Mary Todd Lincoln has always been in need of a good publicist. She dressed comically, shopped too much, chased after spiritualists, and was forced into a mental institution by her son. Her latest claim to fame is as the title character of the Broadway comedy Oh, Mary!, where she is depicted as a frustrated cabaret performer. In Lois Romano, she has found someone better than a publicist: a first-rate journalist who shows us the true Mary, complex for sure but invaluable to her husband’s career, a temperamental person who, despite tending to wounded soldiers during the war and suffering unspeakable griefs, was treated shabbily by the press and politicians of her time. Romano wears her extensive research lightly, and writes beautifully, like an avenging angel. Mary Todd Lincoln finally has the historian she deserves.
We know plenty about the emperors of ancient Rome,but how much do we know about the gladiators who fought and sometimes killed each other for entertainment in the Colosseum and other arenas across the empire? How were they picked? How did they train? And how did they feel about a career whose advancement was measured by survival? Harry Sidebottom has written a riveting and vivid account of these warriors, demolishing many myths that Hollywood helped create. The risk of death was about one in eight, gladiators rarely fought for more than three years and could make good prize money, and a fleshy physique was preferred over a ripped one so the injured would bleed more. As always, the emperor’s whim was crucial, whether it be decreed that no fighter should be killed or that the bout should end only after one of the two combatants had died. This is a narrative more compelling than a Russell Crowe film, and Sidebottom never settles for a pat analysis. Did the rise of Christianity put an end to the barbaric fights? In a way, yes, but funding also dried up. The power of the purse is sometimes as important as the power of religion.
