We all know that the Roman emperors were a bunch of psychopaths who thought nothing of poisoning their dinner guests or playing terrifying tricks on them. Whether it’s the disturbing black dinner of Domitian, where guests were given silver tombstones engraved with their own names, or the party where teen emperor Elagabalus suffocated his diners in a huge shower of rose petals, their generosity often came with a side order of murder. But what if we have misunderstood the Roman rulers? Cambridge’s most famous classicist, Mary Beard, reveals a different side to these legendary characters in her n…