The Twelve Caesars

One of them was a military genius; one murdered his mother and fiddled while Rome burned. Six of their number were assassinated, two committed suicide, and five of them were elevated to the status of gods. They have come to be known as the 'twelve Caesars' - Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. Under their rule, Rome was transformed from a republic to an empire, whose model of regal autocracy would survive in the West for more than a thousand years. In The Twelve Caesars, Matthew Dennison offers a beautifully crafted sequence of imperial portraits, triumphantly evoking the luxury, licence, brutality and sophistication of imperial Rome at its zenith.

Matthew Dennison is the author of the critically acclaimed biographies: The Last Princess: The Devoted Life of Queen Victoria's Youngest Daughter, and Empress of Rome: The Life of Livia. As a journalist, he has been published in every national weekday broadsheet and continues to contribute regularly to Country Life, The Times, Telegraph Magazine and the Daily Express. He read English Language & Literature at Christ Church, Oxford, as Douglas Jerrold Scholar, and afterwards the History of Decorative Arts at the University of Glasgow.