Product Description
"Ancient Rome" is the story of the greatest empire ever known. Focusing on six momentous turning points that helped to shape Roman history, Simon Baker's gripping narrative charts the rise and fall of the world's first superpower - a political machine unmatched in its brutality, its genius, its lust for power. From the conquest of the Mediterranean beginning in the third century BC to the destruction of the empire at the hands of barbarian invaders some seven centuries later, we discoer the most critical episodes in Roman history: the spectacular collapse of the 'free' republic, the birth of the age of the 'Caesars', the violent suppression of the strongest rebellion against Roman power, and the bloody civil war that launched Christianity as a world of religion. At the heart of this account are the dynamic, complex but flawed characters of some of the most powerful rulers in history: men such as Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Nero and Constantine. Putting flesh on the bones of these distant, legendary figures, Simon Baker looks beyond the dusty, toga-clad caricatures and explores the real motivations and ambitions, intrigues and rivalries. This is Rome as we've never seen it before - awesome and splendid, gritty and squalid. Accompanying a landmark BBC television series, "Ancient Rome" is a fresh, fast-paced history which addresses themes about the nature of power that are as relevant today as they were two thousand years ago.
About the Author
Simon Baker read Classics at Oxford University. In 1999 he joined the BBC's award-winning History Unit where he has worked on Timewatch and a wide range of programmes about the classical world. He was the Development Producer on the BBC One series Ancient Rome - The Rise and Fall of an Empire. This is his second book. Mary Beard is a Professor of Classics at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Newnham College. She has written widely on the history and culture of the ancient (and modern) world. Her most recent books are The Parthenon and (with Keith Hopkins) The Colosseum. She is Classics Editor of the Times Literary Supplement and her major study of the Roman Triumph will be published by Harvard University Press in 2007.
by Robin Lane Fox
by Robin Lane Fox
![Ancient Rome The Rise And Fall Of An Empire [DVD] [2006]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QfCCC3r-L._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ James D'Arcy
by Adrian Goldsworthy
by Peter Heather
