I haven’t read too many fictional accounts of ancient Rome so I can’t really add much there, except to say that
Robert Graves’s
I Claudius and
Claudius the God are excellent – truly classics – and the novels of Steven Saylor are most enjoyable and seem to be well researched for overall accuracy. Also, there is Lord Lytton’s 19th century classic (
still widely available)
The Last Days of Pompeii, which influenced my interest in Roman
history as a
youth, though it is a true Victorian novel and is filled with much hyperbole.
On non-fiction works I am better qualified to comment, having read so many. For general works on Rome, among the most useful (in my opinion) are as follows:
Philip Matyszak’s
Chronicle of the Roman Republic (Thames & Hudson, 2003),
Chris Scarre’s
Chronicle of the Roman Emperors (Thames & Hudson, 2004),
Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, and J. A. Talbert:
The Romans: From Village to Empire (
Oxford, 2004),
Lesley and Ray Adkins:
Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome (
Oxford, 1998),
And, for a fun book with a
good deal of useful information, there is Philip Matyszak’s recent
Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day (Thames & Hudson, 2007).
Of histories of Rome perhaps the most famous (and one of the very best) is Edward Gibbons’s
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published in multiple volumes between 1776 and 1788). There are many editions available of this
work, some better than others. The problem here is that most editions presently in print are abridgements. The original is very long but well worth reading in its entirety as the abridgements all leave out a great deal of important material (in some cases the original
work has been
reduced by as much as two-thirds).
A favorite of mine is the Loeb Classical
Library series, which pairs ancient texts in their original language with modern English translations of the same. The series is huge and contains both Greek and Roman works. My personal favorite books of the series are those of the four volume set
Remains of Old Latin, translated by E. H. Warmington (originally published 1940 and
still in print by
Harvard University Press). Of these, volume IV is particularly interesting, having as it does a
very fine section on
Republican coinage (indeed, among the best treatments of the subject I have read).
Will Durant’s 1944
Caesar and Christ is a
fine one-volume treatment of Roman
history as well. It is
part of the “Story of Civilization” series (volume 3, in fact) but stands alone. It remains in print today and is widely available.
Less widely available but extremely
good is Basil Kennet’s
Antiquities of Rome, often known simply as
Kennet’s Rome, first published in
London in two volumes in 1713 but continuously published (often in a single volume edition) for the next 150 years. Well worth it if you can track one down.
In my personal opinion, however, the definitive
history of Ancient Rome is without question the 16 volume (actually 8 volumes, each volume being split into two books) monumental
work by
Victor DuRuy entitled
History of Rome, first published in
French around 1880 and published in English in 1884. This is an amazing
work and, although considered “popular” in its day, far outstrips most later “scholarly” works in terms of academic
quality. It also has copious illustrations, including many of coins.
Then there are the many books on specific areas of Roman
history and culture (i.e. literature, poetry, the army and
military campaigns, law,
architecture, the early
Church, etc., etc., etc…). I’ve found I can’t go wrong with anything written by Michael Grant, John R. Clarke, Anthony Everitt, or Edith
Hamilton.
And, of course, let us not forget the writings of those who were
there! Much Roman
history and literature written by
Romans themselves has come down to us. There are the books of Livy,
Tacitus, Suetonius, Plutarch (who was Greek but writes about the lives of both
Greeks and
Romans), the two Plinys,
Cicero,
Julius Caesar himself, and many others...