let's talk about roman history

[esmenet]

I find ancient Rome bizarrely comforting? today I was having one of those bouts of paranoia/general creeping bad feeling, and I sat down and listened to the History of Rome podcast until it went away. When I feel like everything I like is terrible and nothing's going to make me happy to read/watch/etc. again ever, Roman history and bad classics jokes somehow fix everything.

in other words, REC ME YOUR FAVORITE ROMAN HISTORY BOOKS I WANT THEM.

also, a while ago I read all of dhampyresa's ancient history stuff and discovered that I had secretly had Scipio/Hannibal feelings lurking within me THIS WHOLE TIME. send help. or, like, historical resources so I can write some fic myself.

Comments

[aris_tgd]

... I don't know if this is helpful, but I found Tacitus and Livy to both be entertaining, just in different ways. We used the Penguin editions.

I honestly don't recall what secondary sources we used, but I'm sure there were some? I can look it up if you'd rather I not just saunter through your comments being all, "Oh, well, primary sources are obviously the way to go when trying to understand a confusing and chronologically distant society" (because they're really not most of the time)

[esmenet]

Primary sources are fun, though. I do like reading stuff from hundreds of years ago, because you get doses of both 'haha, those wacky people in antiquity!' and 'oh man, this could have been written yesterday'. Thanks for the recs!

[skygiants]

I'm currently in the middle of rereading the Marcus Didius Falco books, which are a long series of mysteries on the premise of 'lol hard-boiled Ancient Roman private investigator, LET'S FIGHT CRIME AND MAKE JOKES ABOUT VESPASIAN.' They are far from perfect, and the main character is often an ass, but for tone and lolRomans I find them deeply enjoyable.

[esmenet]

lolRomans is MY FAVORITE, how did you know?!

[dhampyresa]

You know, I also find Ancient Rome comforting, especially this time of year. Around the Ides of March (widely around), I consider it a good day when I haven't brought down the Roman Republic and/or been murdered by the Roman Senate, both of which puts me one up on Julius Caesar.

For Roman history, I feel like I should point you in sineala's general direction, lmao, but she's been mostly into comics lately. She might still have recs for you.

I had secretly had Scipio/Hannibal feelings lurking within me THIS WHOLE TIME

Today you, TOMORROW THE WORLD!

Okay, for sources there's the primer I wrote that has links at the end and I think the relevant bit of my yuletide letter has slightly different ones.

And I can't reccomend enough the Hannibal/Scipio fics that weren't written by me. Yes, I know they were written for me, but they are excellent.

[esmenet]

THIS IS ALL YOUR DOING.

(Thanks for the recs!)

[dhampyresa]

I CLAIM FULL CREDIT!

(You're welcome.)

[likeadeuce]

I haven't read much nonfiction about Roman history (since reading Tacitus etc in college) but this bio of Augustus comes highly recommended.

Also, if you haven't read Robert Harris's Cicero novels (first one is Imperium</em), I enjoy these a lot -- they're basically courtroom procedurals based on real cases Cicero handled, styled as the 'lost' diary of the Greek slave who was his law clerk.

[esmenet]

Ooh, that sounds neat! I'll check those out.