Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome - by Steven Saylor

This is the next book in the Roma saga. It picks up after the assassination of Julius Caesar and goes through the reign of Augustus to the height of the Roman Empire. All of the stories are told through the eyes of the Pinarius and Potitius families. We get a look into the greatness and madness of some of the emperors like Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Trajan and Hadrian. There are some riveting and barbaric scenes in this book: the Great Fire and the persecution of the Christians. While I still cannot put all of the Roman Emperors in order, I do have a greater sense of who they are. Saylor fleshes out the history with stories and these stories are memorable.