Crownless

<p><strong>Crownless: Forgotten Queer Histories of Imperial Rome</strong></p><p></p><p>For readers drawn to the lives hidden behind Rome's marble facades this collection offers three untold stories.</p><p><em>Crownless</em> presents three novellas about people who found themselves reshaped by imperial power and had to learn how to survive it.</p><p></p><p><em>Sporus</em> was a provincial boy until Nero decided he should become something else: a living monument to the emperor's dead wife. <em>Hierocles</em> drove chariots until he caught the eye of Elagabalus the Syrian priest-emperor whose reign scandalised Rome. <em>Pythias</em> tasted Hadrian's wine for poison and became keeper of the empire's most devastating love story.</p><p></p><p>These novellas restore voices that ancient historians dismissed as scandalous gossip. Each narrator tells how they experienced the events that shaped their lives. How did they persist without a means of survival? What choices remained when everyone else had already made the obvious ones? What was it like to remain human in the face of total power?</p><p></p><p>Inspired by the historical record <em>Crownless</em> visits the internal landscapes of lives that historians neglected under Nero Hadrian and Elagabalus. It's a historical novel that treats its characters as humans rather than emblems and looks at how the empire changed everyone it encountered even those who found ways to push back.</p><p></p><p><em>Crownless </em>explores the concealed realities neglected by historians of the period during the reigns of Nero Hadrian and Elagabalus relying on historical documents<em>.</em> This historical fiction examines the lives of its characters investigating the impact of the Empire on all particularly those who opposed it.</p><p>This book designed for individuals who appreciate both literary style and historical setting reconciles accuracy with an understanding of historical uncertainty. The result: three portraits of endurance three different strategies for remaining human when the world demands you become something else.</p><p><em>Contains mature themes.</em></p>