Frances Wilson

The horrors of dining with a Roman emperor

Elagabalus’s suffocating party tricks may have been exaggerated, but Domitian’s sinister, death-themed feasts could be seen as a dictator’s flamboyant threat

The Roses of Heliogabalus’ by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1888. The Emperor Elagabalus was said to have ended his dinner parties by suffocating his guests in a deluge of flower petals. [Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images] 
issue 16 December 2023

Emperor of Rome? Is there a typo in the title? Mary Beard’s latest book is about not one but 30 Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BCE) to Alexander Severus (assassinated 235 CE), so why the singular? The answer is that Emperor of Rome is a study of autocracy and one autocrat, as Marcus Aurelius put it, is much the same as another: ‘Same play, different cast.

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