Reviews tagging 'Death'

A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon

28 reviews

sara_shocks's review against another edition

dark funny informative

4.0

Roman history if you want to think about the legality of homicides and also want Philomena Cunk narrating. I generally enjoyed the more dry humor, but it's not for everyone, especially on the topic of murder.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Gore, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Xenophobia, and Suicide attempt

ithladin's review

dark funny informative medium-paced

5.0

All the trigger warnings apply, but this book manages to be very interesting and funny and respectful at the same time.


The author has a great voice and I loved her analysis and how she gives context of the sources without losing the rhythm.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, and War

will_foster's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative medium-paced

4.0

An entertaining, funny and also dark exploration of what murder was and meant for the Romans. 

The book explores how weird the Romans were in their attitude to the subject, highlighting how similar and yet so distant they are from us. There was almost too much to absorb in regards to how 'murder' becomes murder for the Romans and all the variety of ways in which it could and could not apply. Murder via magic and in the family were new subjects to me and they were very informative, incredibly interesting and accessible in Southon's writing. 

Lastly, and this feels like a key underlying theme throughout, Southon gives humanity to the people the Romans deemed unimportant, and therefore not worth writing about. We miss this from the ancient sources and is something to keep in the back of the mind when those ancient authors are telling us about their times and how we should live our lives. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

neens_m's review

challenging informative lighthearted fast-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

inkwellimps's review

challenging dark funny reflective medium-paced

4.75

At first, I wasn't sure about this book. As someone more interested in Roman history than in true crime or popular culture, I hesitated in the introduction, as the author asserts that this book is Roman history for fans of true crime. I wasn't really fond of how Southon made a point to mention several times how "dull" aspects of Rome's history beyond the scope of the book were as a funny transition. This was probably exacerbated by the audiobook performance by Sophie Ward. Her haughty performance I found funny for the first hour and then for the next two I was thinking "how on Earth am I going to get through all of this?" After that though, I was able to get used to her delivery. 

The book really shines in the later half once it has your attention. Southon interprets "murder" broadly and gives details about gladiator fights that were completely new to me, amongst a plethora of other topics including murder within families and what society deemed as murder via magic. I would say the most important part of this book is how it  paints a detailed picture of slavery in Roman society. I had not realized quite how widespread the practice was. It was also interesting to me how Southon paints a realistic picture of Rome by assessing the biases that determine what history was written about and what history was not. I do recommend this book despite my rocky first impressions, and I intend to read more of Southon's works. I think for a general audience the writing style is approachable and the occasional modern analogy is welcome, I may have just had a problem with the audiobook's narrator.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Classism

Minor: Child death and Suicide

emmsbookshelf's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny informative sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, Colonisation, and War

brep23's review against another edition

funny informative medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, and Murder

Moderate: Gore, Sexual violence, and Suicide

laurajeangrace's review

dark funny informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Slavery, Torture, Blood, Murder, and War

Moderate: Religious bigotry

m_a_j's review against another edition

funny informative medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Slavery, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Misogyny

vessel's review against another edition

dark funny informative lighthearted medium-paced

4.75

Despite the serious topic, a light and easy read. It is thoroughly researched and diligently sourced. I picked A Terrible Thing up looking for a counternarrative to romanticized ideas of the greatness of the good old days of Roman culture that tend to permeate European general education and right wing circles alike, and it was just what I was looking for.

Through the 9 chapters, the author examines homicide in the Roman world from the early Republic through the height of the imperial era. Each chapter covers Roman murder in different contexts, such as familial murder, the killing of enslaved people, or that of an emperor. Each chapter is also divided into three shorter sub-chapters, making picking it up and putting it down quite easy.

The author's love for and deep interest in the subject is clear, and I found the voice easy to parse and quick to read, which is not always the case with historical non-fiction. On that note, though, while at some points laugh out loud funny, I found that a number of jokes a bit too reminiscent to Twitter humor really didn't land for me, and sometimes, they make assumptions about the reader that are quite annoying (like, the assumption that the reader enjoys and consumes true crime, or that the reader is "Western", whatever that means).

I would consider picking up a physical copy of this book for rereading, and am interested in the author's other works. I highly enjoyed A Terrible Thing, and recommend reading it, if you are interested in learning about Roman history from a different angle than usual.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail