Product Description: Stephen L. Dyson has spent a lifetime studying and teaching the history of ancient Rome. That unparalleled knowledge is reflected in his magisterial overview of the Eternal City.Rather than look only at the physical development of the city―its buildings, monuments, and urban spaces―Dyson also explores its social, economic, and cultural histories...read more

Augusto Fraschetti describes the legends surrounding the origins, foundation and early history of Rome, the significance the Romans attached to the legends of their origins, and the uses to which they put them.Between 1000 BC and 650 BC a cluster of small, isolated groups of thatched huts on the Roman hills became an extensive and complex city, its monumental buildings and large public spaces evidence of power and wealth. Two competing foundation legends accounted for this shift, one featuring the Trojan fugitive Aeneas and the other the wolf-reared Romulus and Remus. Both played a significant role in Roman thought and identity, preoccupying generations of Roman historians and providing an important theme in Roman poetry.In the last two centuries the foundation era of Rome has been the subject of extensive investigations by archaeologists. These have revealed much that was previously a mystery and have allowed the piecing together of a coherent account of the early history of the city. Professor Fr

Product Description: "The Foundation of Rome is one of the few intelligent books on the subject, neither hypercritical nor visionary; its particular strength lies in the skillful interweaving of modern historiography and ideology with ancient history...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)