As a long-time fan of both Rome and Robert Hughes, I pounced on Hughes's new book, Rome, expecting a treat. I got one, most of the way, because Hughes is incapable of being boring, unless he's quoting someone boring, or out of his depth. From the Renaissance on--on to the age of Berlusconi, about which he's wearily cynical--he's cavorting fully in his depth, but sad to say, and surprisingly, he's out of it with the ancients. The old boy's got to the point where finessing will do if facts aren't forthcoming. Example: the unpleasant Emperor Tiberius, he tells us, was Augustus' son; well, he wasn't. Augustus had no sons. Tiberius was, in fact, the son of one Tiberius Nero and Augustus' stepson, Junior T.'s mother having been Augustus' wife Livia en premières noces. And speaking of Augustus, Hughes refers to "a succession of autocrats, starting with Augustus himself and continuing onwards through Pompey and Julius Caesar"; well! Onwards and backwards, because Julius died in 44 B.C., as every schoolchild used to know, well before the reign of Augustus began in A.D. 14... do I pick nits? Mary Beard, the entertainingly opinionated Cambridge Professor of Classics and Classics Editor of the TLS, thinks not; but you might. Hey-ho. I don't fault Hughes, not entirely; I've scattered howlers in my wake, too, but there's always been some editor, frequently me, to clean them up. The real disgrace here is that Random House, Hughes's U.S. publisher, appears not to employ any editors, content, copy, or otherwise. As for the book, I'd still recommend it, especially the part dealing with 1450 on. It's good craic. Hughes is that rara avis, an entertaining scholar you'd love to share a bottle of Frascati with. (He's cracked a few, many in the Eternal City.) Still, his British publisher inadvertently hit the mark in their blurb: "Hughes' Rome is . . . monument both to human glory and human error." (Hat tip: T. Lockyer.)
