Classical Rome

Rome, the 1890s. A young French priest arrives in the Eternal City carrying a single suitcase — and a manuscript that could end his career. Abbé Pierre Froment has written a book daring to imagine a Catholic Church reconciled with modern science, democracy, and the poor. Summoned to Rome to defend it before it can be condemned, he throws himself into a city he has only ever loved from afar: golden ruins and marble palaces, scheming cardinals and starving peasants, where every staircase seems to lead toward — or away from — the Pope. He finds shelter with the Boccaneras, a princely ...

A stimulating and expert analysis of the unique conditions that allowed Christianity to take shape and flourish across the Roman Empire during its first three centuries, from one of our leading historians of the ancient world “Elegant and persuasive. . . . A striking exploration of the spread...

Book I of this history covers two and a half centuries — Aeneas, the she-wolf, the Sabine women, the last Tarquin driven from the city — in about thirty thousand words. At the far end of the volume, after the continuous narrative breaks off, ninety-five surviving summaries cover the next hundred and fifty-seven years — the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla, Spartacus, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the Ides of March, Actium — in about eighteen thousand. The legendary reign of Romulus gets more space in this book than the destruction of the entire Roman Republic. Livy noticed the same slope ...

Here in a single volume is the entire, unabridged recording of Gibbon's masterpiece. Beginning in the second century A.D. at the apex of the Pax Romana, Gibbon traces the arc of decline and complete destruction through the centuries across Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a thrilling and cautionary tale of splendor and ruin, of faith and hubris, and of civilization and barbarism. Follow along as Christianity overcomes paganism... before itself coming under intense pressure from Islam.

Julius Caesar, Lucretia, Cincinnatus, Augustus, the Gracchi brothers: Roman figures have had an extraordinary influence on modern republics from America to France. Here historian Jamie Gianoutsos traces the Roman republic and its afterlives through the revolutionary birth of modern republics in...

A timeless story of love, faith, and power set in the heart of ancient Rome. In the glittering yet dangerous world of Emperor Nero’s Rome, where luxury masks cruelty and power thrives on fear, one man’s life is about to change forever. Marcus Vinicius, a proud Roman soldier, has everything—status, strength, and ambition. But when he meets Ligia, a mysterious young woman raised among the early Christians, he is drawn into a world he cannot understand—and a love that will challenge everything he believes. As Nero’s tyranny deepens and suspicion falls upon the growing Christian ...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE From the #1 internationally bestselling author of Conclave and Dictator, a gripping tale of ancient Rome’s descent into dictatorship “Thrilling. . . . Agrippa is a swift-paced romp. . . . Politics may be ‘a filthy business,’ as Agrippa...

Plutarch (c. AD 46-AD 120) was born to a prominent family in the small Greek town of Chaeronea, about 20 miles east of Delphi in the region known as Boeotia. His best known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek life and one Roman life as well as four unpaired single lives.

The great epic of Western literature, translated by the acclaimed classicist Robert Fagles Soon to be a major motion picture directed by Christopher Nolan Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts...

When Livy began his epic The History of Rome, he had no idea of the fame and fortune he would eventually attain. He would go on to become the most widely read writer in the Roman Empire and was eagerly sought out and feted like a modern celebrity. And his fame continued to grow after his death. His bombastic style, his intricate and complex sentence structure, and his flair for powerfully recreating the searing drama of historical incidents made him a favorite of teachers and pupils alike.

In AD 66, nationalist and religious revolutionaries in Judaea led a ferocious revolt of the Jewish people against the authority of mighty Rome, culminating in the greatest upheaval and savagery the world had known up to that time. By the end of the conflict seven years later, over one million Jews had perished and tens of thousands were sold into slavery. Until the Holocaust, it remained the greatest tragedy ever endured by a people. How had this once prosperous region been laid low, and by what process did its fratricidal feuds take it down a slippery slope to utter annihilation? Fortunately for us, there was an eyewitness.

The fall of Troy. A hero carrying his father out of the flames. A queen on a burning pyre. The founding of the greatest empire the world has known. Virgil's Aeneid is the poem that gave Rome its myth and gave Europe one of its founding epics — the story of Aeneas, the Trojan prince who escapes his city's ruin and sails west, through storm and war and the underworld itself, to found the race that will become Rome. This Erato Press edition presents the Aeneid complete in the classic verse translation of John Dryden, with an original critical essay and a life of the poet. THE POEM From the ...

Historians universally agree that Thucydides was the greatest historian who has ever lived, and that his story of the Peloponnesian conflict is a marvel of forensic science and fine literature. That such a triumph of intellectual accomplishment was created at the end of the fifth century B.C. in Greece is, perhaps, not so surprising, given the number of original geniuses we find in that period. But that such an historical work would also be simultaneously acknowledged as a work of great literature and a penetrating ethical evaluation of humanity is one of the miracles of ancient history.

The enigma of Alexander the Great has remained with us for 2,300 years. In spite of the best efforts of historians, Alexander is no less a mystery to us now than he probably was during his own lifetime. There was no one like him before or since. In the pages of Harold Lamb's intriguing Alexander of Macedon, we find some of the answers to the great riddle of his character.

From the award-winning translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey comes a brilliant new translation of Virgil's great epic Fleeing the ashes of Troy, Aeneas, Achilles’ mighty foe in the Iliad, begins an incredible journey to fulfill his destiny as the founder of Rome. His voyage will take him...

This is the incredible story of the world's greatest conqueror, a man who single handedly changed the course of history...and who was worshipped as a god. There have been many attempts in the 2,300 years since Alexander's death to tell the epic story of this enigmatic soldier. His deeds read like the stuff of legends. Of all the chroniclers of Alexander, and there have been many famous ones, including Plutarch and Ptolemy, none have given us a clearer and truer account than the one by Arrian.

The Twelve Caesars was written based on the information of eyewitnesses and public records. It conveys a very accurate picture of court life in Rome and contains some of the raciest and most salacious material to be found in all of ancient literature. The writing is clear, simple and easy to understand, and the numerous anecdotes of juicy scandal, bitter court intrigue, and murderous brigandage easily hold their own against the most spirited content of today's tabloids.

The Iliad is one of the most enduring creations of Western Civilization and was originally written to be recited or chanted to the accompaniment of various instruments. Properly performed, this work today is just as meaningful, just as powerful, and just as entertaining as it was in the ninth century BC, and it casts its spell upon modern listeners with the same raw intensity as it did upon the people of ancient times.

The Odyssey is the greatest adventure story ever written, and one of the great epic masterpieces of Western literature For almost 3,000 years, it has been a storehouse of ancient Greek folklore and myth. It is also our very first novel, if we think of it in terms of romantic plot development, realistic characterizations, frequent change of scene, and heroic dramatic devices.

Named a “Best Book of the 21st Century” by Kirkus Reviews, this biography from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author brings to life the most intriguing woman in history: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt. Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and...