Commodus and the Five Good Emperors: History and Allegory

Biographical sketches of the "five good" Roman emperors: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius - plus the "bad emperor" Commodus. Also, a series of fictional letters from each advising his successor how to improve as a ruler and human being and a letter to Marcus Aurelius, written after his death, from his son Commodus. These letters reveal the evolution of imperial personality - from shrewdness to achievement to knowledge to virtue to wisdom to madness - or was it enlightenment? By the author of "Great Women of Imperial Rome", "Roman Empresses", "Bulla Felix: The Roman Robin Hood", and "Vipsania: A Roman Odyssey".