Following the bloody assassination of the twenty-eight year old Emperor Caligula, Rome found herself without a leader. Who then should fill the enormous power vacuum left by the death of an emperor? Should Rome return to a Republic?
But his life of anonymity would now be brought to an abrupt end, with a shocking coup led by the Praetorian Guard. The reign that ensued - described in gory, glistening, salacious detail by the Roman historian Suetonius - would see Claudius dismantle his mask of imbecility to reveal himself clever and studious, but easily duped by his advisors, freemen, and wives alike.
It would see him claim the conquest of Britain, increase the strength of the Roman army, fall foul of the senate, play cuckold in one of the most famous sexual scandals of all time, and marry his niece. Who has been the best American president in recent history?
How did Franklin D. Roosevelt go up against Hitler and the Nazis, while battling debilitating Polio? Why was Lincoln such a melancholy man? What made Harry S. Truman the most unexpected of US presidents? What was his involvement in the development of the first atomic bomb in Los Alamos? Did he ever feel any guilt about the nuclear devastation the project would set in motion?
Was Eisenhower a good soldier but a bad president? Was John F. Kennedy overrated, or was he a genuinely impressive individual? Did he mishandle the Bay of Pigs fiasco? Did Johnson fail to withdraw America from Vietnam when he should have done so? And, from an inside source, who really killed Kennedy� Famed as a byword for sexual degeneracy, cruelty and corruption, the account of his life written by the Roman historian Suetonius has, above all, enshrined him as such for posterity.
