Roman Empire Reads from The Basic Books Group
Explore the people, battles, places, and pivotal moments that shaped one of history’s most influential empires with these 10 books.
David Potter provides a comprehensive look at the empire from rise to fall. Featuring stunning photographs of weapons, fortifications, portraits, and monuments, the book illuminates the ancient arms race between Rome and its imperial rivals. Comprehensive political maps show the dynamic ebb and flow of conquest and resistance, with battle maps elucidating the tactics that made Rome so successful. Social history is also woven throughout with intimate portraits of people across the empire, from the emperor himself to subjects in far-flung provinces.
Packed with detail and lavishly illustrated with specially commissioned maps and images, this is the ultimate guide to the world’s most formidable empire.
“Magnificent.” —Spectator
The Roman Empire was like no other. Stretching from the north of Britain to the Sahara, and from the Atlantic coast to the Euphrates, it imposed peace and prosperity on an unprecedented scale. Its only true rival lay in the east, where the Parthian and then Persian empires ruled over great cities and the trade routes to mysterious lands beyond. This was the region Alexander the Great had swept through, creating a dream of glory and conquest that tantalized Greeks and Romans alike.
Tracing seven centuries of conflict between Rome and Persia, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how these two great powers evolved together. Despite their endless clashes, trade between the empires enriched them both, and a mutual respect prevented both Rome and Persia from permanently destroying the other.
From an award-winning historian, the definitive account of the golden age of Rome—an ultimate superpower at the pinnacle of its greatness.
“Rarely has the distant past seemed so vividly alive.” —Financial TimesThe Pax Romana has long been shorthand for the empire’s golden age. Stretching from Caledonia to Arabia, Rome ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. It was the wealthiest and most formidable state in the history of humankind. Pax is a captivating narrative history of Rome at the height of its power. From the gilded capital to realms beyond the frontier, historian Tom Holland shows ancient Rome in all its glory: Nero’s downfall, the destruction of Jerusalem and Pompeii, the building of the Colosseum and Hadrian’s Wall, the conquests of Trajan. Vividly sketching the lives of Romans both ordinary and spectacular, from slaves to emperors, Holland shows that Roman peace was the fruit of unprecedented military violence.
“A sweeping historical survey that spans two millennia…Those intrigued by the ebb and flow of political power…will find in this book a cornucopia.”—Wall Street Journal
When we think of “ancient Romans” today, many picture the toga-clad figures of Cicero and Caesar, presiding over a republic, and then an empire, before seeing their world collapse at the hands of barbarians in the fifth century AD.
The Romans does away with this narrow vision by offering the first comprehensive account of ancient Rome over the course of two millennia. Prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts recounts the full sweep of Rome’s epic past: the Punic Wars, the fall of the republic, the coming of Christianity, Alaric’s sack of Rome, the rise of Islam, the Battle of Manzikert, and the onslaught of the Crusaders who would bring about the empire’s end. Watts shows that the source of Rome’s enduring strength was the diverse range of people who all called themselves Romans.
An expansive, eye-opening portrait, The Romans is the definitive history of Rome and its citizens.
From the creator of the award-winning podcast series The History of Rome and Revolutions comes the fascinating history of the bloody battles, political machinations, and human drama that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic.
The Roman Republic was one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of civilization. Beginning as a small city-state in central Italy, Rome gradually expanded into a wider world filled with petty tyrants, barbarian chieftains, and despotic kings.In 146 BC, Rome finally emerged as the strongest power in the Mediterranean. But the very success of the Republic proved to be its undoing. The republican system was unable to cope with the vast empire Rome now ruled: rising economic inequality disrupted traditional ways of life, endemic social and ethnic prejudice led to clashes over citizenship and voting rights, and rampant corruption and ruthless ambition sparked violent political clashes that cracked the once indestructible foundations of the Republic.
Chronicling the years 146-78 BC, The Storm Before the Storm dives headlong into the first generation to face this treacherous new political environment. Abandoning the ancient principles of their forbearers, men like Marius, Sulla, and the Gracchi brothers set dangerous new precedents that would start the Republic on the road to destruction and provide a stark warning about what can happen to a civilization that has lost its way.
From an award-winning historian of ancient Rome, the definitive history of Rome’s most devastating defeat.
