Rome is the empire we cannot stop staring at, because it is the mirror every later power dreads becoming. The genre runs from the roar of the Colosseum to the whispered intrigue of the Senate, and the best of it understands that the gladiator on the sand and the senator with the knife are the same story told at different heights: glory, blood and the machinery of power.
It is also pure spectacle, the sand, the legions, the togas, done at a scale few other settings can match.
Essential Rome
The definitive gladiator and ancient-Rome canon
The arena and the Senate
Rome stories work at two altitudes: the visceral combat of the arena and the cold scheming of the palace. The greats, from the films to the prestige series, move between them as one continuous machine of power.
Sword-and-sandal epics
The grand toga-and-arena cinema
Legions on the frontier
Modern Roman war films
Games let you build the empire or fight for your life in it: command the legions in grand strategy, or take up the sword in the arena yourself.
Rome on TV
Prestige series set in the ancient Roman world
Play ancient Rome
Command legions, run the arena
And the Roman novel is a rich shelf, from Claudius's wry memoir to the historical fiction and mysteries that walk its streets.
Rome on the page
The great Roman novels and histories
More of Rome and the ancient world
The Roman Empire
Explore the The Roman Empire guide →We keep returning to Rome because it is the cautionary tale every empire tells itself and never quite believes: that this too will fall.