How to Be a Bad Emperor : An Ancient Guide to Truly Terrible Leaders / Suetonius; Josiah Osgood.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Suetonius, Author.

Contributor:

Osgood, Josiah, Editor.

Series:

Ancient wisdom for modern readers.

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers

Language:

English

Latin

Subjects (All):

Emperors--Rome--Biography--Early works to 1800.

Emperors.

Rome--History--Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.

Rome.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st.

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English and Latin.

Summary:

What would Caligula do? What the worst Roman emperors can teach us about how not to leadIf 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.Complete with an introduction and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Be a Bad Emperor is a 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 matricide Nero, indulging his mania for public performance.In a world bristling with strongmen eager to cast themselves as the Caesars of our day, How to Be a Bad Emperor is a delightfully enlightening guide to the dangers of power without character.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Introduction

Ignore Bad Omens . . . and Your Wife: Julius Caesar (100- 44 b.c.)

Spend All Your Time at Your Resort: Tiberius (42 b.c.- a.d. 37)

Make Your Horse a Consul: Gaius Caligula (a.d. 12- 41)

Fiddle While Rome Burns: Nero (a.d. 37- 64)

Acknowledgments

Notes

Further Reading

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780691200941

0691200947

OCLC:

1107141558