What are your favorite books on Rome? I've read Goldsworthys entire bibliography and I recently read Justinian by Peter Sarris and the Cato biography called Rome's last citizen. I'm struggling to find anything else to read at the moment. I'm finding that most of the books are written by extremely dry academics or are hack over-dramatized bullshit like everything by Holland and Everitt.Goldsworthy is so good at riding this line such that all his work really feels like the best of both worlds. On the flipside the Cato book was phenomenal, despite being much more narrative driven but the sources were good enough that it didn't feel like rampant speculation like Everitt and Holland do.Any recs? I'm much more partial to the pre 476 time periods.
>>18436145Really comfy textbook that was assigned to us by an old school teacher in my highschool Latin class a decade ago. I definitely recommend it. Iirc the author also wrote A Day In Ancient Athens that was advertised on the inside flap
>>18436149*A Day In Old Athens
>>18436149That's right up my alley, I like reading about every day life in the ancient world. Unfortunately I don't think I can get it where I live. I'll give this a try though, sounds like the same concept.
>>18436145>I've read Goldsworthys entire bibliography>I like reading about every day life in the ancient world.Given that selfdescription, I'd assume that you know atleast one detail about Juba II that I don't. Try me.>inb4 "who?"
>>18437162i dont really know much about him beyond trivia like the canary islands are named that cause he sent an expedition there that found some big ass dogs so he did canes > canaria. i vaguely remember him naming some plant or some shit as well but cant remember the specifics
>>18436145Try Peter Heather. He's almost as good as Goldsworthy at towing the line between academic and pop history.
>>18437596Thanks for the rec. I actually did read his trilogy on the fall and restoration of Rome, I don't know why I didn't include that in the OP. He's good but he has this sort of smarmy style of writing and there are too many allusions to modernity like the Iraq war for no real reason. Still enjoyable though the Goths aren't as interesting as pre-split Rome for me.
>>18437606That was the trilogy I was going to suggest and fully agree, he's not as good as Goldsworthy, but still put him up their in my list of favorites. I was put off by things like calling Justinian a bastard
>>18436145>books on Rome>Justinian by Peter SarrisLol; Anon, i...the only Roman Empire fell/ended in the year 476 and, of course, the Byzantine empire certainly wasn't the roman Empire anymore.
>>18437958Yep, the thing I can't stand the most when reading history is framing things through modernity. It's a plague with midwit authors.>>18437974Yawn
>>18437981Another fun read for me last year was the Anthony Kaldellis book on the Macedonian dynasty. Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood. Very in depth analysis of a short but kino period of Roman history.
>>18437176disappointing.
>>18436145Goldsworthy has a phenomenal youtube channel, you probably already know this, but I felt like I should post it anyways.
>>18436145Based Glodsworthy enjoyer.I've read like 5 of his books on rome and they are all great.I'm actually pissed at myself because I put my copy of his Augustus biography into one of those community library boxes and piece of shit Indians took it and other books and threw them into puddles.
>>18436145how much Roman literature have you read? Would be happy to make some recommendations there.
>>18436145I tried reading Mommsen but he was too wordy. I like good scholarship but readability.
>>18436145Polybius and Ammianus are unironically goated and you should read themnon-primary sources, I'd say >Daily Life in Late Antiquity>Ruling the Later Roman Empire>Failure of EmpireThey are all pretty fun books on Late Antiquity. Daily Life is probably the more beginner friendly one
