Palatine

Reviews / Votes

This hugely readable novel-like account completes the picture, a Succession for the Julio-Claudian years. S. gets behind the Tacitean and Suetonian stereotypes and brings the Palace itself to life: a great read. * Classics for All * With vivid prose in short, dynamic chapters, Stothard also covers the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, Jewish unrest at the time of Christ and the invasion of Britain, but this extraordinarily well-researched, exciting book is more a tale of increasing wealth and prosperity rather than war, as well as corruption, greed, gluttony and desire.... Once again, Stothard has written a brilliant picture of the vibrant realities of life in the ancient world. * Daily Mail * This is a story you think you know, told through the eyes of people you don't ... Not so much an alternative history as an alternative epic, farce and satire rolled into one. Palatine is an absorbing saga of battles and banquets, as densely populated and richly depicted as Game of Thrones. * Rachel Cunliffe, The Times [London] * Let us see how power really worked, in public and private. We glimpse the emperors at work and at play, in the dining room and in the bedroom. And we see how even they, despite the sycophants, were often prisoners, not architects, of the system. One false step and it would all be over.... Stothard tells this story superbly. * Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times [London] * This is a literary work of cultural history * a wonderful example of profound scholarship written with the verve and expertise of an accomplished novelist.... Wonderful, evocative stuff!The Telegraph * Peter Stothard's Palatine gives us alternate Rome, the imperial palace seen from an oblique angle. It's the story of a prominent family that aimed high and fell far. Palatine is clever, learned, sophisticated, witty, and utterly readable. * Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Anthony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium * Not since Robert Graves' I Claudius has there been so exciting a book on the world of the early Caesars. Stothard shines a light on the palace insiders trying to get ahead, or just survive, one of whom, Aulus Vitellius, ended up becoming emperor himself. This is a history not only of high-level political intrigue, but flattery and food, with mouth-watering descriptions and sharp epigrams throughout. * Josiah Osgood, author of Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic * [Stothard] evokes brilliantly the rich strangeness of the world of the imperial court in the first century...Stothard's evocation of [Vitellius'] last hours, in hiding in a glorified dog kennel, his senses overwhelmed by the stench, is one I shan't readily forget. * Catharine Edwards, Times Literary Supplement * Stothard tells a refreshingly different story almost entirely: the biography of the loutish Vitellii clan... [A] smart, visionary book... No reader of Roman history should miss it, both for the sheer thrill of the reading experience and for the challenges such an approach consistently poses to the wary. * Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review * This hugely readable novel-like account completes the picture, a Succession for the Julio-Claudian years. S. gets behind the Tacitean and Suetonian stereotypes and brings the Palace itself to life: a great read. * Classics for All * With vivid prose in short, dynamic chapters, Stothard also covers the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, Jewish unrest at the time of Christ and the invasion of Britain, but this extraordinarily well-researched, exciting book is more a tale of increasing wealth and prosperity rather than war, as well as corruption, greed, gluttony and desire.... Once again, Stothard has written a brilliant picture of the vibrant realities of life in the ancient world. * Daily Mail * This is a story you think you know, told through the eyes of people you don't ... Not so much an alternative history as an alternative epic, farce and satire rolled into one. Palatine is an absorbing saga of battles and banquets, as densely populated and richly depicted as Game of Thrones. * Rachel Cunliffe, The Times [London] * Let us see how power really worked, in public and private. We glimpse the emperors at work and at play, in the dining room and in the bedroom. And we see how even they, despite the sycophants, were often prisoners, not architects, of the system. One false step and it would all be over.... Stothard tells this story superbly. * Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times [London] * This is a literary work of cultural history * a wonderful example of profound scholarship written with the verve and expertise of an accomplished novelist.... Wonderful, evocative stuff!The Telegraph * Peter Stothard's Palatine gives us alternate Rome, the imperial palace seen from an oblique angle. It's the story of a prominent family that aimed high and fell far. Palatine is clever, learned, sophisticated, witty, and utterly readable. * Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Anthony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium * Not since Robert Graves' I Claudius has there been so exciting a book on the world of the early Caesars. Stothard shines a light on the palace insiders trying to get ahead, or just survive, one of whom, Aulus Vitellius, ended up becoming emperor himself. This is a history not only of high-level political intrigue, but flattery and food, with mouth-watering descriptions and sharp epigrams throughout. * Josiah Osgood, author of Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic * [Stothard] evokes brilliantly the rich strangeness of the world of the imperial court in the first century...Stothard's evocation of [Vitellius'] last hours, in hiding in a glorified dog kennel, his senses overwhelmed by the stench, is one I shan't readily forget. * Catharine Edwards, Times Literary Supplement * Stothard tells a refreshingly different story almost entirely: the biography of the loutish Vitellii clan... [A] smart, visionary book... No reader of Roman history should miss it, both for the sheer thrill of the reading experience and for the challenges such an approach consistently poses to the wary. * Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review * This hugely readable novel-like account completes the picture, a Succession for the Julio-Claudian years. S. gets behind the Tacitean and Suetonian stereotypes and brings the Palace itself to life: a great read. * Classics for All * With vivid prose in short, dynamic chapters, Stothard also covers the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, Jewish unrest at the time of Christ and the invasion of Britain, but this extraordinarily well-researched, exciting book is more a tale of increasing wealth and prosperity rather than war, as well as corruption, greed, gluttony and desire.... Once again, Stothard has written a brilliant picture of the vibrant realities of life in the ancient world. * Daily Mail * This is a story you think you know, told through the eyes of people you don't ... Not so much an alternative history as an alternative epic, farce and satire rolled into one. Palatine is an absorbing saga of battles and banquets, as densely populated and richly depicted as Game of Thrones. * Rachel Cunliffe, The Times [London] * Let us see how power really worked, in public and private. We glimpse the emperors at work and at play, in the dining room and in the bedroom. And we see how even they, despite the sycophants, were often prisoners, not architects, of the system. One false step and it would all be over.... Stothard tells this story superbly. * Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times [London] * This is a literary work of cultural history * a wonderful example of profound scholarship written with the verve and expertise of an accomplished novelist.... Wonderful, evocative stuff!The Telegraph * Peter Stothard's Palatine gives us alternate Rome, the imperial palace seen from an oblique angle. It's the story of a prominent family that aimed high and fell far. Palatine is clever, learned, sophisticated, witty, and utterly readable. * Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Anthony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium * Not since Robert Graves' I Claudius has there been so exciting a book on the world of the early Caesars. Stothard shines a light on the palace insiders trying to get ahead, or just survive, one of whom, Aulus Vitellius, ended up becoming emperor himself. This is a history not only of high-level political intrigue, but flattery and food, with mouth-watering descriptions and sharp epigrams throughout. * Josiah Osgood, author of Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic * [Stothard] evokes brilliantly the rich strangeness of the world of the imperial court in the first century...Stothard's evocation of [Vitellius'] last hours, in hiding in a glorified dog kennel, his senses overwhelmed by the stench, is one I shan't readily forget. * Catharine Edwards, Times Literary Supplement * Stothard tells a refreshingly different story almost entirely: the biography of the loutish Vitellii clan... [A] smart, visionary book... No reader of Roman history should miss it, both for the sheer thrill of the reading experience and for the challenges such an approach consistently poses to the wary. * Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review * This hugely readable novel-like account completes the picture, a Succession for the Julio-Claudian years. S. gets behind the Tacitean and Suetonian stereotypes and brings the Palace itself to life: a great read. * Classics for All * With vivid prose in short, dynamic chapters, Stothard also covers the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, Jewish unrest at the time of Christ and the invasion of Britain, but this extraordinarily well-researched, exciting book is more a tale of increasing wealth and prosperity rather than war, as well as corruption, greed, gluttony and desire.... Once again, Stothard has written a brilliant picture of the vibrant realities of life in the ancient world. * Daily Mail * This is a story you think you know, told through the eyes of people you don't ... Not so much an alternative history as an alternative epic, farce and satire rolled into one. Palatine is an absorbing saga of battles and banquets, as densely populated and richly depicted as Game of Thrones. * Rachel Cunliffe, The Times [London] * Let us see how power really worked, in public and private. We glimpse the emperors at work and at play, in the dining room and in the bedroom. And we see how even they, despite the sycophants, were often prisoners, not architects, of the system. One false step and it would all be over.... Stothard tells this story superbly. * Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times [London] * This is a literary work of cultural history * a wonderful example of profound scholarship written with the verve and expertise of an accomplished novelist.... Wonderful, evocative stuff!The Telegraph * Peter Stothard's Palatine gives us alternate Rome, the imperial palace seen from an oblique angle. It's the story of a prominent family that aimed high and fell far. Palatine is clever, learned, sophisticated, witty, and utterly readable. * Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Anthony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium * Not since Robert Graves' I Claudius has there been so exciting a book on the world of the early Caesars. Stothard shines a light on the palace insiders trying to get ahead, or just survive, one of whom, Aulus Vitellius, ended up becoming emperor himself. This is a history not only of high-level political intrigue, but flattery and food, with mouth-watering descriptions and sharp epigrams throughout. * Josiah Osgood, author of Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic * [Stothard] evokes brilliantly the rich strangeness of the world of the imperial court in the first century...Stothard's evocation of [Vitellius'] last hours, in hiding in a glorified dog kennel, his senses overwhelmed by the stench, is one I shan't readily forget. * Catharine Edwards, Times Literary Supplement * Stothard tells a refreshingly different story almost entirely: the biography of the loutish Vitellii clan... [A] smart, visionary book... No reader of Roman history should miss it, both for the sheer thrill of the reading experience and for the challenges such an approach consistently poses to the wary. * Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review *