Blood of the Caesars: How the Murder of Germanicus Led to the Fall of Rome

Could the killing of a single great leader while the Roman Empire was still in its infancy have been the root cause of the empire's collapse more than four centuries later? Perhaps, but only if that leader were the grandson of Mark Antony, the adopted son of the emperor Tiberius, handpicked by Augustus to become the third emperor, as well as the father of Caligula and the grandfather of Nero.

Germanicus Julius Caesar was all of the above. He wa...