Someone asked: “Teach me about Ancient Rome through fiction.”
Books about Ancient Rome.
Rome is best understood from the inside. Start with a couple of great novels, then let the historians fill in the gaps — or the other way round.
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I, Claudius
Robert Graves · 1934
The stammering emperor tells you everything: poison, plots and his terrifying family. The gateway drug.
Memoirs of Hadrian
Marguerite Yourcenar · 1956
A dying emperor writes to his successor. Philosophical, grand and beautifully written.
Augustus
John Williams · 1972
Rome's first emperor told through letters and diaries of the people around him. Quietly brilliant.
Imperium
Robert Harris · 2006
Cicero's rise, narrated by his secretary. A political thriller that happens to be 2,000 years old.
Pompeii
Robert Harris · 2003
An engineer notices the aqueduct failing days before the eruption. Tense, clever and full of detail.
SPQR
Mary Beard · 2015
The best single history of Rome for curious readers. Beard is sceptical, funny and never dull.
Rubicon
Tom Holland · 2003
The fall of the Republic told like a novel. Read it after Imperium and everything clicks.
The Aeneid
Virgil · 2005
Rome's founding myth, written for its first emperor. Try a modern translation and read it aloud.
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