The Damned Emperors

The Damned Emperors series retells the reigns of Caligula, Commodus, Domitian and Caracalla through people close enough to witness their private fears and public violence. Each novel sets later hostile traditions against the personal, dynastic and political pressures that shaped an emperor condemned by Roman memory.

Rather than excusing tyranny, the books investigate how trauma, succession, court factions and the isolation of supreme power can turn insecurity into cruelty. Sisters, lovers, soldiers and imperial women provide alternative viewpoints on rulers whose reputations were created both by their actions and by the enemies who survived them.