The Romans : A People’s History

Ancient Rome retold through the lives of ordinary people.

The Romans loom large in the imagination, credited with roads, aqueducts, politics, plumbing and empire – yet these familiar achievements tell only part of the story. The Romans: A People’s History turns away from generals and emperors to focus instead on the millions of ordinary men and women whose voices rarely made it into history. Drawing on inscriptions, literature, household objects, mosaics and myth, it reveals how plebeian lives shaped the culture that still surrounds us: from food and labour to beliefs, entertainment, violence and political resistance. Not shying away from contentious subjects – misogyny, slavery, racism and the enjoyment of brutal spectacle – Paul Chrystal offers a rich, human-centred account of Roman civilization, suggesting that what ordinary Romans endured and achieved still echoes in how we live, argue and govern today.