A review by batbones
Augustus: First Emperor of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy

4.0

The best history book is not an unpunctuated flow of facts in a tell-all, nor a broad sweep that generalises fragments into trends where they may dangerously be none, but, as Goldworthy's masterpiece of a book proves, the meticulous putting together of facts woven with declared, substantiated conjecture, into something marvelously engaging, almost magical in its story-telling. Where the pieces can be seen to be pieces, and the gaps between declared no less than the silences they are, these seam lines declare a historian's laudable caution and modesty. And for a figure like Caesar Augustus, the question of 'what exactly do we know about his person?' is especially important, for a man out of whose mystery some have made myth, while others have rendered ruler in the word's less noble shades of meaning (oppressor, tyrant). Using the customs and rituals of 'ordinary', contemporary Roman life to pull impressions together where intermittent details are lacking (e.g. Augustus' childhood) is an interesting move done exceptionally well by deft pen and research. What is drawn through this book is an encounter with an exceptional person in Roman history. At the end of it, as this reader discovers, Caesar Augustus loses none of his charm and fascination he had held as a cultural figure before the book has begun.