Voices of Imperial Rome

Archaeological excavations produce great public interest, and tours of ancient sites are more popular than ever before. But even the ruins of Imperial Rome lack the clatter of crowds and markets, the laughter in the theatres, the screams and shouts of political rallies, the noise and horror of battle and the bewildered shrieking of doomed animals in the Circus. Instead it is through the histories, letters, literature and inscriptions that we can really find a way into the minds of the Roman People. What emerges is a world very like our own - in which dignity sat side by side with decadence, creativity with corruption, and power with humility. This personal anthology of Roman life contains some passages, like Pliny the Younger's escape from the eruption of Vesuvius, that are familiar but too good to omit; others, from the less familiar pages of Herodian or Sidonias, will be entirely new for most readers. The translations aim to retain the sense of immediacy conveyed by the original Latin or Greek.