Fighting for Rome

For the Roman writers Fighting for Rome became not the expansive imperialism of the all-conquering Republic but a collapse into horror and un-Roman autocracy brought about by the Caesars'' fighting for control of Rome. The essays in this volume range across the literary forms--history and satire lyric and epic--working closely with particular texts. Conceived over the decade after the Cold War they have been updated and rewritten to make a book that brings the ancient texts before the reader in a strikingly immediate way.