Bad Boys of Rome

Rome produced some of history's most consequential rulers. It also produced some of its most catastrophic ones - and the line between the two was often thinner than the history books suggest.

The Bad Boys of Rome collection presents eleven figures (including two women of notoriety) whose names have echoed through two millennia for reasons that range from genuine atrocity to political inconvenience. Nero, whose early reign showed real promise before it unraveled. Caligula, whose four years in power generated a mountain of ancient testimony that modern historians continue to pick apart. Tiberius, one of Rome's most capable administrators, who ended his reign as a paranoid recluse governing an empire from a remote island. Commodus, the gladiator-emperor whose tragedy is inseparable from his father Marcus Aurelius. Messalina and Agrippina the Younger, two women whose ambition and ability were indistinguishable from those of the men who condemned them - and who were condemned partly for that reason.

What these figures share is not simply notoriety. They share the misfortune of being remembered almost entirely through the accounts of their enemies - senators, rivals, and writers working decades after the fact with their own agendas. History is rarely as black and white as its verdicts suggest, and Roman history least of all. The portraits are rendered in a duotone woodcut and vintage engraving style with dramatic lighting and classical Roman gravitas. Each figure is treated with the seriousness they deserve: not celebrated for their worst acts, not reduced to caricature, but examined as the complex and often fascinating products of a political system that concentrated absolute power in single individuals and then was surprised by the results.

These are not simple villains. They are, in many ways, more interesting than that.

Deeply researched. Distinctively designed. Built for the walls, desks, and daily lives of people who take history seriously.

Available as canvas wall art, spiral notebooks, and magnets.