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How to Be a Bad Emperor
- An Ancient Guide to Truly Terrible Leaders (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers Series)
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 2 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's summary
If recent history has taught us anything, it's that sometimes the best guide to leadership is the negative example. But that insight is hardly new. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Suetonius wrote Lives of the Caesars, perhaps the greatest negative leadership book of all time. He was ideally suited to write about terrible political leaders; after all, he was also the author of Famous Prostitutes and Words of Insult, both sadly lost. In How to Be a Bad Emperor, Josiah Osgood provides crisp new translations of Suetonius's briskly paced, darkly comic biographies of the Roman emperors Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Entertaining and shocking, the stories of these ancient anti-role models show how power inflames leaders' worst tendencies, causing almost incalculable damage.
How to Be a Bad Emperor is both a gleeful romp through some of the nastiest bits of Roman history and a perceptive account of leadership gone monstrously awry. We meet Caesar, using his aunt's funeral to brag about his descent from gods and kings - and hiding his bald head with a comb-over and a laurel crown; Tiberius, neglecting public affairs in favor of wine, perverse sex, tortures, and executions; the insomniac sadist Caligula, flaunting his skill at cruel put-downs; and the matricidal Nero, indulging his mania for public performance.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Suetonius wrote his Lives of the Twelve Caesars in the reign of Vespasian around 70AD. He chronicled the extraordinary careers of Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian and the rest in technicolour terms. They presented some high and low times at the heart of the Roman Empire. The accounts provide us with perspicacious insights into the men as much as their reigns.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Translation doubts
- By Elizabeth on 05-20-07
By: Suetonius
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Dying Every Day
- Seneca at the Court of Nero
- By: James S. Romm
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story5 out of 5 stars 33
James Romm seamlessly weaves together the life and written words, the moral struggles, political intrigue, and bloody vengeance that enmeshed Seneca the Younger in the twisted imperial family and the perverse, paranoid regime of Emperor Nero, despot and madman.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding
- By michael bobadilla on 05-04-23
By: James S. Romm
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I, Claudius
- By: Robert Graves
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,641
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,656
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,659
Here is one of the best historical novels ever written. Lame, stammering Claudius, once a major embarrassment to the imperial family and now emperor of Rome, writes an eyewitness account of the reign of the first four Caesars: the noble Augustus and his cunning wife, Livia; the reptilian Tiberius; the monstrous Caligula; and finally old Claudius himself. Filled with poisonings, betrayal, and shocking excesses, I Claudius is history that rivals the most exciting contemporary fiction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Unsurpassed, addictive brilliance
- By Chris on 06-09-09
By: Robert Graves
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Claudius the God
- By: Robert Graves
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 19 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 600
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 443
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 445
Robert Graves continues Claudius' story with the epic adulteries of Messalina, King Herod Agrippa's betrayal of his old friend, and the final arrival of that bloodthirsty teenager, Nero.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Deified King of Historical Fiction
- By Darwin8u on 12-27-12
By: Robert Graves
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Dynasty
- The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar
- By: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,538
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,385
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,372
Author and historian Tom Holland returns to his roots in Roman history and the audience he cultivated with Rubicon—his masterful, witty, brilliantly researched popular history of the fall of the Roman republic—with Dynasty, a luridly fascinating history of the reign of the first five Roman emperors.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Accessible, enjoyable history
- By Mary on 01-28-16
By: Tom Holland
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Cleopatra
- A Life
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,591
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,094
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,105
Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Approach this book with caution
- By GolfZilla on 12-02-10
By: Stacy Schiff
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Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
- By: Plutarch
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 83 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 269
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 247
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Story5 out of 5 stars 247
Plutarch (c. AD 46-AD 120) was born to a prominent family in the small Greek town of Chaeronea, about 20 miles east of Delphi in the region known as Boeotia. His best known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek life and one Roman life as well as four unpaired single lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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For the Very Dedicated
- By John Pinkerton on 03-13-18
By: Plutarch
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The Shadow of Vesuvius
- A Life of Pliny
- By: Daisy Dunn
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his 37-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder's notebooks - filled with pearls of wisdom - and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyable but lost track at times
