A seventeenth-century map of the Roman Empire © akg-images
Discussed in this essay:
Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World, by Mary Beard. Liveright. 512 pages. $39.99.
If men think about the Roman Empire all the time, they do not do it under conditions of their own making. For over twenty years, men, and also women, have thought about the history of ancient Rome under conditions shaped by Mary Beard. As a Cambridge professor, a regular guest on the BBC, a best-selling writer, and the classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, she is the most prominent classicist in Britain, with one of the largest readerships…
