100 books like Ancient Rome on 5 Denarii a Day

Just like the Falco mysteries showed me that you could have fun with your historical detectives, this book showed me that there’s more drama in Ancient Roman history than in any daytime soap opera, and this novelisation of Marius and Sulla packs a lot more of an emotional punch than any textbook ever could. 

I don’t know enough about Marius and Sulla to say how much poetic license the author took, but this really does read as a seamless and in-depth exploration of the bloody power struggles between two very different but equally ambitious men in the time of the Roman Republic.   

The whole series is fantastic!

I love historical detective novels, and this one, set in AD 70, is a great way to immerse yourself in the Roman world. Lindsey Davis does her research, creating a real, lived-in space that makes the ancient past feel alive and present.

Another big plus is that it’s hilariously entertaining: I’m regularly guffawing out loud while reading it. Best of all? It’s the first book in a fantastic series, and I’ve enjoyed following private instigator Marcus Didius Falco, and then later his daughter, Flavia Alba, over a number of adventures across the city of Rome and the wider Empire.

So, just how bad was Nero? After 2000 years, it’s a question that we’ll probably never be able to answer with any certainty.

This non-fiction book makes a fantastic effort at trying to dig through a lot of the biases against Nero to find a more balanced view. While there’s no question that Nero was a monster in his later reign (certainly by our modern standards), it’s often forgotten that he started off incredibly popular with the common people, while his disregard for established traditions made him a lot of enemies amongst the patricians.

And, of course, it’s those patricians who got the final say when it came to writing down his history. It's a really fascinating read!  

If you want to know how the Ancient Romans lived, what better way to do it than eat the same food?

This is a great little recipe book. Sally Grainger has taken a bunch of Apicius’s Ancient Roman recipes, which are notoriously vague when it comes to actual instructions, and put them together so that you can recreate Roman cuisine in your own kitchen.

I’m not brave enough to have tried some recipes, and there are others I’m still not sure about (looking at you, garum sauce!), but the deep-fried honey fritters are amazing! 

Think Blue Guide, Michelin, or Lonely Planet. If you’re lucky enough to own a time machine and are planning a holiday in late-first-century Rome then this is the book to slip into your shoulder bag. It has everything you’d expect to find in a good travel guide: information on where to stay and what to see and do, advice on eating out, and the best places to shop, plus tips on how best to fit in with the natives, what to do if while you’re there you get into difficulties, and a whole lot more. The perfect introduction to Rome under the Flavians. All you’ll need now – because the chances of finding an English-speaker anywhere in the city are going to be zilch – is a decent phrasebook...

The author is a scholar, a professor of Classics, so he knows his stuff. He is also a wonderful writer. This is a collection of small and fascinating facts about Rome and the ancient world. A sampling of entries includes notes on Hannibal’s reputed use of jars of poisonous snakes as catapult ammunition, Roman fly fishing, window glass, and the mechanics of Nero’s revolving dining room.

This book provides an exemplary hour-by-hour guide to what life was like for a citizen of Rome at the height of its power. I love that Angela not only gives us the high-society angle, bringing us into the lush gardens and sumptuous homes of Rome’s wealthy and powerful, but also the crowded apartments and streets that were home to the vast majority of the ancient city’s citizens. You walk alongside them, getting a ground-level view of the patterns of a normal day in all its mundane details, from clothing to food to labor to entertainment, rendered in fascinating prose.

Frequently, I write about everyday men and women. Consequently, I need to get a feel for what everyday life was like. What did people eat? How did they dress? Where did they work? I visit a lot of museums and have traveled extensively, but when I’m writing at home, I like books with lots of pictures, not only of historical sites, but photos of objects: cookware, weapons, clothing, jewelry, houses. This helps me bring the ancient world to life. This book is packed with pictures and well-researched information.

An oldie (first published in 1932) but a goodie. Hamilton's short essays on the classic Latin writers--from the first writers of Latin comedy through to the epic poets and historians who did so much to shape the language--aren't just a crash course on the Roman literary canon. They're an accessible introduction to Roman culture from the ground up.

Oddly there aren’t actually that many books dedicated solely to chariot racing, but this one makes up for that. Huge amount of detail about everything from wheels to horses, but also a real sense of the passion the Romans had for this sport and just how terrifyingly dangerous it was to be a charioteer… almost makes being a gladiator look like a nice safe desk job! I loved the feel of the race day and all the parts that made it a spectacular event – from the vast crowd to the pre-race parades and the many different roles taking part on the day. Gripping read.