“Goldsworthy is the preeminent military historian of Rome.” —History Today
In Cannae, celebrated historian Adrian Goldsworthy offers a concise and enthralling account of one of history’s bloodiest, and most famous, battles. On August 2, 216 BC, across a narrow plain near the Souther Italian town of Cannae, a massive Roman army met the heterogeneous forces of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who had spectacularly crossed the Alps into Italy two years earlier. Despite outnumbering their opponents almost two to one, the Romans were crushed. The scale of the losses at Cannae—50,000 Roman men killed—was unrivaled until the industrialized slaughter of the First World War. Although the Romans eventually recovered and Carthage lost the war, the Battle of Cannae became Romans’ point of reference for all later military catastrophes. Ever since, military commanders confronting a superior force have attempted, and usually failed, to reproduce Hannibal’s tactics and their overwhelming success.
The gripping, definitive account of how the Romans lost their Republic.
“An incisive history … The parallels to the present day are striking.” —New YorkerIn Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy. For centuries, even as Rome grew into the Mediterranean’s premier military and political power, its governing institutions, parliamentary rules, and political customs successfully fostered negotiation and compromise.
By the 130s BC, however, Rome’s leaders increasingly used these same tools to cynically pursue individual gain and obstruct their opponents. As the center decayed and dysfunction grew, arguments between politicians gave way to political violence in the streets. The stage was set for destructive civil wars—and ultimately the imperial reign of Augustus.
The death of Rome’s republic was not inevitable. In Mortal Republic, Watts shows it died because it was allowed to, from thousands of small wounds inflicted by Romans who assumed that it would last forever.
“Goldsworthy is a superb historian and talented writer.” —Washington Times
In Roman Warfare, celebrated historian Adrian Goldsworthy leads readers through more than a thousand years of Roman military history, tracing both the Roman Empire’s dramatic rise and its eventual fall. Roman warfare was relentless in its pursuit of victory, creating an empire that eventually included much of Europe, the Near East, and North Africa. What distinguished the Roman army from its opponents was the uncompromising and total destruction of its enemies. Yet this ferocity was combined with a genius for absorbing conquered peoples, creating one of the most enduring empires ever known.
Concise yet comprehensive, Roman Warfare is the indispensable history of the most professional fighting force in ancient history, an army that forged an empire and changed the world.
“Osgood writes with such a sure hand, and has such a deft command of historical facts, as to make each stage of Rome’s growing disorder seem plausible, lamentable and disturbingly familiar.” ―The Wall Street Journal
Named a Best Book of 2025 by The Daily Telegraph • Bloomberg
In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by a crime wave. An epidemic of extortions, murders, and acts of insurrection tested the court system’s capacity to maintain order. As case after case filled the docket, an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero seized every opportunity to litigate, forging a reputation as a master debater with a bright future in politics. In Lawless Republic, historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator’s ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic’s lurch toward autocracy.
Cicero’s first appearance in the courts came shortly after the end of a brutal civil war. After leveraging his fame as a lawyer to become a consul, he ruthlessly crushed a coup by suppressing the liberties of Roman citizens. The premiere legal mind of Rome came to argue that the pursuit of a higher justice could sometimes justify sweeping the law aside, laying the groundwork for Roman history’s most famous act of political violence—the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Lawless Republic vividly resurrects the spectacle of the courts in the time of Cicero and Caesar, showing how politics trumped the rule of law and sealed the fate of Rome.
“Hadrian’s Wall is a short and sparkling introduction to the great wall of the Roman Empire, written by a master historian. Adrian Goldsworthy cuts through the myth without losing the magic.” ―Barry Strauss, author of The Trojan War
Stretching eighty miles from coast to coast across northern England, Hadrian’s Wall is the world’s largest known Roman artifact. Commonly viewed as a defiant barrier, the end of the empire, a place where civilization stopped and barbarism began, the Wall remained shrouded in mystery until today.
In Hadrian’s Wall, the acclaimed ancient historian Adrian Goldsworthy embarks on a historical and archaeological exploration, sifting fact from legend while simultaneously situating the wall in the wider scene of Roman Britain. He describes the construction of the wall in the early 100s AD, when Roman legions had reached the far north of the land they called Britannia. Goldsworthy reveals that while the sheer scale of the Wall may suggest that its main function was to keep the tribes of the north out, its actual purpose may have been to slow down northern raiders returning home with their plunder. And though we assume that legionnaires stationed at the wall were there to serve it, the surviving evidence indicates that it was there to serve them.
A fascinating investigation into the depths of Roman Britain, Hadrian’s Wall is a concise and authoritative history of one of the great architectural marvels of the ancient world.