I knew going in this wasn't a murder mystery; actually it's a study of an particular upper-class Roman woman, Regilla, chosen because we have statues and inscriptions about her. We know the murderer from the start. The background information on the life of an upper-class Roman female was interesting, but I felt the meat of the book was Chapter 4, where the murder was discussed and there were insights into the Roman judicial system. She was locked into an abusive marriage with a husband 20 years older than she and taken off to Greece to live, away from family and friends. Her husband, although a Roman citizen, was Greek. Her wealthy husband was a real charmer [NOT] she was finally while 8 months pregnant, kicked to death. Her brother Bradua tried to bring justice but Emperor Marcus Aurelius acquitted the murderer; wow, in spite of his wonderful writings, I think the less of this philosopher-emperor for doing that. I guess money and connections talked really loudly.

Style was not quite scholarly and not quite for laypeople. ( )

Basically, this book is about a real murder case from Ancient Rome. A man beat his pregnant wife to death, to the scandal of everyone. Regilla's husband was obviously gay. Even the homoerotic Romans thought he paid a little bit too much attention to his male paramours. What role this played in the murder, though, is anyone's guess.

I think this book could have been a lot more interesting than it was, considering the topic, but academic writing is often very dry and we must forgive that fact. It was sort of intriguing to learn about the criminal justice system of the time (if I'm reading right, murders did not get prosecuted automatically but someone had to bring a prosecution against the alleged killer, like a civil suit today). But I think I could only recommend this book to classics historians or women's studies scholars. ( )