Blood of the Caesars: How the Murder of Germanicus Led to the Fall of Rome

I admit to being a Stephen Dando-Collins fan. This, his most recent effort, was spellbinding from start to finish. D-C takes us on a complete tour of the lives, and fates, of the descendents of Caesar. Caligula, Claudius, and Nero all figure prominently as the family vies to destroy each other. The map and family tree were very helpful in keeping the various Druses' and Aggripina's straight as author's theory on the killer of Germanicus began to gather steam. The suspects certainly include the emperor, Tiberius, himself. But don't forget Livilla, the dastardly Sejanus, and the unstable governor of Syria, Senator Piso. The way the book is constructed is very clever as well. We open with the recent death of Germanius and proceed forward in time until the death of Nero, some 50 years later. While the theory may or may not be true, the reader is in for very good historical accuracy, clearly presented in a gripping and highly entertaining manner. Loads of fun for the Roman history lover, Three thumbs up!

Highly recommend this book. You don't have to be into Roman history to follow the book. Reads like a mystery where the detective sums up the case in the murder by poison of Germanicus. I wish history books were written like this when I was in school!

Blood of the Caesars makes an extraordinary claim, that the death of Germanicus led to the fall of Rome. I find that claim to be a bit much, though it is probable, but most likely unlikely. But, putting that aside, he wrote a good book. I had my suspicions on who the "bad guys" were but like a good author, he made me bat them away, until he confirmed them at the end of the book. The book is easy to read, most can probably read it in two days. Without giving anything away, he did a wonderful job building his case up to his conclusion of who destroyed the Roman Empire. The book spans about fifty years of history, from Germanicus to Nero. If his conclusion is correct, he is the greatest criminal mastermind in the ancient world, and what a criminal, to almost single handily bringing down the greatest empire in the world. My problem with that conclusion is that, no one really knows if Germanicus was the next Alexander the Great who could have tripled the empire and create a line of rulers that would have created a golden-age of Rome. History tells us over and over again, within two generations of great rulers, we start seeing incompetent rulers crop up, who do as much damage to the empire as their grandfather did to build it up. Augustus was the greatest emperor of the empire, and yet within 50 years there were at least five emperors who went on a bloodlust to hold their office and remove all "enemies of the state". Germanicus very well could have been a good ruler, and we know him to be a great military leader. But I would argue that Germanicus being pulled from Germany too early as a cause for the fall of Rome. Who knows if 400 years of Roman rule would have pacified the German barbarians, as it did French and British barbarians. Germanicus could have certainly brought a peace to the empire and to its neighbors, like no one else could have, which in and of it self, would have prospered the empire. But being killed so early, Rome would not know that peace. Stephen Dando-Collins is an excellent author, and one who is willing to look at history with afresh eyes and offer a mystery and try to solve it, that in and of itself, is a prize to his his knowledge of history. Not too many people have looked into Germanicus death in modern times and, even still, offer a detailed history of how this person committed the acts and write it in such away, that it grabs you and you have to know who it is.

Blood of the Caesars is a great read. It moves swiftly, holds the reader's interest and strikes a superb balance between providing too much detail and providing too little. It is also somewhat of a murder mystery, and at the end of the book Dando-Collins gives his opinion as to the identity of the murderer of Germanicus Caesar. Dando-Collins's contention that the murder of Germanicus led to the fall of Rome is a bit too much to swallow. It ignores the restoration of stability during the Flavian dynasty under Vespasian and Titus and, after a number of bad years under Domitian, the golden age of the "5 good emperors" (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius). Almost one full century of good rulers undid the damage that occurred in the 40-odd years after Germanicus death. There may be a key error in the book that undermines his theory of the identity of Germanicus's murderer. Dando-Collins writes that Augustus's daughter Julia died of "natural causes", but other sources say that she was starved to death shortly after Tiberius took the throne. Now, it turns out that Aggripina the Elder, Nero Germanicus and Drusus Germanicus were also starved to death. Beginning to see a pattern here? Especially noteworthy is the death of Drusus Germanicus, which clearly occurred on Tiberius's orders following the execution of Sejanus. (Sejanus is sometimes blamed for the other two deaths). Tiberius had few qualms about murdering his family and is the most likely candidate for the person who ordered the death of Germanicus.

I have enjoyed before the books relating the History of the Roman Legions by author Dando-Collins, especially Nero's Killing Machine that gives background on the campaigns of Germanicus and how he become recognized as one of Rome's best military commanders. In this new book he gives us an intriguing possibility about the untimely death of Germanicus and we are confonted with evidence linking this death to a murder commited by a very well known character in Rome's history. I believe that the conclusions make sense but since this a 2000 year old mystery the case will remain unsolved foerever but his conclusions are very interesting. As far as the death of Germanicus being the cause for the later fall of the Western Roman Empire I believe that is stretching history a little bit too far, I believe even if Germanicus reached the position of Emperor, Rome would have fallen eventually to barbarian invasions and to internal decomposition as the seeds of decay lay in the internal foundations of Roman society namely: slavery, poverty, militarism and many other reasons than just bad goverment of a few emperors. If Germanicus could have finished the conquest of Germany eventually barbarians from the East namely Goths, Alans, Huns and others would have eventually overan Rome. But anyways I thoroughly enjoyed the book, new conclusions different from Robert Graves version of this famous murder as stated in I Claudius.