Nero's Heirs

by Allan Massie

At the beginning of the year 66, Emperor Nero ruled the Roman Empire. By the end of it, Nero had committed suicide and three of his successors were dead, and out of the carnage of civil war at home and a nationalistic uprising in Judea a new emperor, Vespasian, had emerged.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Roman

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 4, 1999

About the author

Allan Massie was a Scottish journalist, sports writer and novelist. He was one of Scotland's most prolific and well-known journalists, writing regular columns for The Scotsman, The Sunday Times (Scotland) and the Scottish Daily Mail. He was the author of nearly 30 books, including 20 novels. He is notable for novels set in the distant past and Vichy France.

Reviews

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Emoción y emotividad no son exactamente lo mismo-.

Género. Novela histórica.

Lo que nos cuenta. Tácito, buscando documentación para su Historiae, contacta con un descendiente de los Claudios que fue testigo de excepción del terrible interregno que transcurrió desde la muerte de Nerón hasta la toma del poder por Vespasiano. Ese testigo, nuestro protagonista, comienza a mandar por carta parte de los datos solicitados. Pero no todos sus recuerdos, que llegan hasta el mandato de Domiciano, deben ser puestos a disposición del historiador.

¿Quiere saber más del libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Emoción y emotividad no son exactamente lo mismo-.

Género. Novela histórica.

Lo que nos cuenta. Tácito, buscando documentación para su Historiae, contacta con un descendiente de los Claudios que fue testigo de excepción del terrible interregno que transcurrió desde la muerte de Nerón hasta la toma del poder por Vespasiano. Ese testigo, nuestro protagonista, comienza a mandar por carta parte de los datos solicitados. Pero no todos sus recuerdos, que llegan hasta el mandato de Domiciano, deben ser puestos a disposición del historiador.

¿Quiere saber más del libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent novel but not the usual "Roman era" Massie. I read and greatly enjoyed his classical trilogy (Caesar, Augustus and Tiberius) and I enjoyed this one maybe even more because it is different; more cynical and personal, less about the grand sweep of history and the deeds of famous men, it almost reads like one of Tom Holt superb historical novels, though it's shorter, focusing on 69 AD the famous Year of the 4 Emperors, but with reminiscences both to earlier times and a bit about the future and the Flavians.

The narrator, a noble of very high (official) lineage - though in reality only through his mother since his true father is rumored to have been a powerful freedman who was a sort of Prime Minister under Claudius not his presumed noble one - a former boyhood lover of Titus, sort-of-friend of Domitian since they were roughly of the same age and lover of Titus and Domitian' sister Domitilla to boot - now in late middle age in exile on the Euxine (exiled by Domitian after a glorious military career for adultery with his sister) and weighing if to return to Rome after the tyrant's death, recounts to Tacitus the happenings in 69 and much more.

A short but packed novel and highly recommended especially if you like the darker, less heroic kind of history

[Ruth Harwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favourite of the series, to be honest. The year of the four emperors was as bloody a year in Rome's history as any, except for, well, you know, most other years! The only difference would be that it's not the genocide of a whole Gaulish tribe by Caesar, or the pacification of Britain by Claudius, or any other war, though excepting the civil wars that created the Empire from the Republic, which was actually less bloody, being that it was father against son and brother against brother. I suppose you could call it the most bloody year in peacetime that the Romans encountered. The Empire collapsed after ridding itself of a supposedly 'bad' emperor (who, by the by, the whole population bar the aristocracy absolutely loved, and many false Neros' appeared in the coming years, much the same as many of Edward IV's sons appeared to plague Henry VII!)
Not that I want to give a history lesson. Far from it, I'm trying to display how this year of implosion has bred many books, fictional and not, that want to make sense of what is, in essence, senseless. You can't make sense of a melee!
Massie tackles the subject better than most. His style of writing, as in the other Empire books he wrote, is in the style of someone writing a memoir, someone who was in the thick of it, telling their truth, and Massie does it well, both in style and substance.
His depiction of these men who dreamed and grasped at Empire is, in all probability, pretty accurate. Or so I'd imagine, looking at what I've read and seen of this year.
His writing is always reminiscent of the atmosphere I see in my mind's eye, and as it's well-structured and interesting, I did enjoy this. So perhaps this was much better than Caesar, in hindsight. That was a little drier and less open. Here, we see a world in turmoil due to ambition, and that's a lesson anyone wishing for power should take note of: the wheel of fortune turns on us all in the end.
A 20 year old novel that still cuts the mustard, as they say. If I called it a classic, we'd have so many classics there'd be nothing but lol! But Massie's books are worth reading if you have an interest in human life and our deeds and thoughts - his insight is worth a thousand of any pale imitation!

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last (in historic time) in current series of Roman books – this one is narrated by Scaurus – childhood lover of Titus and his sister Domitius and familiar with Domitian (Vespasian’s) other son).

