Dynasty

This history follows the Julio-Claudian house from Augustus's settlement of the Roman state through the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Holland reconstructs succession, palace intrigue, and the management of army, Senate, and city, drawing on ancient narrative sources and on what archaeology can confirm. The central problem is how a family that claimed to restore the republic became a court in which kinship, adoption, and assassination decided who held supreme power. Provincial wars and the fire of Rome appear as tests of that system. The book is a political narrative of one dynasty, not a survey of the whole empire.

Bound in dark green cloth, cover printed and blocked in black with a portrait illustration. Plain slipcase.