{"product_id":"palatine-by-peter-stothard-9781474621014","title":"Palatine","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e'Lets us see how power really worked, in public and private ... Stothard tells this story superbly'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDominic Sandbrook, SUNDAY TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e14 CE: The first Roman emperor is dead. A second is about to succeed. The Forum of Rome, once fought over so fiercely, has become hardly more than a museum. The house of all power is up above on the Palatine Hill, about to become the birthplace of Western bureaucracy, a warren of banqueting and bedrooms, a treacherous household where it takes special talents to survive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a Roman history with a cast of new men and newly dominant women, those reviled too often in the past as flatterers and gluttons, uppity slaves and former slaves, lawyers-for-hire, chancer arrivistes and unhinged party animals. \u003ci\u003ePalatine\u003c\/i\u003e uncovers the lives of the Vitellii, perhaps Rome's least admired imperial clan, of Publius, an old-fashioned soldier snared in the politics of the new age, of Lucius, an exceptionally skilled and sycophantic courtier, and of Aulus, a genial sluggard whose prowess at the table carries him all the way to the throne before collapsing his family's reputation for ever.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFew now remember them. Yet in their creeping ascent to the very summit of the imperial hierarchy lie neglected truths about a lasting legacy of Rome.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46833415749868,"sku":"9781474621014","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/560dc04ebd7c83ed3913549f68ea759d.jpg?v=1758833500","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/products\/palatine-by-peter-stothard-9781474621014","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}