The Twelve Caesars, Michael Grant
The Twelve Caesars, Michael Grant
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The Twelve Caesars

Author: Michael Grant

Narrator: Wanda McCaddon

Unabridged: 10 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/03/2012

Synopsis

The personalities of the Twelve Caesars of ancient Rome—Julius Caesar and the first eleven Roman emperors who followed him—have profoundly impressed themselves upon the world. They bore the perilous responsibility of governing an empire comparable in its gigantic magnitude and diversity to the United States and the Soviet Union of the 1980s. It is a matter of perennial concern to investigate how the potentates who wield such vast might, and the men who advise them, cope with their task, or fail to cope with it. To what extent, for example, are we justified, after a study of the scorching pages of Tacitus, in applying to the Roman Caesar Lord Acton’s saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely? This is one of a number of questions relating to their exercise of authority to which Michael Grant—calling in additional sources of information such as coins and inscriptions—endeavors to answer.

About Michael Grant

Michael Grant (1914-2004) was a historian whose over forty publications on ancient Rome and Greece popularized the classical and early Christian world. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, served in intelligence and as a diplomat during the Second World War, and afterwards became deputy director of the British Council’s European division, when he also published his first book. He later returned to academia, teaching at Cambridge and Edinburgh, and serving as vice chancellor at the University of Khartoum and at Queen’s University, Belfast. His many books include From Alexander to Cleopatra,The History of Ancient Israel,The Etruscans, Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels,The History of Rome,The Classical Greeks,The Founders of the Western World, and The Twelve Caesars.

About Wanda McCaddon

Wanda McCaddon (d. 2023) narrated well over six hundred titles for major audiobook publishers, sometimes with the pseudonym Nadia May or Donada Peters. She earned the prestigious Audio Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Glenn on January 14, 2015

This Penguin Classic of The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius is the perfect place to start for anybody interested in ancient Greco-Roman history and culture. Not only is this a most engaging translation by Robert Graves, author of I Claudius, but there is a short Forward by classics scholar, Michael Gran......more

Goodreads review by Cassandra Kay on November 17, 2010

No words. Each and every member of that "family" and ahherm non family who acquired that infamous title ceasar is such a massive wrecking case of extreams that I can't even begin to fathom that these men are real. Let alone contemplate what citizens must of thought of them in their day. Really? If S......more

Goodreads review by Jon on May 31, 2024

Stranger than any fiction - the chapter on Caligula is truly disturbing. The fact that Suetonius had access to material that others could not get makes this a very interesting examination of Julius Caesar and the first eleven emperors of the Rome. It is amazing to see power that corrupts so absolute......more

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