Mary Beard first went to Rome over 40 years ago and immediately fell in love with its history and culture.  Over the decades, she has written nearly a dozen books on various aspects of Rome and in this nearly six hundred page volume covers from the founding of Rome (with its legends and myths), through the first 1000 years of its existence, ending with the rule of Caracalla, son of the “last good Emperor” Septimius Severus.  Caracalla did not, unfortunately follow in his father’s footsteps and has been described as “the enemy of all mankind”.  One must wonder about that title as he is noted for granting citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Roman Empire, some thirty million of them, but then as all citizens were required to pay taxes, one must wonder if his grant was all that valuable.

When Manchester was diagnosed with the illness that would eventually kill him, he took time off from his work on the third volume of Winston Churchill’s life (the volume was eventually completed by another author after Manchester died but it met with lukewarm reviews).  Manchester admits that he started this book based on a fellow authors request for Manchester to write the preface to a history on Magellan, but he found the subject so engrossing that he expanded the preface into this work.  He also admits that he started the book with poor knowledge of the subject which led him to write in an entirely different manner, almost as if he were a graduate student working on his thesis.  He was especially careful of sources and consulted noted historians who specialized in the time period for their input and feedback.