Vitellius’ Feast

by L. J. Trafford Book 4 in the The Four Emperors series.

First published 2018

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4.0(5)

Rome, AD 69. Vitellius occupies the imperial palace and treats victory as permission for appetite, humiliation and revenge. His agents watch the capital while the court’s servants and freedmen attempt to survive another change of master. Sporus is commanded to perform a degrading public role that recalls Nero, and Philo is forced to confront how much cruelty can be endured before obedience becomes complicity.

In the East, Vespasian accepts the challenge for the throne and depends on allies inside Rome to protect his teenage son Domitian and prepare the city for a Flavian takeover. Conspiracy, street violence and the advance of rival armies narrow the choices available to every member of the palace household. The final novel brings the quartet through Vitellius’s fall and Vespasian’s victory, while refusing to treat the restoration of order as an uncomplicated ending for the enslaved and freed people who paid for each emperor’s ambition.