Both an educational and titillating look at [Rome’s most notable Emperors] in this highly readable work ... While he chose ten men to focus on, Professor Strauss provides excellent narrative continuity of the entire Roman Empire, particularly when decades occur between his chosen subjects ... A couple of remarkable themes emerge in this book that make it an even more fascinating and relevant read. First, each of these men was a complex mix of cruelty and generosity, intrigue and wisdom, and ego combined with virtue. Above all, their lives and actions confirm the truth that not much changes concerning human nature regardless of supposed civilizational or technological advancement ... More thought-provoking to modern readers will be learning about the outsized influence of women on Roman politics and the succession of emperors to the throne ... As the author winds down the book with a post-script describing the final days of the divided Roman Empire, the reader is left with a much better sense of how this fairly small and impoverished city was able to rise and rule the Mediterranean basin for over 1000 years. Each of these men played their part and their stories are fascinating case studies of politics, family drama, and ultimately, leadership, both good and bad.

... engaging ... even before opening the first page of Ten Caesars, the reader feels a debt of gratitude to Strauss for scything off a superfluous 60-plus rulers and concentrating on a manageable number. The table of contents shows that he has further simplified things by giving each emperor an epithet ... The strength of [this book's] approach is that it offers perspective. All too often books on Rome, like literary grand tourists, revisit the familiar sites, lingering over the naughty Neros, the effective armies and the efficient bureaucracy. But, as Strauss shows, Rome was far more complex and far more interesting than that ... Strauss is not an author to balk either at cliché... or anachronism ... [Passages containing such clichés or anachronisms,] even in passing, is not merely oversimplification but misrepresentation — and mars an otherwise enlightening book.

Much of Ten Caesars reads like a script for Game of Thrones ... Meanwhile, this superb summation of four centuries of Roman history, a masterpiece of compression, confirms Barry Strauss as the foremost academic classicist writing for the general reader today.

This is fairly windy prose, a bit too fond of its own hyperbole ... But...Strauss has mastered a vivid narrative line, a practiced skill at demystifying the past ... Strauss has a near-flawless ear for pacing and a sharp eye for all the best stories. And...he can sometimes follow a good story into error or oddity ... About Augustus’ successor Tiberius, Strauss is engagingly topical ... but Strauss knows as well as anybody that we have no way of knowing what Tiberius considered the proper role of a woman in public. The contrast is simply a good story that’s been around for a long time ... This has almost always been the trade-off confronting readers in books like Ten Caesars ... You get a sumptuous Colosseum of emperor stories that illuminate their eras, but some of the mortar will be mixed with fable and rumor. Strauss handles this trade-off as well as it can be handled; he’s judicious and largely skeptical when he’s sorting through his sources. Readers will learn a lot from his book and the fables will make the lessons a bit sweeter along the way.

Fresh documentary evidence on these times rarely turns up to add to the skimpy surviving chronicles (by Pliny, Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Suetonius et al.), so popular histories have little new ground to break. They must be read for pleasure, and this one delivers good value.

Captivating ... Strauss persuasively argues that each man brought his own personality and peccadilloes to his rule, and that each was successful and revolutionary in his own way ... Citing numerous primary and secondary sources and providing modern analogies to convey complex relationships and ruling styles, this captivating narrative breathes new life into a host of transformative figures.