Ok, I liked this book but the title is false. It does not continue through to the fall of Rome. It spends about a chapter on each Emperor (unless they didn't last long which happened often) until Elagabalus was killed in 222 C.E. Then the next 190 years are glossed over in a 4 page Epilogue. What? That's leaving out a whole lot of interesting and Dark stuff, and not even a mention of Constantine. Did the author hit his page limit and just stop? What is going on here, I feel cheated, like half my book is missing.

While I feel cheated I did still enjoy the book. I don't believe everything I read here, because this series deals in gossip and rumor. Other books in the Dark History series I read, where I'm more educated on the subject matter, have passed a lot of untrue or questionable facts off as matter of fact. But it was interesting enough that I plan to read up on the subject further to get a more complete and accurate picture.

I would very much enjoy reading the second half of this book that doesn't exist, but since it doesn't I'll have to deal with being entertained with what I've been given and I was. ( )

An easy-to-follow, well a illustrated overview of the rulers of Rome which includes a bunch of the much-neglected later emperors. Some of those later emperors tried hard to hold together the empire, counterbalanced by others who were crazier than Caligula on a Saturday night. Many of the illustrations are from medieval paintings, with variances from actuality noted. A simple chart listing the emperors, perhaps with short, supplementary nights, would've been nice, just to keep score. Good, light pop history. ( )

This is an interesting read, which features the different emperors of the Roman Empire. Since the subject of the Roman Empire is a vast one, don't expect to find a lot of history about the Roman Empire in this book. It tends to feature more of the eccentric characteristics of the different emperors.

I did enjoy it, though, partly because it helped to put the empire into more of a context for me. Before reading this book, I was only vaguely aware of the Roman Empire in history and hadn't read a lot about it or know much about its formation or the demise, and this book did clarify the vastness of the empire. ( )