Essence of the Ancient world for me, Lindsey Davis

by Lindsey Davis

|

5 books

I’ve been researching the Roman world for almost forty years and these are some key titles that have either taught me a lot, or given me special pleasure. I’ve read hundreds of others (and discarded some!), but if anyone was starting from scratch as I did, these would certainly be good places to look. Taken together, these five books are a distillation of the ‘stuff’ I love, the ‘stuff’ I use so often in my work.

Read more... Read less...

Daily Life in Ancient Rome - The People and the City at the Height of the Empire

Jerome Carcopino, 2011

This is a very old book, first published in 1940, but it’s a classic because the author draws upon First Century sources for his colourful details, which of course, remain valid*. It was one of the first I read when I began my study of what is now ‘my’ world for my fiction and I could not have chosen better. I remember being stunned by his vivid portrait of the teeming metropolitan city in Imperial times, especially the crammed streets where all elements of society jostled and the enormous variety and quantity of goods flowing in from every part of the Empire. It remains an antidote to the portrayal of classical times as white marble monuments peopled by aristocratic men and subjugated women, and even to the idea that ‘Rome’ only meant legions, gladiators and Olympian religion.

Ancient Inventions

Peter J. James, Nick Thorpe, I. J. Thorpe, 1995

This was published in the 1990s and the book may be hard to find now, but it’s a treasure trove of crazy inventions from all over the world and from all eras of the past. From it, I myself discovered Roman fire engines, automata, contraception, and Etruscan dentistry, but if you are fascinated by Aztec chewing gum, Cretan lavatories, or Stone Age brain surgery, these authors, with their engaging style, are the lads for you. It ought to be on every reading list for the ancient world and it stays firmly on mine. You can lose yourself very happily among its pages. All the people who have written to ask if I invented the hodometer should have looked here first.

Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome

Lesley Adkins, Roy A. Adkins, 1998

You like facts? This reference book also dates from the 1990s, but it has been revised and stays ever relevant because it is crammed with knowledge from thirteen centuries of history, geography, trade, writing, and daily life. There are maps, photos, illustrations and reconstructions. This is where I go for weights and measures, money, how personal names are supposed to have worked and place names. It’s my original source for grappling with the mad Roman system of times of the day – and so many other things. It’s a clear-cut encyclopaedia that’s always reliable. You can find some of these details online now, but I think they are often pinched from the Adkins hand book.

Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum

Paul Roberts, 2013

In 2013 the British Museum held a wonderful exhibition about the Roman Bay of Naples, bringing together objects that showed the history, daily life and fatal destruction of its two most famous towns. I went more than once. This is the catalogue, superbly written by curator Paul Roberts, a specialist in Roman art and archaeology, whose fine text forms a perfect marriage with really beautiful photographs. Many of these objects, frescos, mosaics and marbles are well known, and some I have even struggled to make out in situ, but I’ve never seen them pictured with such clarity. On my shelves are rows of books I’ve collected about the unique time-capsule left to us by the 79AD/CE eruption of Vesuvius, but this is one of the best and likely to remain so.

Ancient Roman Cooking

Ingredients, Recipes, Sources

Marco Gavio de Rubeis, 2020

Narrowing the focus: I come from a working-class family, large and hungry on one side and working an allotment on the other; I was born in the shadow of the Second World War and can just remember the end of rationing in England. Then I went to a university where I sometimes encountered fine dining and, to a lesser extent in those days, drinking. These things have given me a fascination with food that I explore all the time in my writing. There are versions of recipes by the Roman cook we know as Apicius, usually with recommendations for reconstructing them (as I have done, though only occasionally apart from Chicken Frontinium). This book was a gift from my personal trainer, who found it online. It’s from a small organisation that studies and highlights the history of cultural aspects, including food. It has a faintly quaint translation, but I love it, especially for its approach: the concentration on ingredients and how they have been and can be treated to give you a good time at table. Or indeed, if you swig too much vinum, under it.