Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Caligula | 2018 | Simon S J A Turney | Buy |
| 2 | Commodus | 2019 | Simon S J A Turney | Buy |
| 3 | Domitian | 2022 | Simon S J A Turney | Buy |
| 4 | Caracalla | 2023 | Simon S J A Turney | Buy |
The Damned Emperors series examines four Roman rulers who suffered damnatio memoriae – the official condemnation of their memory after death. Their statues were destroyed, their names chiseled from monuments, and their reputations handed over to hostile historians. Turney’s project is rehabilitative: he returns to primary sources and presents these emperors as more complicated than the monsters described by ancient writers with axes to grind.
Caligula (2018) portrays the young emperor as a man driven to cruelty by his experiences rather than innate madness. Commodus (2019) explores a ruler who may have been mentally ill rather than simply tyrannical. Domitian (2022) and Caracalla (2023) continue the pattern, each examining how political enemies shaped the historical record to justify the destruction of these rulers’ legacies.
The series can be read in any order, as each book follows a different emperor in a different period. What connects them is Turney’s argument that the line between a good emperor and a damned one often had more to do with who wrote the history than what actually happened.