The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ancient Rome

by Nigel Rodgers, Dr. Hazel Dodge FSA (Contributor)

WITNESS THE GLORY AND MIGHT OF ANCIENT ROME An authoritative account of Roman imperial, military and political power, and of classical Rome’s far-reaching influence on Western culture, architecture and art. • Discover the scandals that shocked Rome – the notorious lives of the emperors Caligula and Nero, and the famous affairs of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. • The assassination of Julius Caesar, Nero fiddling while Rome burned, and the building of Hadrian’s Wall are all covered. • Every major military campaign is described, from the Punic Wars and Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul to the conquest of Britain, Dacia and the East. • 1000 detailed photographs, fine art paintings, illustrations, reconstructions, family trees, maps, battle plans, architectural drawings and cross-sections reveal the glory and the might of ancient Rome.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World History

512 pages, Paperback

Published July 24, 2017

About the author

Nigel Rodgers, who has a degree in history and history of art from Cambridge University, has written widely on history, philosophy and art. (Barnes and Noble)

Reviews

[Clyde Macalister · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent stuff here! Indispensable as a main component of one's library of Ancient Rome.

I don't like the majority of history books to adopt a non-chronological approach to their presentation, but I do prefer a minority of them to do so, and on this attribute Rodgers reigns supreme. The encyclopedic variation -- both in terms of leaping back and forth between errors and also in terms of analyzing not just history but culture, economy, arts, literature, institutions, the status of women, children, slaves, etc, -- supplies the reader with a multifaceted view of the subject a single book alone can rarely provide.

On only one page (out of a total of 499) did I notice even one feature I found problematic: regarding the horrid Roman treatment of women, Rodgers claims that while awful, it was no worse than that of eighteenth century Britain. Now, of course, many severe issues of ill treatment of women prevailed in that time in place, but there is no comparison between their own lot and the bottomless savagery of Ancient Rome. British women of that time had it much better than medieval women of Continental Western Europe, who in turn had it better than Roman women.

That absurd comparison, nevertheless, was minor in the grand total of the book -- making it far sparser in interpretative errors than most works of history. I look forward to reading his book on the Greeks soon after this.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pleasant coffee table book. Plenty of photos and drawings. Topics are presented in two or four page entries, making it easy to pick up and dive in anywhere.

[Andressa Da Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a fantastic way to learn about the empire

[Jimmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the one hand, this book covers a wide range of topics, such as technology, history, economics, and family life; since it is a single volume, it doesn't go into a lot of detail about any one subject but these parts are still good.

Unfortunately, the author's treatment of Christianity drove down the rating. For example, Christ somehow became a "heterodox Jewish preacher", while emperor Constantine's mother St. Helena was "not saintly" (naturally the author didn't provide any evidence whatsoever to back up these statements). If it wasn't for these strange ideas scattered through the book, I would have been willing to give the book three stars (perhaps four).