A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon - 352 pages, ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
True crime with a historical twist. An insightful, opinionated, and darkly humorous account of various murders that took place in ancient Rome, examining how murder was viewed in Roman culture. Emma Southon is an entertaining writer, weaving contemporary pop cultural references and comparisons to modern-day law and politics into each narrative. She writes in a conversational style that kept me engaged, and is likely to appeal to casual readers. Although the amount of swearing might turn some people off, I was not bothered by it. There were times I got confused from the sheer number of similar-sounding Roman names, but Southon overall does a good job of summarizing events and clarifying who is important. For example, she explains that there were two Brutuses involved in Julius Caesar's assassination (Marcus Junius Brutus and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus), but "nobody cares about" Decimus. She also focuses quite a bit on Roman women, both famous and forgotten, and has interesting things to say about why many (male) writers of the time tend to blame women for suspicious deaths.
A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a fascinating read, and despite my occasional confusion, I would highly recommend it to true crime fanatics and ancient history buffs who are not bothered by gratuitous swearing.
