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A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire Audiobook
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Publisher Description
From the acclaimed author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum comes a wildly entertaining new history of Rome that uses the lives of twenty-one extraordinary women to upend our understanding of the ancient world
The history of Rome has long been narrow and one-sided, essentially a history of “the Doing of Important Things.” It is a history of winning battles, passing laws, and “Having Important Opinions in Public.” And as far as Roman historians have been concerned, women don’t make that history. From Romulus through “the political stab-fest of the late Republic,” and then on to all the emperors, Roman historians may deign to give you a wife or a mother to show how bad things get when women get out of control, but history is more than that.
A Rome of One’s Own will correct that. This is a retelling of the history of Rome with the Important Things, but also all the things Roman history writers relegate to the background—or designate as domestic, feminine, or worthless. This is a history of individuals, twenty-one women who span the length of its territory and its centuries, who caused outrage, led armies in rebellion, wrote poetry, lived independently or under the thumb of emperors.
A social and cultural history told with humor and verve as well as a deep scholarly background, A Rome of One’s Own highlights women overlooked and misunderstood, and through them offers a fascinating and groundbreaking chronicle of the ancient world.
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“Hugely entertaining and illuminating…Emma Southon brilliantly walks the line between humor and heartbreak…A thoroughly engaging read.”
— Elodie Harper, author of The Wolf Den
Quotes
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“An irreverent…lively, alternative history.”
— BBC History -
“She presents ordinary, ‘small’ lives as extraordinary…the history of womanhood.”
— Times Literary Supplement (London) -
“The author’s history is that of a ‘bigger, richer—a more realistic empire.’”
— New York Journal of Books -
“[An] expert and wittily conversational narrative…will enchant fans of ancient history and women’s history.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
“Clever, bold, and refreshingly feminist; readers will be engaged and entertained to the very end…More histories like this are needed.”
— Booklist -
“Where was Emma Southon when I studied Roman history!?”
— Laura Shepperson, author of Phaedra -
“The women in Southon’s book are nuanced, fearless, and thanks to Southon’s brilliant storytelling, unforgettable.”
— Costanza Casati, author of Clytemnestra -
“A Rome of One’s Own is the history book I didn’t know I needed but I now find indispensable—an instant classic.”
— Jane Draycott, author of Cleopatra’s Daughter
Awards
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A Publishers Weekly Pick of Top 10 History Books of Fall
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About Emma Southon
Dr. Emma Southon holds a PhD in ancient history from the University of Birmingham. The author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Marriage, Sex and Death, and Agrippina, she works as a bookseller at Waterstones Belfast.