Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

Ancient Rome is the story of the greatest empire ever known.

Focusing on six momentous turning points that helped to shape Roman history, Simon Baker’s gripping narrative charts the rise and fall of the world’s first superpower – a political machine unmatched in its brutality, its genius, its lust for power.

From the conquest of the Mediterranean beginning in the third century BC to the destruction of the empire at the hands of barbarian invaders some seven centuries later, we discover the most critical episodes in Roman history. At the heart of this account are the dynamic, complex but flawed characters of some of the most powerful rulers in history: men such as Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Nero and Constantine. This is Rome as we’ve never seen it before – awesome and splendid, gritty and squalid. Accompanying a landmark BBC television series, Ancient Rome is a fresh, fast-paced history which addresses themes about the nature of power that are as relevant today as they were two thousand years ago.

Simon Baker read Classics at Oxford University. In 1999 he joined the BBC’s History Unit where he has worked on Timewatch and a wide range of programmes about the classical world. He is the Development Producer on the BBC One series Ancient Rome — The Rise and Fall of an Empire.

Mary Beard is a Professor of Classics at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Newnham College. She has written widely on the history and culture of the ancient (and modern) world.