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Imperial Exits: Being an Account of the Varied and Violent Deaths of the Roman Emperors
Imperial Exits is a viciously vile realization of the untimely ends of some of the great names of imperial Rome, through the witty words of Julius Cicatrix and the scatalogical sketches of Martin Rowson. Here, in all their fading grandeur are Hadrian (copious bleeding from the nose), Galerius (suppurating inflammation of the genitals), Maximin Daia (battered his head against a wall until his eyeballs fell out), Augustus (ate a fig, lovingly poisoned by his wife Livia), Tiberius (stifled by a pillow), and Titus (thoughtfully packed in ice to bring down a fever; he froze to death). The only happy ending in this sorry crew was that of Diocletian who reigned for twenty years, put the Roman world to rights, and retired to grow cabbages at his villa by the sea.
A hilariously horrid history lesson, Imperial Exits is a must for classical scholars, antiquarians, and lovers of true crime.
A hilariously horrid history lesson, Imperial Exits is a must for classical scholars, antiquarians, and lovers of true crime.
114 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 7, 2019
The one or two sentences describing the deaths and their full-page representations by Rowson are all this is good for. Very funny stuff!
The rest is as confusing as anything I've ever read and Cicada-tits is shameless about it.
You need a very specific knowledge of the times to not hate the guy for not using footnotes for:
-the parlance of the times
-where places were geographically
-who groups of people were with where they lived
*Just as importantly: He should have put a family-tree style lineage after the table of contents, just a page or two, and made the chronology less than impossible to follow.
*Rowson, the know-it-all (from reading some of his other works), could have simply scribbled rough maps which would have added tremendously to the readability.
The rest is as confusing as anything I've ever read and Cicada-tits is shameless about it.
You need a very specific knowledge of the times to not hate the guy for not using footnotes for:
-the parlance of the times
-where places were geographically
-who groups of people were with where they lived
*Just as importantly: He should have put a family-tree style lineage after the table of contents, just a page or two, and made the chronology less than impossible to follow.
*Rowson, the know-it-all (from reading some of his other works), could have simply scribbled rough maps which would have added tremendously to the readability.
May 3, 2017
Very interesting to those who like a short book on the various deaths of the Roman Emperors.
December 6, 2022
A discussion of how the various Roman emperors died/were assassinated. To be honest, the accounts of Tacitus and Suetonius are better.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews