Barbara Levick: 7 books

Claudius became emperor after the assassination of Caligula, and was deified by his successor Nero in AD 54. Opinions of him have varied greatly over succeeding centuries, but he has mostly been caricatured as a reluctant emperor, hampered by a speech impediment, who preferred reading to ruling. Barbara...

This book reveals how an empire that stretched from Glasgow to Aswan in Egypt could be ruled from a single city and still survive more than a thousand years. The Government of the Roman Empire is the only sourcebook to concentrate on the administration of the empire, using the evidence of contemporary...

Tiberius has always been one of the most enigmatic of the Roman emperors. At the same time, his career is uniquely important for the understanding of the Empire's development on the foundations laid by Augustus. Barbara Levick offers a comprehensive and engaging portrait of the life and times of Tiberius,...

Throughout a long and spectacularly successful political life, the Emperor Augustus (63BC-AD14) was a master of spin.  Barbara Levick exposes the techniques which he used to disguise the ruthlessness of his rise to power and to enhance his successes once power was achieved. There was, she...

From a pre-eminent biographer in the field, this volume examines the life and times of the emperor Vespasian and challenges the validity of his perennial good reputation and universally acknowledged achievements. Levick examines how this plebeian and uncharismatic Emperor restored peace and confidence...

This book covers Julia’s life, and charts her travels throughout the Empire from Aswan to York during a period of profound upheaval, and seeks the truth about this woman who inspired such extreme and contrasting views, exposing the instability of our sources about her, and characterizing a sympathetic,...

Like Guy Fawkes in early 17th-century Britain, L. Sergius Catilina was a threat to the constitution imposed on Rome by Sulla in the mid-1st century BC. His aim at first was to reach the consulship, the summit of power at Rome, by conventional means, but he lacked the money and support to win his way...