Eternal_Midnight posted:
__Bonk__ posted:
Well you read all these horrible things about all the roman emperors but those accounts were all written long after the fact by people in new administrations. Also many of the things written there could be just the worst rumors of the time created by the emperors political enemies. Makes you wonder if some of the emperors were as bad as they said in those historic gossip books like Seutonius' Twelve Caesars.
Have you read Gibbons' account?
Roman history isn't simply drawn from writings of politicians. They have two full cities entirely covered by a volcano which erupted at the time of the peak of the Roman Empire in order to glean information from. Not only the writings of the citizens, but grafitti, art, business, etc.
Our knowledge of Rome comes from many sources, not simply the victor.
