The Roads to Rome
A History of Imperial Expansion
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Narrated by:
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Catherine Fletcher
About this listen
"All roads lead to Rome" is a medieval proverb, but it's also true: today's European roads still follow the networks of the ancient empire—and these ancient roads continue to grip our imaginations as a physical manifestation of Rome's greatness.
Over the two thousand years since they were built, these roads have been walked by crusaders and pilgrims, liberators and dictators, but also by tourists and writers, refugees and artists. As channels of trade and travel—and routes for conquest and creativity—Catherine Fletcher reveals how these roads transformed the cultures, and intertwined the fates, of a vast panoply of people across Europe and beyond.
The Roads to Rome is a journey into a past that remains intimately connected to our present. Traveling from Scotland to Cádiz to Istanbul and back to Rome, the listener meanders through nations and empires that have risen and fallen. We encounter spies, bandits, innkeepers, a Byzantine noblewoman on the run, aristocrats on their Grand Tour, Napoleon, John Keats, the Shelleys, Frederick Douglass, and Mussolini.
Based on original research, this is the first narrative history to tell the full story of life on the roads that lead to Rome.
©2024 Catherine Fletcher (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: John Haywood
- Narrated by: Ben Eagle
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A dazzling and ambitious history of the pre-Columbian Atlantic seas, Ocean is a story that begins with the formation of the mid-Atlantic ridge some 200 million years ago and ends with the Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century, providing a template for the methods used by the Spanish in their colonization of the New World.
By: John Haywood
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A History of the Classical World
- The Story of Ancient Greece and Rome
- By: Elizabeth Wyse
- Narrated by: Sofia Engstrand
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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This fascinating guide chronicles the rise and fall of ancient Greece and Rome and its cultural influence today. From palace-based societies in Minoan Crete to the Germanic invasion of Rome, it tells the story of these classical civilizations, covering their political development, the rise of the city state and the growth of their empires.
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Simple, but easy to listen to
- By Stephan S. on 12-28-24
By: Elizabeth Wyse
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Caesar Versus Pompey
- Determining Rome’s Greatest General, Statesman & Nation-Builder
- By: Stephen Dando-Collins
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Few people have had as many words written about them down through the centuries as Julius Caesar—the brilliant general who made Queen Cleopatra of Egypt his mistress. He has captured the imagination of playwrights, historians, soldiers, and emperors. Little has been written about his ally, son-in-law, and eventual enemy Pompey the Great, who crashed onto the Roman scene as a victorious twenty-three-year-old general and who, at the height of his career, was arguably more famous, more popular, and more successful than Caesar.
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A Century of Tomorrows
- How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present
- By: Glenn Adamson
- Narrated by: Glenn Adamson
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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A Century of Tomorrows offers an illuminating account of how the world was transformed by the science (or is it?) of futurecasting. Beneath the chaos of competing tomorrows, Adamson reveals a hidden order: six key themes that have structured visions of what’s next. Helping him to tell this story are remarkable characters, including self-proclaimed futurologists such as Buckminster Fuller and Stewart Brand, as well as an eclectic array of other visionaries who have influenced our thinking about the world ahead.
By: Glenn Adamson
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Alexandria
- The City That Changed the World
- By: Islam Issa
- Narrated by: Islam Issa
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Combining rigorous research with myth and folklore, Alexandria is an authoritative history of a city that has shaped our modern world. Soon after being founded by Alexander the Great, Alexandria became the crucible of cultural exchange between East and West for millennia and the undisputed global capital of knowledge. It was at the forefront of human progress, but it also witnessed brutal natural disasters, plagues, crusades, and violence.
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More than a city history
- By Ramsey S on 12-11-24
By: Islam Issa
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Agent Zo
- The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter
- By: Clare Mulley
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Clare Mulley
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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During World War II, Elzbieta Zawacka—the WWII female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo—was the only woman to reach London as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command. In Britain, she became the only woman to join the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the "Silent Unseen." She was secretly trained in the British countryside, and then she was the only female member of these forces to be parachuted back behind enemy lines to Nazi-occupied Poland.
By: Clare Mulley
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The Last Tsar
- The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs
- By: Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a series of overlapping crises, from war to social unrest. Though Nicholas’s life is often described as tragic, it was not fate that doomed the Romanovs—it was poor leadership and a blinkered faith in autocracy. Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy.
