Emperor: The Rise & Fall of a Dynasty (2024)

Livia Drusilla's 100-year imperial dynasty reaches its brutal and bloody conclusion. Her bumbling grandson Claudius surprises everyone by taking Rome to its greatest heights yet, only to be brought down by ‘The Whore Empress' Messalina and the seemingly unkillable mother of his successor, the psychopathic Nero.

The aged and infirm Claudius has only survived by posing no threat to previous emperors, but the ailing runt of the imperial litter transforms himself from laughing stock to living god by successfully conquering Britain. His greatest threat, however, is his insatiably unfaithful wife Messalina, "The Whore Empress". She earns the dubious honour of being the first empress to have her throat slit, and the only woman left for Claudius to marry next is his own niece Agrippina. Ruthlessly ambitious, Agrippina persuades the emperor to adopt her own son Nero as next in line above Claudius' son. Claudius is then promptly poisoned by mushrooms… and fingers point at Agrippina. Livia would be proud.

Agrippina's sixteen-year old son Nero is now emperor to 60 million subjects. He establishes his uniquely cold brand of psychopathy by poisoning Claudius' son as they celebrate his fourteenth birthday, and when Nero tires of his mother's guiding hand, he hatches a bizarre Bond villain plot to crush her in a collapsing boat. She survives long enough to order executioners to stab her in the womb, "The origin of the evil".

Then Nero alienates the people by using the devastation of the great fire of Rome to build an enormous golden palace for himself. Bleeding the coffers dry, he is finally declared an enemy of the state, and kills himself to avoid being dragged through the streets naked. Livia's dynasty may have died with Nero, but by carving out a role for women to steer their emperors to greatness, she has changed the course of history.