Volume 54, Number 17 · November 8, 2007
Looking for the Emperor
By Mary Beard
Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor
by Anthony Everitt
Random House, 377 pp., $26.95
The ancient Romans liked an emperor who could take—and make—a joke. Their first emperor, Augustus, was particularly renowned for his sense of humor. In fact, even four centuries after his death, the scholarly Macrobius devoted several pages of his encyclopedia Saturnalia to a collection of Augustus' bons mots, very much in the modern 'Wit and Wisdom' genre.
Review, 4310 words
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