A Time Travellers Guide to Ancient Rome - by one of the best historians of the ancient world Living in ancient Rome was one of the most intense experiences in human history. It was also superbly and vividly recorded by Rome's historians and poets who were acutely aware of the seething and voluptuous nature of a city that ruled the known world. Populus takes the reader into a world of violent politics, disorder, unspeakably brutal entertainments, extravagance, decadence, eroticism, exotica, and staggering inequality, participated in daily by the Roman people from the hyper-rich elite to the lowliest slaves. All this was presided over by the emperors who ranged from the wise and benign to the murderously insane. This drama was set against the backdrop of the city itself and its startling architectural achievements that overwhelmed contemporaries and still do today. Guy de la Bédoyère has recreated the great drama of life in Rome in the days of the emperors, from eking out an existence in servitude to luxury in the imperial palaces, enjoying a day at the races, rioting in the streets, making do in a tenement block, plotting to assassinate an emperor, worshipping any one of a multitude of gods, witnessing an imperial triumph, and commemorating the dead. This is the powerful story of the people of Rome, written by the author as his personal homage to a civilization that has absorbed him for half a century.

A Time Travellers Guide to Ancient Rome - by one of the best historians of the ancient world Living in ancient Rome was one of the most intense experiences in human history. It was also superbly and vividly recorded by Rome's historians and poets who were acutely aware of the seething and voluptuous nature of a city that ruled the known world. Populus takes the reader into a world of violent politics, disorder, unspeakably brutal entertainments, extravagance, decadence, eroticism, exotica, and staggering inequality, participated in daily by the Roman people from the hyper-rich elite to the lowliest slaves. All this was presided over by the emperors who ranged from the wise and benign to the murderously insane. This drama was set against the backdrop of the city itself and its startling architectural achievements that overwhelmed contemporaries and still do today. Guy de la Bédoyère has recreated the great drama of life in Rome in the days of the emperors, from eking out an existence in servitude to luxury in the imperial palaces, enjoying a day at the races, rioting in the streets, making do in a tenement block, plotting to assassinate an emperor, worshipping any one of a multitude of gods, witnessing an imperial triumph, and commemorating the dead. This is the powerful story of the people of Rome, written by the author as his personal homage to a civilization that has absorbed him for half a century.

Intriguing insight into the minds of two exceptional men whose contribution to our understanding of 17th-century England is incalculable. SPECTATOR Pepys and Evelyn first came to know each other during the Second Dutch War (1664-7). As the plague raged in the London they loved, they were both preoccupied with the business of casualties from the war, Pepys as Clerk of the Acts, and Evelyn as a Commissioner for Sick and Wounded Seamen and Prisoners of War. Nearly forty years later they were still corresponding, exchanging details of remedies for the afflictions of old age. Their friendship, and their relations with others, as recorded in their famous diaries and letters, provide an exceptional opportunity to witness life at the heart of Restoration England. This book includes every letter which could be located (some of which have been lost for more than a hundred years), and the complete text of each has been newly transcribed and fully annotated. Evelyn and Pepys are revealed in fresh dimensions as many details of their lives and friendship emerge which go unmentioned, or are barely alluded to, in the diaries. GUY DE LA BEDOYERE, historian, archaeologist and broadcaster, has also published an edition of Evelyn's Diary and a collection of pieces by Evelyn, The Writings of John Evelyn.