Customer Review

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  Roger Lipsey

  5.0 out of 5 stars An Insider's View, Amazingly Enough

  Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2023

  Verified Purchase

  For anyone who can't help returning periodically to the ancient world--an insistent mirror and source for today's world--this is a perfectly splendid book. Dr. Beard takes us as close as possible to understanding the emperor's role and concerns from global politics to the telling minutiae of his life. She offers as well a critique of his critics over the centuries; much was written about them, true and false. Dr. Beard brings to this book comprehensive learning matched by a wonderful sense for the odd and funny. There is no one like her. A disagreement between us, but no matter: she has no sympathy whatever with Marcus Aurelius, whose classic notes on life and consciousness she mockingly calls his "Jottings," as if they were mental doodles. But read the first entry in his Book Two, and much else. . .

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