Greatest books of and about ancient Rome
Discover the greatest books of and about ancient Rome, from Simon Scarrow's gripping fiction to Virgil's timeless Aeneid. Explore classics like I, Claudius and The Twelve Caesars in this curated list of must-read ancient Rome books.
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The Aeneid
by Virgil
"Fitzgerald's [translation] is so decisively the best modern Aeneid that it is unthinkable that anyone will want to use any other version for a long time to come." —New York Review of Books Virgil's great epic transforms the Homeric tradition into a triumphal statement of the Roman civilizing mission—translated by Robert Fitzgerald.
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Death of Virgil
by Hermann Broch
It is the reign of the Emperor Augustus, and Publius Vergilius Maro, the poet of the Aeneid and Caesar's enchanter, has been summoned to the palace, where he will shortly die. Out of the last hours of Virgil's life and the final stirrings of his consciousness, the Austrian writer Hermann Broch fashioned one of the great works of twentieth-century modernism, a book that embraces an entire world and renders it with an immediacy that is at once sensual and profound. Begun while Broch was imprisoned in a German concentration camp, The Death of Virgil is part historical novel and part prose poem -- and always an intensely musical and immensely evocative meditation on the relation between life and death, the ancient and the modern.
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Under the Eagle
by Simon Scarrow
A crack Roman legion invades Britain in this brazen tale of military adventure, political intrigue and reckless heroism.
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I, Claudius
by Robert Graves
Considered an idiot because of his physical infirmities, Claudius survived the intrigues and poisonings of the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and the Mad Caligula to become emperor in 41 A.D. A masterpiece.
