From Barry Strauss, the acclaimed ancient military historian and author of The Death of Caesar, comes Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine. As the title makes plain, Strauss’ book does not cover all Caesars of the first three centuries of the Christian era, but it does cover 10 of the most notable. Strauss passes over forgotten and otherwise unremarkable emperors, such as Otho, Galba, or Vitellius. The author, a professor of history and classics at Cornell University, sticks to the A-list.

You may object, but Julius Caesar is not among the 10 profiled. No, he is not, but then he was not, strictly speaking, an emperor. He was consul and, together with Crassus and Pompey, a member of the First Triumvirate. Only with the ascension of Octavian (later Augustus) after Caesar’s assassination, did the age of empire officially begin. The Roman Republic was over.