Women of the Caesars

The popular belief that military peoples subordinated women to a tyrannical regime of domestic servitude is wholly disproved by Roman history. By the time Rome became the master state of the Mediterranean, and especially during the last century of the Republic, women had already acquired legal and economic independence.The Women of the Caesars is the chronicle of several of these women who shared power and politics with the men of Rome. There was Agrippina, wife of Germanicus, nephew of Tiberius, whom she wrongly blamed for her husband’s death. She died in exile. There was also Agrippina the younger, the mother of Nero; Livia and Julia; and Messalina, wife of Claudius who was as famous for her lasciviousness and amorality as for the murders she instigated. Written with a novelist’s narrative ability and a historian’s regard for facts and detail, The Women of the Caesars sets before our eyes the tragedies and triumphs of the women of Rome. It is an important contribution to historical literature.