The Empress Of Rome by Kate Quinn is a series of 4 historical novels set in The Roman Empire published between 2010 and 2015. The first book, Mistress of Rome, chronicles the story of Thea, a Jewish slave girl who survived Masada, as well as the various trials and tribulations that she goes through to achieve happiness. There is also a prequel involving Domitian's wife and two sequels that follow Thea's son Vercingetorix (or Vix for short).
Tropes for this work include
- Abusive Parents:
- Lepida Pollia is at best neglectful towards her daughter, and at worst physically abusive.
- Thea meanwhile does love her son but is not above using corporal punishment. However, this is justified due to how violently-inclined Vix is, and corporal punishment is shown to be the only thing that keeps him in line.
- Affably Evil: Domitian's wife Marcella is genuinely pleasant to Thea despite her low status....but also has a LOT of blood on her hands.
- Best Served Cold: After she seduces his son out of spite and nearly destroys his family, Marcus waits eight years gathering evidence of Lepida's adultery before finally slamming her with divorce. As Lepida's status as a patrician is entirely dependent on her marriage to Marcus, this effectively ruins the privileged lifestyle she had been enjoying for the last decade.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While Lepida doesn't bother to hide her true spiteful nature most of the time she is capable of putting on a mask of kindness to win people over. Pedanius Fuscus is much more successful at hiding his true nature to the point that even Sabina is fooled until Annia tells her what he's really like.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Vix is this in the first book
- Cain and Abel: Domitian confesses to Thea that he murdered Titus by pouring arsenic in his wine.
- Didn't Think This Through: Lepida fails to realize that threatening to accuse Paulinus of rape will be less effective the more time passes (as well as the more people she screwed over.)
- Disappointed by the Motive: Pretty much everyone's reaction when they learn that the reason Pedanius murdered Antinous was because the later had clocked him over the head once and called him a child.
- Domestic Abuse: Domitian physically and emotionally abuses all the women he becomes personally involved with, from Julia to Thea, with Marcella outright stating that his treatment of them tends to hollow out all their nerves. The only person shown to enjoy his rough treatment is Lepida, and even then it's implied he wasn't interested enough in her to treat her as roughly as he did his previous lovers.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Thea and Arius get theirs at the end of the first book. It takes a while but Vix and Sabina get theirs in book 4.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The one redeeming quality Pedananius and Servianus have is they care for each other. Hadrian also comes to care for Antinous.
- Evil Is Petty: Lepida and Pedanius are easily the biggest examples in the series. Lepida sells Thea into slavery for winning Arius and daring to be happy, seduces Paulinus in part because Thea likes him and reveals her adultery to Marcus in the cruelest way possible just to hurt him. Pedanius meanwhile, murders Antinous for standing up to him and clocking him over the head years before.
- The Eeyore: Thea starts out as this
- Faux Affably Evil: Domitian is capable of seeming charming, but it only hides what a murderous psychopath he really is.
- Glamorous Single Mother: Thea is this, thanks in large part to a benevolent master.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Lepida. Her main reason for selling Thea into slavery is because the latter managed to win over Arius. And it gets much worse when Thea becomes Domitian's mistress.
- Jerkass: Lepida is easily the single biggest example in the series. It gets to the point where pretty much everyone agrees that she's just a hateful bitch.
- Love Father, Love Son:
- Lepida seduces her stepson Paulinus, starting a years-long affair with him just to spite Marcus (and Thea as well). This puts a massive strain on the father and son's relationship, in part because Marcus refuses to hold it against his son, making Paulinus feel guiltier about the situation.
- Subverted with Calpurnia. She's engaged to Paulinus on Domitian's orders, but while the two get along well enough, neither of them wants to get married to the other. Ironically, Calpurnia ends up falling for Marcus instead, but the two keep their relationship proper until after Paulinus is killed during Domitian's assassination. The betrothal fully dissolved, Calpurnia moves in with Marcus soon after and makes it clear she will marry no one but him.
- Love Redeems: Hadrian manages to become a somewhat better person thanks to Antinous's influence.
- Mama Bear: Thea will do whatever it takes to protect her son, even assassinate the Emperor of Rome.
- Not So Above It All: When Thea encounters Lepida again after becoming Domitian's mistress she shamelessly rubs it in Lepida's face. She also subtly trolled Lepida during her service by speaking Greek and writing when Lepida could do neither.
- Psychopathic Man Child: Lepida is incredibly immature even as an adult. Thea notices that she's STILL upset that Arius chose Thea over her more than a decade later.
- Rags to Riches: Thea goes from being a slave girl to Domitian's mistress... although given how much of a psychopath he is this isn't much of an improvement.
- Really Gets Around: Lepida has slept with dozens of people over the years. This backfires on her after Marcus, sick of her treatment of him and his family, finally decides to divorce her towards the end of the first book. Having become Domitian's mistress by that point, her well-known reputation as a glorified whore ensures that she can no longer threaten to accuse Paulinus of rape (which was the threat she used the first time Marcus attempted to divorce her) and of being Sabina's true father and removes whatever leverage against Marcus she has left. It also doesn't help that some of her lovers are willing to testify.
- Rich Bitch: Lepida Pollia is this, full stop.
- Smug Snake: Lepida Polia.
- The Vamp: Lepida Pollia. Very sexy, very evil.
- Villain Takes an Interest: The reason Domitian is attracted to Thea is because she's not scared of him.
- Would Hurt a Child: Lepida slams Sabina's head into a table at one point
