Life Rome

Lionel Casson paints a vivid portrait of life in ancient Rome - for slaves and emperors, soldiers and commanders alike - during the empire's greatest period, the first and second centuries AD.

In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life here as a witty and cunning political operator.

When Elizabeth drops her beloved only daughter off at college, she holds back the tears…fighting her worries about an empty nest with the thought of all the adventures that she and her husband Joel can now enjoy together. But as soon as they sit down to eat dinner that evening, Joel drops a bombshell. He wants a break. Searching for an escape, Elizabeth discovers an apartment in Rome that is only available for three months rental to ‘an English woman of a certain age’.

A National Book Award finalist for this epic work, Adrienne Mayor delivers a gripping account of Mithradates, the ruthless visionary who began to challenge Rome’s power in 120 B.C. Machiavelli praised his military genius. Kings coveted his secret elixir against poison. Poets celebrated his victories, intrigues, and panache. But until now, no one has told the full story of his incredible life.

Pompey, Caesar, Cicero, Brutus, Antony: the names resonate across thousands of years. Major figures in the civil wars that brutally ended the Roman republic, their lives still haunt us as examples of how the hunger for personal power can overwhelm collective politics, how the exaltation of the military can corrode civilian authority, and how the best intentions can lead to disastrous consequences. Plutarch renders these history-making lives as flesh-and-blood characters.

A somatic counselor offers tools for developing a deeper, more awakened relationship with your body through sensation, breath, and movement.

A biography of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Rome's first great poet, a dandy who fell in love with another man's wife and made it known to the world through his timeless verse. Famed for his lyrical, subversive voice, Catullus was Rome's first and foremost poet. Amid the death of the Roman Republic, his life, as told through his poetry, was beset with love, loss, political conflict and, above all, a desire for escape.

Seventy-five-year-old Ronnie has made it her mission to help women of a certain age rediscover themselves. The owner of a palazzo in Rome, she has left her troubled past behind and reinvented herself in the most beautiful city in the world. And now she helps other women to do the same. Renting out her spare apartment for three months at a time, Ronnie invites her guests to take on a series of challenges that will help them to embrace beauty and joy, to rediscover themselves and to live their lives to the fullest. But Ronnie’s confident exterior hides heartbreak and closely held secrets.

As emperor, Julian set about reforming the administration, conquering new territories, and reviving ancient religions. He was scorned in his time for repudiating Christianity and demonized as an apostate for willfully rejecting Christ. Through the centuries, Julian has been viewed by many as a tragic figure who sought to save Rome from its enemies and the corrupting influence of Christianity. Christian writers and historians have seen Julian much differently: as a traitor to God and violent oppressor of Christians.

Lottie Archer arrives in Rome excited to begin her new job as an archivist. When she discovers a valuable 15h-century painting, she is drawn to find out more about the woman who left it behind, Nina Lawrence. Nina seems to have led a rewarding and useful life, restoring Italian gardens to their full glory following the destruction of World War Two. So why did no one attend her funeral in 1978?

Suetonius wrote his Lives of the Twelve Caesars in the reign of Vespasian around 70AD. He chronicled the extraordinary careers of Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian and the rest in technicolour terms. They presented some high and low times at the heart of the Roman Empire. The accounts provide us with perspicacious insights into the men as much as their reigns.

Ancient Greece first coined the concept of democracy, yet almost every major ancient Greek thinker - from Plato and Aristotle onward - was ambivalent toward or even hostile to democracy in any form. The explanation for this is quite simple: The elite perceived majority power as tantamount to a dictatorship of the proletariat. In ancient Greece, there can be traced not only the rudiments of modern democratic society but the entire Western tradition of antidemocratic thought.

With the empire collapsing about him, Heraclius, the Exarch’s son, becomes the first Roman Emperor in 300 years to lead an army into battle. But this is no ordinary army: it is the Last Army, cobbled together from the bits and pieces that remain of once-great legions. Arrayed against him are the most formidable enemies Rome has ever faced: the Avar horde, the Sassanian Persian Empire intent on Rome’s annihilation, and the relentless plague that exploded under his predecessor Justinian and halved the Roman population.

In the late 1960s, Leo Gazzara left his family in Milan and moved to Rome for work. Soon unemployed, he has spent his time in an alcoholic haze, bouncing between hotels, bars, romantic entanglements and the homes of his rich and well-educated friends. Rome is indifferent. Leo drifts, aimless and alone. On the evening of his thirtieth birthday, he meets Arianna, a young woman who is both fragile and seductive. All night they drive the city in Leo’s run-down Alfa Romeo, talking and talking. They eat brioche for breakfast, drink through the dawn, drive to the sea and back.

Twins Scarlett and Thomas are learning about the Romans at school. So Grandad uses his time machine to send them back to Roman Britain. Scarlett finds herself in a Roman camp and is chosen as a slave by the Emperor Claudius's daughter, Antonia. The two become friends and Scarlett sees first hand the glamour and treachery of the Roman court. Thomas joins a rabble of local kids who hate the Romans. Their leader is a small red-headed girl called Boudicca. Even when the kids are overwhelmed and taken as slaves, Bou hatches another plan to attack the Romans.

This epic chronicle by Plutarch (A.D. 46-120) continues with the lives of great Grecians and Romans. These biographies of the men who created the ancient world are brought to life in this new, high-quality recording. Legends such as Caesar, Alexander, Cicero, Demosthenes, and many others come alive as their politics, economy, and their individual stories play out in the time of the ancients. This translation is by John Dryden and is considered by scholars to be the quintessential translation.

Want more joy and confidence when you perform? Discover the life guide that has developed world champions, empowered athletes to become world #1, and most importantly, transformed their hearts and minds. This step-by-step audiobook from one of the world's top mental skills coaches will teach you how to train your mind like the very best.

The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, where emperors had no choice but to fight, to thrill, to dazzle. To rule as a Caesar was to stand as an actor upon the great stage of the world. No biography invites us into the lives of the Caesars more vividly or intimately than that by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, written from the centre of Rome and power, in AD 121. Placing each Caesar in the context of the generations that had gone before, and connecting personality with policy, Suetonius injected flesh and blood into their stories.

Few images in history have managed to capture and hold the popular imagination quite like that of Hannibal, the fearless North African, perched on a monstrous elephant, leading his mercenaries over the Alps and then, against all odds, descending the ice-covered peaks to challenge Rome in her own backyard for mastery of the ancient world. It was a bold move, and it established Hannibal as one of history's greatest commanders. But this same brilliant tactician is also one of history's most tragic figures; fate condemned him to win his battles but not his war.

Over 1,100 years before William the Conqueror became the King of England after the Battle of Hastings, Julius Caesar came, saw, and conquered part of “Britannia”, setting up a Roman province with a puppet king in 54 BCE. In the new province, the Romans eventually constructed a military outpost overlooking a bridge across the River Thames. The new outpost was named Londinium, and it covered just over two dozen acres.