![]() She reveals the dangers of pregnancy (with childbirth the cause of death of 1 in 50 Roman women) and traces the progress of newborns into their roles as 4-year-old labourers and teenage brides. ![]() Beard also takes a sideways and frequently humorous glance at bar culture, looked down on by the city’s elite for promoting gambling religious observances, such as the Festival of Lupercalia, when naked young men ran round the city whipping any women they met the public baths (best avoided by those with open wounds because of the risk of developing fatal gangrene) the magnificent villas of the wealthy, a world apart from the commoners’ shanty-town homes and the slaves-turned-gladiators and their grisly fights to the death in the Colosseum. Within these pages are the Punic Wars against Hannibal and Carthage the slaves’ uprising under Spartacus the mighty conqueror Julius Caesar and his rivalry with Pompey the formidable Livia, Rome’s first Empress consort Cicero, author of unequalled speeches and writings the brutal assassination of the notorious Caligula Trajan’s military campaign in the east, and the spread of the Roman empire, from Spain and Syria to Gaul and Britain. New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Foreign Affairs. ![]()
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