detail. Holland knows just where to focus the reader’s attention, and like “Rubicon” which came before it, “Dynasty” is a must-read for those who are fascinated with the history of ancient Rome.

Holland's style has energy and sweep and the "story" is compelling. On that basis, I thought this an enjoyable run through of fascinating but mostly familiar tales. It is very difficult to prove much that is asserted about the characters and behaviors of the Julian emperors. Could Caligula really have been so horrific? Could Nero have been so crazy? Are the sexual excesses attributed to Tiberius' during his reign verifiable? Could Livia, Augustus' wife and Tiberius' mother, have been an early version of Murder Incorporated or was it mostly luck that favored the rise of her gifted but unbeguiling son against more popular rivals? "History" of the time and somewhat later was written by those with axes to grind who made little distinction between outrageous gossip, outlandish rumor, and outright lies if they served to show these men and their allies (many of whom met bad ends) to be utterly monstrous, rather than powerful thus extremely self-indulgent, sufferers from paranoia (an understandable reaction to a world filled with complex and murderous intrigues) or disordered in flamboyant but finally standard ways. Holland doesn't always succeed in keeping the complicated kinship relationships between characters clear, and sometimes writes as though treading water to the next outrageous anecdote. There is something infectious in the glee with which he writes about Nero, always fun to read about, if again one suspects these are tall tales spun by enemies of a ruler who wooed the plebs, snubbed those in power and certainly had a sense of perverse fun. Not a bad introduction in a general way to the death of the Republic and the rise of absolute rulers in Rome but less focused, absorbing and more credulous than one might have hoped.