The book is narrated in what is now self imposed exile as he is asked by Tacitus to give his early memories of the recently deceased “tyrant” Domitian for Tacitus to include in his history but finds himself reminiscing on the year of four emperors following Nero’s death. In that year he was mainly in Rome at the side of Vespasian’s brother (who somehow manages to maintain relationships with the other emperors) and acting as an agent for Titus and babysitter for the over exuberant Domitian, and then in time as a go between in the attempts between Vitellius and Vespasian to negotiate a truce.

More explicitly than ever one feels that to really appreciate the book the reader needs to be familiar with Roman history as told by the classical Roman historians but it still serves as a good introduction to that period of history and to what it meant to live through it.

[Amanda Alexandre · Rating 2 out of 5]

By far the least interesting in the series. There is no personal involvement, like when we learn to love Brutus in Cesar, or to imagine Cicerus as a clown in Marco Antonio.

It felt like the author didn't even enjoyed writing it. He was just trying to get the story done.

[Mark Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb historical fiction as always from Allan Massie. This one about The Year of the Four Emperors in Rome in 69 AD. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully written.

[Andrew Wardle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I'm a fan of Alan Massie, who has written extensively about the Late Roman Republic and early Empire among other subjects. This one is perhaps slightly disappointing compared with his "Caesar" and "Antony" (especially the former), but that may just be the circumstance that most readers will be less familiar with the dramatis personae of this one.
An epistolary novel, it is written as a series of letters to the historian Tacitus by a fictional Roman noble called Scaurus, descendant of a decayed family of aristocrats. Tacitus has besought him to write with material for his own histories (which are the actual source of the book's plot - clever, innit ?). Scaurus is a boyhood friend of the later Emperor Domitian, younger son of the last of the Year of the Four Emperors, Vespasian, and he becomes a witness and occasional minor participant in the chaos and carnage of that terrible year (69 AD) following the fall and suicide of the despised Emperor Nero. Three provincial generals, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, claim the purple themselves before the better-organised or maybe just lucky Vespasian becomes Emperor as last man standing. It is rousing stuff and very cleverly-done, but suffers in comparison to Massie's other Roman books because even the main characters are part of the small print of history. There is less opportunity, therefore, for the author to introduce clever twists and iconoclastic asides as he does in the others in this "series".
But a good read, and there are some nice ironic touches for readers who enjoy actual Roman history.

The first line in the book, "To C. Cornelius Tacitus, Senator" may be the first of these. The actual historian was Publius Cornelius Tacitus, who had a brother who died young. Is this an error (I doubt it) or a clue that we should be cautious of both the narrator and the finished product of the actual Tacitus ? More hints follow:

"Even the most scrupulous works of history are deformed by personal affections and personal prejudices" (a nod to the fact that Tacitus, like all writers in the Empire, had to be careful that what he wrote did not displease the Emperor or his favourites);
"I do not believe that there is, or can ever be, a fully accurate history";
".......good sense is an early casualty of any war";
"It seems to me that the most we have done in our mastery of the world.......is to create a desert and call it peace." (Tacitus' famous line, in his work put into the mouth of a British chieftain, is archly ascribed to our narrator Scaurus);

And Titus, who as Emperor will continue the Caesars' demolition of Rome's republican institutions, is given an iconoclastic opinion which may be the author's own: "We are in danger of slipping back again into the old politics when men competed for glory as well as office. Augustus destroyed Republican Virtue, as men chose to call this strife. Tiberius suppressed it. The feebleness of his successors has allowed it to flourish again, like a noxious weed." The Republic's "cursus honorum", and by implication Western liberal democracy, challenged to show how it has benefited mankind.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 3 out of 5]

First published in 1999, 'Nero's Heirs' is a historical novel set mainly in 68AD Rome, as the main character Scaurus recalls the events of that year known as the year of the four emperors. He recalls the events in later life, and the while thing is parcelled out into 41 short snappy chapters. This ought to make it a quick read, but it does come across a little dry which slows things down a bit. Nevertheless interesting in its way, though not one of Massie's best.

[Annabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this, my first book by Allan Massie, expecting another engrossing read on Roman emperors. And I was quite disappointed to realize it was historical fiction. (Oh yes, I've become quite the snob since getting hooked on Roman history, no thanks to Edward Gibbon. Because let's face it, unless we're talking about Robert Graves's I, Claudius, which is to me the gold standard for Roman historical fiction, the finest embellishments are no match for historical truth. With subjects this debauched, this perverted, who needs fiction?) And yet, I was easily captivated. The fictional character Scaurus eloquently narrates a timeline synonymous with the earlier books I had read on the first twelve Caesars. This was interesting because it focused on events immediately after Emperor #5 Nero's death, the year Rome had the highest turnover of emperors--numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9. The perfunctory sketches I read before only skimmed the surface of their character, their primal weaknesses and intentions. Massie's storytelling, through the occasionally sanctimonious Scaurus, has made me recognize them for their very human, familiar frailties, especially given the political landscape my country has been in for some time now.

Three stars. Could have been higher, if the narration didn't delve too much into the fictional, and therefore expendable--Scaurus's sexual peccadilloes and existentialist woes.