Description: "When we think of "ancient Romans" today, many picture the toga-clad figures of Cicero and Caesar, presiding over a republic, and then an empire, before seeing their world collapse at the hands of barbarians in the fifth century AD. The Romans does away with this narrow vision by offering the first comprehensive account of ancient Rome over the course of two millennia. Prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts recounts the full sweep of Rome's epic past: the Punic Wars, the fall of the republic, the coming of Christianity, Alaric's sack of Rome, the rise of Islam, the Battle of Manzikert, and the onslaught of the Crusaders who would bring about the empire's end. Watts shows that the source of Rome's enduring strength was the diverse range of people who all called themselves Romans. This is the Rome of Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, and Constantine, but also Charlemagne, Justinian, and Manuel Comnenus-and countless other men and women who together made it the most resilient state the world has ever seen. An expansive, eye-opening portrait, The Romans is the definitive history of Rome and its citizens"-- Provided by publisher.
Review Quotes: "At last, a history of the Roman state as it has always been crying out to be told, and never has been! Not even Edward Gibbon, more than two hundred years ago, covered the full two-thousand-year span, as Edward J. Watts does here. And at last we learn the truth: that Rome's 'decline and fall' was brought about not by barbarian invaders from the east in the 5th and 6th centuries but by crusading Europeans from the Christian west in 1204. Watts tells this story with verve and aplomb, and a wealth of finely observed detail drawn from Roman historians' own accounts of their past."--Roderick Beaton, author of The Greeks