- By Joshua Miller on 12-16-20
By: Daisy Dunn
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Evil Roman Emperors
- The Shocking History of Ancient Rome's Most Wicked Rulers from Caligula to Nero and More
- By: Phillip Barlag
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
Roman history, from the very foundation of the city, is replete with people and stories that shock our modern sensibilities. Evil Roman Emperors puts the worst of Rome's rulers in one place and offers a review of their lives and a historical context for what made them into what they became.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brisket and nu potato
- By Michael Ayers on 06-27-21
By: Phillip Barlag
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A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
- Murder in Ancient Rome
- By: Emma Southon
- Narrated by: Sophie Ward
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 665
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 584
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 579
In ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common - murder. 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 and death and what it means to be human.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Narration is stilted, author tries too hard
- By Allison Jackson on 07-13-21
By: Emma Southon
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Dominus
- By: Steven Saylor
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
A.D. 165: The empire of Rome has reached its pinnacle. Universal peace - the Pax Roma - reigns from Britannia to Egypt, from Gaul to Greece. Marcus Aurelius, as much a philosopher as he is an emperor, oversees a golden age in the city of Rome. The ancient Pinarius family and their workshop of artisans embellish the richest and greatest city on earth with gilded statues and towering marble monuments. Art and reason flourish. But history does not stand still. The years to come bring wars, plagues, fires, and famines. The best emperors in history are succeeded by some of the worst.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent conclusion to the Trilogy
- By John f. Mc Cullagh on 07-26-21
By: Steven Saylor
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The Age of Caesar
- Five Roman Lives
- By: Plutarch, James Romm - preface and notes, Pamela Mensch - translator
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Pompey, Caesar, Cicero, Brutus, Antony: the names resonate across thousands of years. Major figures in the civil wars that brutally ended the Roman republic, their lives still haunt us as examples of how the hunger for personal power can overwhelm collective politics, how the exaltation of the military can corrode civilian authority, and how the best intentions can lead to disastrous consequences. Plutarch renders these history-making lives as flesh-and-blood characters.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Terrific
- By Michael on 06-13-23
By: Plutarch, and others
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The Death of Caesar
- The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination
- By: Barry Strauss
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 192
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 191
William Shakespeare's gripping play showed Caesar's assassination to be an amateur and idealistic affair. The real killing, however, was a carefully planned paramilitary operation, a generals' plot put together by Caesar's disaffected officers and designed with precision. Brutus and Cassius were indeed key players, but they had the help of a third man - Decimus. He was the mole in Caesar's entourage, one of Caesar's leading generals, and a lifelong friend.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Absorbing
- By Jean on 03-24-15
By: Barry Strauss
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Augustus
- First Emperor of Rome
- By: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,584
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,387
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,374
Caesar Augustus's story, one of the most riveting in western history, is filled with drama and contradiction, risky gambles and unexpected success. He began as a teenage warlord, whose only claim to power was as the heir of the murdered Julius Caesar. Mark Antony dubbed him "a boy who owes everything to a name," but in the years to come the youth outmaneuvered all the older and more experienced politicians and was the last man standing in 30 BC.
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5 out of 5 stars
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You know my name...say it.
- By Steven on 12-10-14
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Cleopatra: The Egyptian Queen: The Entire Life Story
- By: THE HISTORY HOUR
- Narrated by: Lizzie Richards
- Length: 1 hr and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, nominally survived as pharaoh by her son Caesarion. She was also a diplomat, naval commander, polyglot, and medical author. As a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder, Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good overview, poor narration
- By HP on 10-31-22
By: THE HISTORY HOUR
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Civilizations
- A Novel
- By: Laurent Binet, Sam Taylor - translator
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 82
Freydis is the leader of a band of Viking warriors who get as far as Panama. Nobody knows what became of them. Five hundred years later, Christopher Columbus is sailing for the Americas, dreaming of gold and conquest. Even after he is captured by the Tainos, his faith in his superiority and his mission is unshaken. Thirty-nine years after that, Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor, arrives in Europe.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A BRILLIANT BLEND OF HISTORY AND FICTION
- By Amazon Customer on 09-25-21
By: Laurent Binet, and others
What listeners say about How to Be a Bad Emperor
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- edward
- 07-10-23
Not worth listening to
I have followed many stories of ancient Rome. The depravities and viciousness of the emperors is always amazing. Unfortunately, this telling of those events is terrible. It is poorly written, disjointed, and uninterested. I couldn’t get through it all the way. Tried several times. Listen to anything else than this.
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