Ancient Rome – a guide

Ancient Rome was a frequent subject of Victorian historical fiction and also popular throughout the 20th century. It was similarly popular in movies, though it fell out of fashion for a couple of decades until the game-changing success of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, released in 2000. Since then the floodgates of fictional Rome have been torn open.

Pollice Verso, Jean-Leon Gerome

But Rome means different things to different people. For some it is a military story of imperialism and war in foreign lands.

For others it is the victim-tale of the conquered (especially if the conquered happen to be British or Judaic). For others it is broadly cultural: how could people be so similar to us and so different?

There is a broad strand of historicals that touch on the New Testament stories, including many new ‘gospels’ and a wealth of faith stories, as well as some militantly anti-Christian novels. There are Roman detective novels, military historicals, sea stories, epics, and literary novels.

Biographical novels are perhaps the richest vein – for literature and ‘box office’.

Useful links

We have many reviews of historical novels set in Ancient Rome. Our browse buttons allow you to explore by century or genre if you wish.

James Hawking wrote us a great introduction to ancient Rome for our first edition of Solander in 1997.