I need a good book to read about the roman empire

That's a tall order. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is enormous set of volumes and even it doesn't cover the entire time period you're talking about. For early empire history, you can go with Tacitus (he's the author, just look him up on Amazon). Suetonius also wrote about that time period, but his writings are more sensationalistic, sort of like the National Star of his day.

thanks for the help. now all i need is money to buy the books, wanna help out?



jk!

Quite cheap - you only have to pay for your internet connection, ink and paper :wink: - and easy reading would be, if you look at these BBC websites.

You could just hire 'Quo Vadis', 'Ben Hur' and 'Gladiator' and save yourself the trouble of all that reading.

Titus Livius, known to the English as Livy, wrote ad Urbe condite, From the Foundation of the City, which covers the period from the putative foundation in 753 BCE to about 7 CE. It is fragmentary, but almost complete. Books I through V cover the early, "legendary" period. It is known as legendary because the Gauls sacked Rome in about 390 BCE, and most of the written records then available were burned.

A Greek known by the latinate name Polybius wrote a history of Rome, which is very revealing, because he was writing for a Greek audience, and therefore, he provides explanations for much that is taken for grated by Roman historians, and not explained. It is a very even-handed account, with lots of detail, and neither praises nor comdemns the Romans.

Tacitus wrote three important historical works: Germania is complete, and gives the Roman view of the Germans in the era when they were just being brought into the empire; The Annals of Imperial Rome and The History of Imperial Rome are both fragmentary, although largely complete, and cover the early principiate empire (i.e., as opposed to the republican empire which existed before Sulla, up until about 100 BCE)--a note of warning, the christians have worked over Tacitus in their zeal to have a "pagan" source which confirms the existences of Jesus and christianity--so take religious passages with a grain of salt. Tacitus does not discuss religion in any of his other works.

Seutonius wrote The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, which covers the early principiate empire--the Julian line (six "Caesars"), the chaos after the death of Nero, with Otho and Galba fighting for the throne, and the Praetorians selling the throne to Vitellius, and the Flavian line (three "Ceasars").

Gibbons Decline and Fall is a fascinating read for those who have a passion for history and for historiography--but as history, it is largely crap. He did good scholarship, but for those interested in historiography, it is a primer on how to warp historical data to fit a preconceived moral thesis.

Good luck, it only took me about twenty years of reading to begin to get a grip on what was happening, and what was important in that empire.

I would also add that if you look up Plutarch, and find his Lives, you'll have some good "thumbnail" biographies of some the important players in the ancient world, including Iulius Caesar, Marc Antony and Cleopatra.

I have a fwiend in Rome called Biggus Dickus and he wanks as high as any man.....

Do you find it wiscible when I say.... Biggus..



Dickus?

What everybody wrote is probably good, but they gave you a lot of source material which is sometimes hard going, an also will not give you (usually) the larger perspective of things. It will only give you political history, and we did find out some things in the last 2000 years... anyway, probably the best modern book is the cambridge ancient history. there are some good websites too - I think there is one called the romans or something like that. anyway, if you think of buying and don't have a library, go into amazon and search for "roman empire/republic". that should work