The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the Caesars

(Paperback)

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A brilliant and rich group biography of the imperial women of Rome - from an exciting young historian. Like their modern counterparts, the 'first ladies' of Rome were moulded to meet the political requirements of their emperors, be they fathers, husbands, brothers or lovers. But the women proved to be liabilities as well as assets - Augustus' daughter Julia was accused of affairs with at least five men, Claudius' wife Messalina was a murderous tease who cuckolded and humiliated her elderly husband, while Fausta tried to seduce her own stepson and engineered his execution before boiled to death as a punishment. In The First Ladies of Rome Annelise Freisenbruch unveils the characters whose identities were to reverberate through the ages, from the virtuous consort, the sexually voracious schemer and the savvy political operator, to the flighty bluestocking, the religious icon and the romantic heroine. Using a rich spectrum of literary, artistic, archaeological and epigraphic evidence, this book uncovers for the first time the kaleidoscopic story of some of the most intriguing women in history, and the vivid and complex role of the empresses as political players on Rome's great stage.

Reviews

What a great idea for a book this is - what a record of filial loathing, sexual scheming, parental neglect, suicide, fratricide, matricide, patricide, infanticide, incest and abuse... The result is a book both scholarly and racy... She has produced a book to be commended: one that restores to life some of the toughest, most colourful and most bizarre women who ever existed -- Robert Harris * Sunday Times *
[An] extraordinary story...a colourful, pacy survey of dominant Roman women -- Tom Payne * Daily Telegraph *
A beautifully observed, gripping chronicle and a triumphant achievement -- Alison Weir
At last. A book that does not sell us the powerful, intriguing women of Rome simply as poisoners, schemers, femmes fatales, but that brings a wonderfully rich, varied and original range of evidence to bear on the reality of their extraordinary lives -- Bettany Hughes, author of 'Helen of Troy' and 'The Hemlock Cup'
A tour de force of research... an illuminating story * Dailiy Mail *

Author Bio

Annelise Freisenbruch was born in 1977 in Paget, Bermuda, and moved to the UK at the age of eight. She studied classics to postgraduate level at Newnham College, Cambridge, receiving a PhD in 2004. For five of the last ten years, she has taught classics at The Leys School in Cambridge. During that time, she has also worked as a research assistant on a number of popular books and films about the ancient world, and as a research officer exploring the interface between the arts and the law, at the King's College Research Centre in Cambridge. She now lives in Dorset, where she teaches Latin. The First Ladies of Rome is her first book.