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How to Win an Election
- An Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians
- By: Quintus Tullius Cicero, Philip Freeman - translator
- Narrated by: Doug Kaye
- Length: 1 hr and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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How to Win an Election is an ancient Roman guide for campaigning that is as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines. In 64 BC when idealist Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest orator, ran for consul (the highest office in the Republic), his practical brother Quintus decided he needed some no-nonsense advice on running a successful campaign.
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How to be a politician ...
- By Benedict on 07-31-13
By: Quintus Tullius Cicero, and others
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A Concise History of the Middle East, 13th Edition
- By: Arthur Goldschmidt, Ibrahim Al-Marashi
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 21 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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A Concise History of the Middle East provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of this region. Spanning from the pre-Islamic era to the present, it explores the evolution of Middle Eastern institutions and culture, the influence of European colonialism and Western imperialism, regional modernization efforts, the struggle of various peoples for political independence, the Arab–Israel conflict, the reassertion of Islamist values and power, the issues surrounding the Palestinian Question, and more.
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Narration is robotic
- By Rana R. on 01-04-25
By: Arthur Goldschmidt, and others
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Anubis
- Ancient Egypt’s Lord of Death and Protection
- By: Charlie Larson, Jason Miller - foreword
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Long overshadowed, at least in books, by Egyptian goddesses such as Isis and Sekhmet, Larson's book focuses the spotlight squarely on the jackal-headed god. His book features history and mythology but is also a practical guide to working with Anubis now. It features devotional practices and modern worship that includes rituals, prayers/invocations, correspondences, altars, and epithets. The book leads the listener on a journey of exploration into all things Anubis, exploring his various facets.
By: Charlie Larson, and others
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The Age of Faith
- The Climax of Christianity 1095-1300, From the Crusades Through Dante
- By: Will Durant PhD, Richard Smoley
- Narrated by: Brian Conover
- Length: 29 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The great series The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant is one of the most monumental achievements in historical writing. In its eleven massive volumes, it tells the story of Western civilization from its origins to the age of Napoleon. This volume, The Climax of Christianity, is taken from The Age of Faith, the fourth in the series. It covers the years between 1095—the launching of the First Crusade—and 1300: the age of Dante Alighieri, whose epic poem Divine Comedy is one of the greatest treasures of our civilization.
By: Will Durant PhD, and others
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Heretic
- Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God
- By: Catherine Nixey
- Narrated by: Lalla Ward
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Contrary to the teachings of the church today, in the first several centuries of Christianity’s existence, there was no consensus as to who Jesus was or why he had mattered. Instead, there were many different Christs. One had a twin brother and traveled to India; another consorted with dragons. One particularly terrifying Christ scorned his parents and killed those who opposed him.
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Eye opener!!
- By D. Frank on 01-06-25
By: Catherine Nixey
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Populus
- Living and Dying in Ancient Rome
- By: Guy de la Bédoyère
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Frenzied crowds, talking ravens, the stench of the Tiber River: life in ancient Rome was stimulating, dynamic, and often downright dangerous. The Romans relaxed and gossiped in baths, stole precious water from aqueducts, and partied and dined to excess. From the smells of fragrant cookshops and religious sacrifices to the cries of public executions and murderous electoral mobs, Guy de la Bedoyere's Populus draws on a host of historical and literary sources to transport us into the intensity of daily life at the height of ancient Rome.
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Narration is excellent!
- By Richard Curry on 08-10-24
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Saxons, Vikings, and Celts
- The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland
- By: Bryan Sykes
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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WASPs finally get their due in this stimulating history by one of the world's leading geneticists. Saxons, Vikings, and Celts is the most illuminating book yet to be written about the genetic history of Britain and Ireland. Through a systematic, ten-year DNA survey of more than 10,000 volunteers, Bryan Sykes has traced the true genetic makeup of British Islanders and their descendants.
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Thesaurus taxing mind numbing travelog
- By Twang on 01-07-14
By: Bryan Sykes
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The Price They Paid
- Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War
- By: Jeff Forret
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1831, the American ship Comet, carrying 165 enslaved men, women, and children, crashed onto a coral reef near the shore of the Bahamas, then part of the British Empire. Shortly afterward, the Vice Admiralty Court in Nassau set the rescued captives free. In a work of profoundly relevant research and storytelling, historian and Frederick Douglass Prize–winner Jeff Forret uncovers how the Comet incident—as well as similar episodes that unfolded over the next decade—resulted in the British Crown making reparations payments to a U.S. government that strenuously represented slaveholder interests.
By: Jeff Forret