Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient World, by Mary Beard

This was an informative and interesting audiobook. Mary Beard doesn’t give us a history of the emperors of Rome in chronological order (that would be interesting too, but this is not that book); rather, she explores what the idea of “emperor” — of one-man rule — meant in Imperial Rome. By examining stories and accounts of the emperors from their own time and soon after — some of which may be more fiction or polemic than fact — as well as archeological evidence, she builds a picture not just of what individual emperors were like, but of how Romans understood the person and the role of the emperor. The book is organized not chronologically but thematically, discussing the emperor’s role in relation to war, to politics, to food, to entertainment, to slavery, etc. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting when I downloaded the book but I did find it well worth reading (or listening to, I guess).