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The History of Ancient Rome

By: Garrett G. Fagan, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Garrett G. Fagan
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Publisher's Summary

Even today, the influence of Ancient Rome is indelible, with Europe and the world owing this extraordinary empire a huge cultural debt in almost every important category of human endeavor, including art, architecture, engineering, language, literature, law, and religion. At the peak of its power, Rome's span was vast. In the regional, restless, and shifting history of continental Europe, the Roman Empire stands as a towering monument to scale and stability, unified in politics and law, stretching from the sands of Syria to the moors of Scotland. And it stood for almost 700 years.

In this series of 48 spirited lectures, you'll see how a small village of shepherds and farmers rose to tower over the civilized world of its day and left a permanent mark on history. In telling Rome's riveting story, Professor Fagan draws on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, including recent historical and archaeological scholarship, to introduce the fascinating tale of Rome's rise and decline, including the famous events and personalities that have become so familiar:

  • Horatius at the bridge
  • Hannibal crossing the Alps during Rome's life-or-death war with Carthage
  • Caesar being assassinated before a statue of his archrival Pompey
  • The doomed lovers Antony and Cleopatra
  • The mad and venal emperors Nero and Caligula
  • The conversion of Constantine.

The course also addresses one of history's greatest questions: Why did the Roman Empire fall? And you'll learn why most modern scholars believe that the empire did not "fall" at all, but, rather, changed into something very different - the less urbanized, more rural, early medieval world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©1999 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)1999 The Great Courses

What listeners say about The History of Ancient Rome

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    5 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable, engaging and informative

The professor has a refreshing way of lecturing, clear outlines of how, who, why and what made Rome and Romans tick all derived from know evidence not pseudo archeology.
I'm now hooked on these courses.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Simply magnificent

Garrett fagan is an awesome source of historical information, entertaining, illuminating, articulate and always informative. For anyone with even the slightest interest in Rome I highly recommend journeying with Garrett upon the history of this stupendous culture.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great Overview of Roman History

This is an excellent introduction and broad overview of Roman history. Its impossible to go into detail when covering this size time period. Despite this there's a nice sprinkling of small but interesting facts that really helps to create a coherent picture of what Rome was like.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Riveting

Professor Fagan's lectures are brilliant if you are looking for an overview of the history of Ancient Rome. Each topic is covered well enough to provide a basic time-line of Roman history and includes information about the main primary sources for each period.

The content is mainly political and chronological and Professor Fagan diverges from the chronological narrative to provide information about aspects of Roman life-how the army was organised, what the political structure looked like, Hellenisation (the influence of Greek culture) architecture.

Each lecture is perfectly paced and Professor Fagan's voice is very pleasant to listen to. Last, but not least, he has a gentle sense of humour, which shines through from time to time.

Highly recommend this series if you're keen to gain a broad brush overview of Roman History.

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2 people found this helpful

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Very good indeed

A difficult subject to deliver in 22hrs. I enjoyed it and learnt lots. Thank you

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  • Overall
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    4 out of 5 stars

interesting

very complex topic very well covered. should probably be a 5 but sometimes a bit garbled

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating!

This is one of my favourites. Garrett narrates the lectures in a really easy going way, yet the narrative is fascinating and entertaining. The relevance of ancient Rome to the modern day is presented beautifully. Couldn't recommend this series enough.

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    3 out of 5 stars

An interesting listen on Roman history.

I had this running in the background and I did enjoy it. I have it in mind to replay it to catch what I most definitely missed.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great series

I don’t have any real knowledge on Ancient Rome, so I can’t speak to the accuracy or credibility of the series, but as for series as a whole, I thought they were great.

Not boring or stuffy, but delivered in a natural and engaging way which broadly covered a huge time period in some detail. Obviously nothing is covered too closely, but in a general sense.

It’s great primer to the time period and its major themes and characters. The perfect way to then jump into anything that interested you about the time with a better understanding of the context surrounding that subject of interest.

Would definitely recommend to those wanting an overview of Ancient Rome in an engaging and thoughtful manner.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • Ben
  • 25-08-2021

Epic detail and content.

The narration, detail and content is amazing. Unfortunately, it is detracted from by the gaudy strangled-cat music into to each lesson and the appalling fake into and exit applause. Otherwise, this would rate a 6 out 5.
Don't doze off to this because you will be woken by the obscene screeching of murderous feline from hell.

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