Ancient Rome is a topic of universal interest; experiments in getting to know its images and history accompany us in the sciences, literature, and art. But how close to reality are our ideas about that era? Mary Beard, one of the world’s leading experts in ancient history, will inevitably change many of them. The Senate and the people, Cicero and Catiline, Hannibal, Caesar, Cleopatra, Augustus, and Nero… Describing the relationship between power and the human being, political structure and conflicts, the formation of statehood and empires, famous and unknown Romans alike, the author demolishes a great many myths and makes us look at many events from long ago in a different way.
Here you can find everything best that a reader might look for in popular science: deep and comprehensive knowledge of the subject, the narrator’s excellent language, and the ability to convey the pulse of everyday life. As we learn about the distant past, we empathize with it as if it were a blog of none other than Cicero himself, as if we were tossing dice in a Pompeian tavern.