Ancient Rome. A 1000-Year Biography

A unique encyclopedia of Ancient Rome! The entire 1,000-year history of the greatest civilization in one volume! Libraries have been written about the Romans, cubic kilometers of books—yet nothing like this has ever existed. This is not just a portrait of the Eternal City—it is its biography! For not only people have biographies, character, personality, and fate—whole civilizations are born, grow up, age, and die, just like any of us. And only some remain forever in the memory of generations, determining the path of society’s development for centuries to come. In human history there were many hundreds of civilizations—but none can compare to Ancient Rome. How did a tiny settlement of outcasts turn into the Eternal City, the center of the Oikoumene? Because of what qualities did the Romans not only conquer half the world, but remain leaders of humanity for long centuries, laying the foundations of European civilization? How did the Republic grow into an Empire, why did it last so long, and what finally caused its fall? And how important is this imperial experience for Russia, which calls itself the Third Rome?