Let's see how power really worked, publicly and privately... Stothard narrates this story excellently. 14 AD: The first Roman emperor is dead. A second is ready to succeed him. The Forum of Rome, once a site of fierce conflicts, has been transformed into an almost museum-like location. The seat of power stands high on the Palatine Hill, ready to become the birthplace of Western bureaucracy, a labyrinthine place with tables and bedrooms, a dangerous family where survival requires special skills. This is a Roman story with young men and dominant women, who were unfairly regarded in the past as sycophants and gastronomic excesses, rebel slaves and former slaves, lawyers for hire, adventurers, and crazy entertainers. The Palatine reveals the lives of the Vitellius, perhaps the least admired Roman imperial branch, of Publius, an old soldier trapped in the politics of the new era, of Lucius, an exceptionally skilled and flattering courtier, and of Aulus, a leisure-loving melophile, whose success at the table leads him to the throne before forever ruining his family's reputation. Few remember them now. Yet, in their slowly rising path to the top of the imperial hierarchy, neglected truths about an enduring legacy of Rome are hidden.