Mary Beard traces Roman history from the legendary founding by Romulus and the semi-mythical kings through the political crises of the Republic, opening with Cicero's suppression of the Catiline conspiracy, and on through the rise of the emperors and the Roman world beyond the city, ending around 212 CE.
Books mentioned in SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (6)
The Odyssey by Homer: “brought the renowned Odysseus and echoes of Homer's Odyssey into the story by suggesting that Rome's real founding father was a man called Romus”
Iliad by Homer: “the mythical war between Greeks and Trojans that is the backdrop of Homer's Iliad”
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was Trimalchio at West Egg”
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare: “this is the festival that the opening scene of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar re-creates”
Coriolanus by William Shakespeare: “Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, by contrast, who inspired Shakespeare's Coriolanus”
Aesop's Fables by Aesop: “still gives his name to many modern collections of them (Aesop's Fables)”