A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANCIENT ROME by Alberto Angela ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The one-two punch of SPQR and this book was a quick and effective education on Roman antiquity. One focusing more on the leaders and major events, and one focusing on what the people living with them would experience on a normal day. If possible, I’d recommend reading them in that order, zooming in on the finer details of the time as you go.

This book is a fun exercise in realistic imagination, picturing the scenes based on what we know and what we can surmise from all our discoveries. While a decidedly dangerous and dirty time to be alive, a surprising amount of things mirror aspects of our own. The politics and interpersonal strife of apartment living. A desire to climb the social ladder. Getting haggled on the main market drag. There’s some extremely different parts — brutal deaths and basically no security or guaranteed justice if something happens to you — but the fact we can see a semblance of ourselves in a civilization over two thousand years removed is incredible.

While emperors and orators made history and kept track of it, somewhere close to a million people went through the motions of another day in the biggest city to ever exist up to that point. And in one week, I’ll be walking through what’s left of it. Another exercise in imagination I can’t believe is true.