Dynasty

The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

By: Tom Holland

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

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.

Dynasty continues Rubicon's story, opening where that book ended: with the murder of Julius Caesar. This is the period of the first and perhaps greatest Roman emperors. It's a colorful story of rule and ruination, from the rise of Augustus to the death of Nero. Holland's expansive history also has distinct shades of I, Claudius, with five wonderfully vivid (and, in three cases, thoroughly depraved) emperors—Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—featured, along with numerous fascinating secondary characters.

Intrigue, murder, naked ambition and treachery, greed, gluttony, lust, incest, pageantry, decadence—the tale of these five Caesars continues to cast a mesmerizing spell across the millennia.

©2015 Tom Holland (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Accessible, enjoyable history

This is an accessible, interesting survey of the first family of the early Roman Principate - the Julio-Claudians. As the Republic breathes its last, Octavian, grand-nephew of the assassinated Julius Caesar, himself still a teenager, rises from the ashes of a civil war to become the first man in Rome. Through careful managing of his family's "brand", Octavian, known to history as Augustus (the great one), forges a demi-godlike family mythos which more than anything is his legacy. Two thousand years later, we are still intrigued with the Julio-Claudians and wonder "what might have been?" had his heirs been as astute as he and Fate been a bit kinder.

There was little new in this book to me fact-wise, however, I very much enjoyed how Mr. Holland sets the back-drop of the Empire. He explains Rome's history, its political climate, and how the Romans see themselves in relation to the rest of the world. This is a huge factor in why and how the House of Caesar rose to such prominence and why their mythology still has a hold on us today.

What I found even more fascinating are the digressions the author takes as he discusses the Roman world in the first century and the problems the Empire faced, especially in regards to immigration. It truly helped to parallel their world to ours.

Sadly, despite all his careful planning, Augustus was not able to force the rest of his family to adhere to his vision for it. In the end, despite being the blood of the "divine Julius", his family are only human after all. Greed, treachery, hubris, paranoia, and plain old bad luck wreak havoc on Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and their various family members, until the line is extinguished in the last scion of the Julio-Claudians, Nero.

I also appreciated that when he goes into some of the more scurrilous and scandalous stories about the family, the author often gives reasonable explanations as to why those stories may have arisen without treating them as either absolutely true or negating them completely.


The book reads very much like a novel and as such is quite an easy read. I would definitely read more by this author and would be very much interested in a book of his focussed on the women of the dynasty.

Unfortunately, I was not thrilled with the narrator. He had some peculiar pronunciations that irked me for some reason. He was serviceable but I couldn't shake the feeling that someone else could have/would have been a better choice. No idea who that someone would be though.

Beyond fantastic.. Read it!

Tom Holland has emerged as the greatest historian of the 21st century. Jaw dropping stuff.

great story great reading, what not to love?

author did a great job of writing the story of julian-claudian dynasty with great anecdotes as, we'll humanity. while the narrator did outstanding job of bringing it to life. ...perfect audio book.

Fantastic book

This was my favorite of Tom Holland’s books so far. While he never comes out and says it, it seems like Tom is trying to do the opposite of Suetonius and argue that many of the worst acts taken by the Augustan successors were done deliberately for specific political or personal reasons, not because the emperors were insane. Definitely worth your time.

Tom Holland never disappoints

Holland goes into such great detail! You won’t want to put this one down. Even if you feel you’ve read it all on Ancient Rome.
The story is beautifully done,

Also consider Persian Fire by Tom Holland.