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How monstrous were Rome’s emperors? Was Caligula truly mad enough to declare war on the sea? Did Nero really watch Rome burn while playing his lyre? And were these men depraved by nature—or crafted that way by the sharpened pen of Suetonius?

In his Lives of the Caesars, written in 121 AD, Suetonius offers a series of intimate autopsies on power—twelve rulers, stripped bare. From Julius Caesar to the tyrant Domitian, we’re shown men unhinged by absolute control, consumed by paranoia, cruelty, lust, and madness. But how much of it was true? And how much was slander, myth, or a whisper campaign that never stopped echoing?

In this episode, Keith is joined by historian and podcaster Tom Holland, whose chilling new translation of Suetonius reopens the tombs of Rome’s most infamous emperors. Together, they ask: was this the birth of imperial biography—or the earliest, most enduring example of political character assassination?

Welcome to a Rome not of glory, but of rot.
 Where emperors die… but their madness lives on.

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Tom Holland  

Rome

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