I'm a firm believer that in 2018 you can educate yourself to be an amateur expert on anything. This year I want to spend my free time becoming knowledgeable about the Roman Empire, from pre-Republic all the way to the fall of Byzantium. I'm looking for the help of Veeky Forums to decide what books I read to teach me about everything Rome related. I want to read The History of the Decline and Fall... but don't know how early or late in my reading list I should put that.
What are great and/or essential books I need to get my hands on to learn about the Roman Empire's best and worst moments through time?
Wyatt Bailey
Instead of looking at this at a masturbatory exercise in autodidactism, why not read an overview of the empire and focus on which aspects you enjoy most?
Henry Lee
livy, strabo
Christopher Evans
as a followup comment, listen to the history of rome by mike duncan podcast
Cameron Rivera
So just go to Wikipedia and call it a day? How about, no, Scott? I've heard of Livy before but don't really know him. Enlighten me? Follow up comment: Plutarch's (I forget the name) Lives is already on my radar
Anthony Jenkins
Is it on YouTube or whatever? I'll look into the podcast, thanks
Jose Cruz
Yes fuckface. Use the search bar.
Tyler Anderson
livy tried to write a history of rome leading up to his age (books from the foundation of the city/ab urbe condita libri), but we've only about a quarter of the original left. it's where romulus and remus and other myths about rome come from. plutarch edits history to fit with moralizing. he says that in the opening but keep it in mind. him and strabo are the greek culture but roman state advocates you'll need most to understand patrician/pleb divides.
Jayden Moore
>we've only about a quarter left :( it's kind of cool to think about his works that have made it have survived thousands of years though. So I'm getting a list going. For now I guess it's authors I need to look at: 1.) Livy 2.) Strabo 3.) Plutarch 4.) Gibbon 5.) ?
I've read some Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus (he might've been Greek though) when I got into stoicism, but not a whole lot. Are there any other works by Roman emperors/statesmen I should add to the list? Any other philosophers?
Fwiw I have read Virgil's Aneid too
Joseph Thompson
You can read Caesers account of his conquest of gaul, written by himself.
