DID IT MATTER WHO WAS THE EMPEROR? Mary Beard argues that—whether or not Caligula or Nero were monsters—“….whatever the views of Suetonius and other ancient writers, the qualities and characters of the individual emperors did not matter much to most inhabitants of the empire, or to the essential structure of Roman history and its major developments.”
Michael Grant goes further. His final judgment on the first twelve emperors is that: “…on the whole, with the aid of an efficient system, they governed well.”