The Dark History of the Roman Empire: Blood and Marble. Caligula's Madness, Nero's Christians, the Praetorian Coups, and, (Paperback)

Caligula's Horse, Nero's Fires, and Two Hundred Murdered Emperors. The Roman History They Edited Out of the Civics Class.<p><b>The Romans gave us aqueducts, roads, and the alphabet you're reading in.</b> They also crucified an estimated 6,000 men along the Appian Way, fed Christians to lions for political theatre, and assassinated 60 of their own emperors in two centuries.</p><p>This book is the version that got cut from the textbook.</p><ul><li><b>The Pax Romana lie.</b> What "Roman peace" actually cost the conquered provinces between Augustus and Marcus Aurelius.</li><li><b>Caligula in 39 AD.</b> The senate sessions, the sister rumors, the bridge of boats across the Bay of Naples, and the cause of his madness reconstructed from the surviving sources.</li><li><b>Nero and the Great Fire of 64 AD.</b> What Tacitus actually said about the Christian persecutions, and what modern archaeology has confirmed.</li><li><b>The Praetorian Guard.</b> The year 193 AD, when they auctioned the empire to the highest bidder. The named bidders. The price they paid.</li><li><b>The Crisis of the Third Century.</b> A fifty-year stretch with 26 emperors, most of them assassinated by their own troops, named one by one.</li><li><b>Slavery at scale.</b> What the silver-mining returns and the latifundia actually required to function.</li><li><b>Caracalla's massacre at Alexandria, 215 AD.</b> Court testimony from Cassius Dio, and the named neighborhoods his cavalry sacked.</li><li><b>The end of paganism.</b> Theodosius I, the closing of the temples, and the burning of the Library of Alexandria's daughter library.</li><li>What modern Roman archaeology has uncovered in the past 20 years that Gibbon never knew.</li></ul> <p><b>This is investigative ancient history, not a defense of Rome.</b> Named emperors. Named conspirators. Named victims. Drawn from Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio, modern excavation reports, and the imperial documents that survived.</p><p>Skriuwer is a small independent publisher. We trust readers with difficult truths and don't condescend. If you've read Mary Beard's <i>Emperor of Rome</i>, Tom Holland's <i>Rubicon</i>, or Gibbon's <i>Decline and Fall</i>, and want the same scholarly seriousness with a sharper edge on the violence and the cynicism, this book delivers.</p><p><b>Read it. Decide for yourself.</b></p>

• The Dark History of the Roman Empire: Blood and Marble. Caligula's Madness, Nero's Christians, the Praetorian Coups, and, (Paperback)
• Author: Independently Published
• ISBN: 9798259163294
• Format: Paperback
• Publication Date: 2026-04-27
• Page Count: 164