Review: Southon, A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (2020)

[truepenny]

A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a smart, funny, angry book about murder in ancient Rome, and about what counted as "murder" and what didn't. (Most of the anger comes from the fact that killing an enslaved person didn't count as murder.) It's "popular" history, but history that doesn't cut any corners on that account. Southon does a great job of explaining the ins and outs of Roman history quickly and entertainingly. She does, of course, spend a great deal of time with the Julio-Claudians, both as murderers and murderees, but she also spends a lot of time talking about less visible murders, and she paints a vividly three-dimensional picture of life in late-Republican and early-Imperial Rome.



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Comments

[anef]

It was stomach churning, but very interesting and lively. By the end, though, the sheer number of murders was overwhelming and depressing. In fact I feel more upset about the slaughter of African wildlife in the arena than the humans.