| Description |
xxii, 390 pages, 30 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps, music ; 26 cm |
| Contents |
Machine derived contents note: List of illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- User?s guide -- Time-chart -- Maps -- Mythic Rome -- Historical Rome -- Latium and northern Campania -- The central and eastern Mediterranean -- 1. The Triumph of Flora -- 2. Latins and Greeks -- 3. Kings (and after) -- 4. The God of Liberty and Licence -- 5. What Novius Knew -- 6. History and Myth -- 7. Facing Both Ways -- 8. Power and the People -- 9. Caesars -- 10. The Dream That Was Rome -- References -- Bibliography -- Illustration credits -- Index |
| Summary |
"It is often thought, for no good reason, that myth and history are mutually exclusive. But most mythic stories were believed by their tellers, and some of them were true. Was Lucretia a real woman, raped by the king's son? Did Horatius really hold the bridge alone against an army? Nobody knows; but figures like Spartacus, Cleopatra, Caligula and Nero were certainly real flesh and blood before they became figures of myth. The long history of the Roman People and their city - whether under the kings, the free republic, or the Caesars - generated countless stories, no less mythic than the tale of Troy."--BOOK JACKET |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-369) and index |
| Notes |
Benson bequest |
| Subject |
Legends -- Rome -- Historiography.
|
|
Literature and history -- Rome -- History.
|
|
Mythology, Roman.
|
| LC no. |
2005274865 |
| ISBN |
0859897036 hardback |
|
