Craven Maxwell. The Imperial Families of Ancient Rome

Fonthill Media, 2019. — 656 p.The Roman Empire was a spectacular polity of unprecedented scale which stretched from Scotland to Sudan and from Portugal to Persia. It survived for over 500 years in the west and 1,480 years in the east. Ruling it was a task of frightening complexity; few emperors made a good fist of it, yet thanks to dynastic connections, an efficient bureaucracy and a governing class eager to attain the kudos of holding the highest offices, it survived the mad, bad and incompetent emperors remarkably well. Although not always apparent, it was the interplay of emperors' kin and family connections which also made a major contribution to controlling the empire. This book aims to put on record the known ancestry, relations and descendants of all emperors, including ephemeral ones and show connections from one dynasty to another as completely as possible, accompanied by concise biographical notes about each ruler and known facts about family members, which include Romans both famous and obscure. It also attempts to distinguish between certainty and possibility and to eliminate obvious fiction. The introduction provides a narrative lead-in to the creation of the empire, attempts to clarify the complexities of Roman genealogy and assess the sources.Maxwell Craven is a graduate of Nottingham University, his dissertation being on the decline of the Roman Patriciate. He is an historian, conservationist and author who for 25 years was Keeper of Antiquities at Derby Museum. He has written extensively, mainly on local topics, biography and architectural history; his monograph of the Enlightenment figure John Whitehurst FRS was published by Fonthill in 2015. He currently writes heritage assessments for historic buildings and acts as numismatic consultant for Bamfords Auctioneers. He was elected FSA and made MBE in 1999 and awarded an honorary DLitt by Derby University in 2013.