The Best Books on Ancient Rome, and Where to Start

Rome can feel overwhelming: twelve centuries, dozens of emperors, and wars on three continents. You don't need to read it all. A handful of well-chosen books, read in the right order, gives you the shape of the whole story and the characters who made it.

Rome in one page

Before choosing books, it helps to see the whole shape of Roman history. These are the traditional dates most historians work with.

The books in this guide cover the most dramatic stretch, from Hannibal's invasion in 218 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius in AD 180.

A reading order through Rome

1. Hannibal and the war that nearly ended Rome

In 218 BC, the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca led an army, famously including war elephants, over the Alps and into Italy. Over the next few years he destroyed Roman army after Roman army, most famously at Cannae in 216 BC.

Rome refused to surrender. It rebuilt its armies, avoided pitched battles, took the war to Spain and finally to Africa, where Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama in 202 BC. Winning this war set Rome on the path to dominating the Mediterranean.

Hannibal at the Gates by Bertrand Hall opens in 211 BC, with Hannibal's army on a hill three miles from Rome, and uses that moment to explore the paradox of his career: a general who won almost every battle and still lost the war.

2. Caesar, Pompey, Crassus: the bargain that broke the Republic

By the first century BC, Rome's republican system was straining under the weight of an empire. Ambitious men had armies loyal to them rather than to the state, and politics had turned violent.

In 60 BC, three of the most powerful men in Rome made a private alliance. Pompey had military glory and veterans. Crassus had immense wealth. Caesar had ambition and political skill. Together they could get what none could alone.

The alliance didn't last. Crassus died in Parthia in 53 BC, and Caesar and Pompey drifted into civil war. Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, won, and was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 BC.

Three Men, One Empire by Marcus Russell O'Brien tells the story of that alliance: why each man needed the others, how they worked around the Republic's rules, and why the arrangement ultimately destroyed the system it exploited.

3. Augustus: the man who invented the emperor

Caesar's murder left a vacancy, and an unlikely eighteen-year-old stepped into it. Octavian, Caesar's great-nephew and adopted heir, had no army and no political record. Within fifteen years he was master of the Roman world.

He defeated Caesar's assassins at Philippi in 42 BC, then his former ally Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC. In January 27 BC he made a show of handing power back to the Senate, and received the name Augustus. In practice, he had become Rome's first emperor, while insisting the Republic still lived.

Augustus is one of history's most fascinating figures, and BooksOasis has three books that come at him from different angles:

• The First Citizen by Marcus Russell O'Brien traces how Octavian became Augustus and turned the shattered Republic into the Principate, from the Second Triumvirate and Philippi to the constitutional arrangements that let one man rule.
• An Emperor's Long Shadow by Robert R. Hall focuses on the patience and calculation of a young man prepared to wait as long as necessary for power.
• Augustus and the Roman Settlement by Bertrand Hall opens on 13 January 27 BC, as Augustus offers to give up his power, and examines how he turned civil war into a lasting new order.

If you only read one, choose The First Citizen for the broadest story, or Augustus and the Roman Settlement if you want to understand how the new system actually worked.

4. Marcus Aurelius and the end of the long peace

The two centuries after Augustus are often called the Pax Romana, the Roman peace. It ended with Marcus Aurelius, emperor from AD 161 to 180, a philosopher who spent much of his reign fighting on the Danube frontier and dealing with a devastating plague.

In his tent at night, he wrote private notes to himself in Greek. We know them as the Meditations, one of the most widely read works of Stoic philosophy.

The Empire Before the Storm by Robert R. Hall follows the man who never asked for the throne, trained for it for more than two decades, and held a strained empire together as the storms gathered.

If Marcus Aurelius's philosophy interests you, continue with our guide to the best books on Stoicism.

Key people to know before you start

Why the fall of the Republic still fascinates readers

The late Republic is the most-read period of Roman history for a reason. It is a story about institutions under strain, about ambitious people discovering the rules can be bent, and about how a free system can slide into one-man rule while keeping its outward forms.

Readers come to it for the drama, but stay for the questions it raises about power, loyalty and how political systems survive or fail. That is why books on Caesar and Augustus remain popular two thousand years later.

Three common myths about Rome

"Julius Caesar was the first Roman emperor"

He wasn't. Caesar held the office of dictator, eventually "dictator for life", but he was murdered before any lasting system of one-man rule existed. The first emperor was his heir, Augustus.

"Caesar's last words were 'Et tu, Brute?'"

That line comes from Shakespeare's play. The Roman biographer Suetonius reports that some said Caesar spoke to Brutus in Greek, roughly "You too, child?", while also noting that others said he died without a word.

"The Republic ended in a single moment"

It didn't. The Republic's decline stretched over roughly a century of political violence and civil war. Even Augustus kept the Senate, the consuls and the language of the Republic, which is exactly what makes his story so interesting.

How to choose your first Rome book

Beyond Rome: related reading

Rome didn't exist in isolation. If you enjoy these books, these nearby subjects make natural next reads:

• Ancient Greece and Alexander the Great. Rome inherited much of its culture from the Greek world Alexander's conquests created. Browse Ancient Greece.
• Ancient Persia. The empire Alexander conquered, founded by Cyrus the Great. Browse Ancient Civilizations.
• Ancient Egypt. Cleopatra, the last independent ruler of Egypt, is part of Augustus's story. Browse Ancient Egypt.
• Leaders and rulers. Biographies of other empire-builders, from Napoleon to Elizabeth I, in Rulers & Leaders.

Reading history comfortably

History books are full of names, places and dates, and ebooks make them easier to keep straight:

• Search inside the book to find where a character first appeared.
• Highlight key dates and people in one colour, so you can review them later under Notes.
• Look up unfamiliar words with Define without leaving the page.
• Read on a laptop beside a map, if you like to follow campaigns as you go.

All of this works in Oasis Reader, where BooksOasis ebooks open the moment you buy them.

All ancient Rome books on BooksOasis

Every book on the Ancient Rome shelf, with live prices including any current offer.

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In short

You can understand the heart of Roman history with just a few books. Start with Hannibal if you love battles, with Caesar, Pompey and Crassus if you love intrigue, or with Augustus if you want to see how an empire was born. Finish with Marcus Aurelius, and you will have followed Rome from its greatest danger to the height of its power and the first signs of the storm to come.