Published in 2020
352 pages
11 hours and 12 minutes
Dr. Emma Southon holds a PhD in ancient history from the University of Birmingham. Her thesis on the family in Western Europe after the “fall” of Rome was published as Marriage, Sex, and Death: The Family and the Fall of the Roman West by Amsterdam University Press in 2017, and she has published academic articles and chapters on historical reception, ancient Rome in the modern imagination, and the family in the postclassical West. Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore was her first book for nonacademic audiences. She cohosts a history podcast with writer Janina Matthewson called History Is Sexy and works full-time as an expert fiction bookseller at Waterstones in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
What is this book about?
An entertaining and informative look at the unique culture of crime, punishment, and killing in Ancient Rome
In Ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common—murder. Romulus killed Remus to found the city, Caesar was assassinated to save the Republic. Caligula was butchered in the theater, Claudius was poisoned at dinner, and Galba was beheaded in the Forum. In one 50-year period, 26 emperors were murdered.
But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? In A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon examines a trove of real-life homicides from Roman history to explore Roman culture, including how perpetrator, victim, and the act itself were regarded by ordinary people. Inside Ancient Rome’s darkly fascinating history, we see how the Romans viewed life, death, and what it means to be human.
