The Myths of Rome

There was once a dream that was Rome. So says the old emperor Marcus Aurelius in Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator . It was a Rome of free citizens, brave, incorruptible, loved by the gods. It had its own myths, the stories that defined what the Romans were, and in due course it achieved mythic status itself. The myths of Rome have inspired artists, writers and statesmen throughout the ages: from Botticelli’s Primavera and Shakespeare’s Roman plays to Machiavelli’s Discourses and Addison’s Cato - a key text for the founding fathers of the American revolution. And yet, while a wealth of material dealing with Greek myth exists, the myths of Rome are a neglected topic. Some authorities have even claimed that the Romans had no mythology at all. Wiseman’s remarkable new contribution to this almost totally unexplored field is highly illustrated and characteristically ambitious in its threefold purpose: to collect, and present in readable and accessible form, the neglected evidence for Roman myths, both iconographical and literary; to attempt to trace the development of the Roman story-world over time, from the sixth century BC to the second AD; to explore its afterlife in western culture from the Renaissance to the present day, with generous illustration of the visual evidence from ancient and post-Renaissance sources. Peter Wiseman is Professor of Classics at the University of Exeter and a Fellow of the British Academy.