This is the third book in Alberto Angela’s astonishing trilogy about life in Ancient Rome. The previous two – Empire and Les 3 Jours de Pompeii – were really good: a journey around the Roman Empire imagined through the travels of a one sesterce coin, and an hour-by-hour account of the days leading up to and immediately following the volcanic eruption which annihilated Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79CE. This one is self-evidently about the daily life and routines of the Eternal City. Angelo chooses a Tuesday some time in 117CE, when the empire was at its greatest extent.
Angela is a well-known writer and historian in Europe, not really known here although Empire is available in English as The Reach of Rome. It’s definitely popular history in its tone, rather than an academic work, but it very definitely is not dumbed-down: every article, object or…
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