The Complete Story of Rome - From Romulus to Pope Leo XIV. <p/>Nearly three thousand years ago, a small Iron Age village rose on a hill above the river Tiber and grew into the city that would, in time, reshape the Western world. From the legendary twins suckled by a she-wolf to the Caesars who ruled an empire of fifty million, from the marble of Augustus to the brushstrokes of Michelangelo, from the sack of 1527 to the historic election of the first American pope in 2025, Rome's story is one of the most extraordinary in human history - and it has never been told with greater care, accuracy, or beauty than in this Revised and Expanded Edition. <p/>Rome: Eternal City Chronicles is a sweeping, deeply researched narrative history of the Eternal City, written for travelers, students, history lovers, and anyone who has ever stood in the shadow of the Colosseum and wondered how it all began. <p/>Inside this fully updated edition, you'll discover:
- The Foundation Myth and the Archaeology - Romulus and Remus, the Palatine Hill, and what excavations actually reveal about Rome's beginnings.
- The Roman Republic - patricians and plebeians, the Twelve Tables, and the rise of a city-state to mastery of Italy.
- The Punic Wars - Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants, the disaster at Cannae, Scipio Africanus at Zama, and the destruction of Carthage.
- Julius Caesar - his conquest of Gaul, the crossing of the Rubicon, Cleopatra, and the assassination on the Ides of March, 44 BCE.
- Augustus and the Pax Romana - the founding of the empire and two centuries of unprecedented Mediterranean peace.
- The Colosseum and the Gladiators - the building, the spectacles, the wild beast hunts, and the daily life of the arena's most famous fighters.
- Engineering an Empire - the roads, the aqueducts, the Pantheon's dome that stood for 1,300 years, and Trajan's astonishing public works.
- The Fall of the Western Empire - Alaric's sack of 410, the Vandals of 455, and the deposition of Romulus Augustulus on 4 September 476.
- Medieval Rome and the Papacy - Gregory the Great, the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, and the long survival of the Eternal City.
- Renaissance and Baroque Glory - Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, the catastrophic Sack of Rome in 1527, and Bernini's transformation of the city.
- The Risorgimento - the Bersaglieri breaching Porta Pia on 20 September 1870 and Rome becoming the capital of a unified Italy.
- Modern Rome - Mussolini's March on Rome, the Lateran Treaty creating Vatican City in 1929, the Allied liberation of 1944, and the Treaty of Rome of 1957.
- Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV - the historic 2025 transition: the death of Pope Francis on 21 April and the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope in two thousand years of church history.
Why this edition is different:
- Fifteen in-depth chapters plus eight reference appendices - over 100 pages of substantive content.
- Updated to 2026 with the latest scholarship on Rome's founding and the historic 2025 papal transition.
- Carefully fact-checked against current historical research, with contested claims clearly flagged.
- Complete reference toolkit - timeline, glossary, key figures, the seven hills, in-focus essays on Roman law and the Roman army, a walking guide to modern Rome, and further reading.
- Professionally typeset for a genuine reading experience worthy of the subject.
>Scroll up and click "Buy Now" to begin your journey through three thousand years of history in the city that has refused, over and over again, to retire.
