Palatine, the most important of the Seven Hills of Rome, was the heartbeat of Roman imperial power. This book provides a unique and vivid narrative of Rome's first dynasty, as seen through the eyes of one family, the Vitelli, who expertly maneuvered through the Palatine until their luck ran out. Stothard tells a refreshingly different story almost entirely: the biography of the loutish Vitellii clan... [A] smart, visionary book... No reader of Roman history should miss it, both for the sheer thrill of the reading experience and for the challenges such an approach consistently poses to the wary.