Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland
Having read a few reviews by academics it seems that Holland, a popular and respected academic himself, has given the reader an authentic portrayal of the dynasty of emperors from Julius Caesar to Nero. This is the line of emperors who lasted for a relatively short period in the BC dog days and the early first century. Yet these are the emperors whom we see as emblematic of Rome even though that great empire lasted for a thousand years.
It’s easy to see why we focus on these men and their politically active mothers, wives, daughters and mistresses. Their stories are well documented: Roman power was at its zenith and these colourful characters seem to encompass some of humanity’s greatest and most base qualities turned up to eleven. Holland’s strength is giving the reader all the most lurid, gobsmacking and peculiar features of the Roman world whilst setting out a coherent analysis of the power dynamics that this great dynasty was struggling to control. It’s a perfect mix of engrossing narrative history allied to a rigorous academic exploration of everything we know about the imperial family and the cast of political, military and entrepreneurial figures orbiting around them.
The story starts appropriately with Caesar and his brilliant, bloody and daring ascent to become the first man of Rome. Those of you who know your Shakespeare, will be aware that he was assassinated when he became too big for his boots. Rome was a republic that had long ago rejected kings. The wealthy patricians who ran the senate had benefitted from the riches and triumphs Caesar brought to Rome from his savage pacification of foreign outposts in France and Germany, but they also feared him. Of course, his death by honourable men, the noble Brutus among them, sparked a civil war that was ultimately won by Octavius Caesar (later Augustus) via a spicy excursion to Cleopatra’s Egypt.
Augustus’ defeat of his former ally, Antony, in Egypt, marks the start of the eponymous dynasty. Augustus, first with threats and brutality, established his authority over the senate. However, he played a game that his successors tried to copy – he exercised ultimate power but gave the impression of deferring to the senate and the republican ethos of Rome. He was masterful in making strong marriage alliances, buying the loyalty of the army and maintaining the Pax Romana. This not only brought in a period of stability and economic growth but banished the people’s memory of the savage civil war that had preceded it. As in modern day China, the people were happy to give up some of the freedoms of the republican past for a more peaceful, secure life.
Augustus really was an operator. He built grand buildings and public facilities to increase his popularity; and he cultivated an image similar to our own royal family that was respectable, admirable but just accessible enough. He died in his bed, a success in itself considering what was to come for his successors. He was also able to identify his immediate successor, Tiberius – so not a royal family but, nevertheless, a family that could pass on power to the next in line.
I have read an excellent novel by John Williams about Augustus and I am fascinated by the way he wrestled the empire to his will and was probably the most influential Roman emperor of all time. Yet because many of his talents were organisational and of a Machiavellian kind his story lacks the pizzaz of the rest of his dynasty. That’s not a problem for Holland, though, as he gives us the whole gaudy spectacle of Caligula’s and Nero’s rule as well as the unlikely successes of Claudius before he too became a victim of one of the many ruthless women fighting for their bloodline’s supremacy.
Whilst these latter stories are familiar, especially from Graves’ ‘I Claudius’ books, Holland gives us a fully rounded, psychological portrait of the emperors. Caligula’s cruelties, for example, seem more comprehensible when you learn about the precarious nature of his childhood, the bloody fate of his immediate family and the humiliations he suffered at the hands of the senate.
Tiberius is also a fascinatingly complex character who struggled for so long as the model Roman soldier and leader, pacifying the wilder edges of the empire and upholding the ideals of the republic through his deference to the senate. Until, in old age, and depressed by the loss of heirs and a sense of under appreciation, he seems to have given up to spend his later years on Capri. I’ll leave you to discover what he got up to there.
I thought this was a first-rate history book. It is as accessible as it is knowledgeable. If you enjoy Holland on The Rest is History podcast, then I am certain you will respond positively to this book.