A superb telling of the first Roman millennium, from Romulus to Caracalla. It’s much more than just a tale of events. Beard is very good at explaining the sources, and helping the reader understand how contemporary the record is, and what those ancient writers wanted to project. She points out that we have more written material from Rome than any other society before the renaissance. She also gives a very good account of the lives of ordinary Romans and those they ruled in their enormous empire. One criticism is that she half promises earlier in the book to give some explanation for why the Romans were able to dominate the entire Mediterranean and half of Europe for hundreds of years, but then fails to do so. It’s left me wanting to find out more about the Roman world, and the very good bibliography is a good guide to future reading.