Hi I'm gay and I want to get more into ancient Rome do you have any media recs/nonfic recs/ advice?
hiiiiiii so ok. i loved 'a history of the roman empire in 21 women' by emma southon as well as the partial historians podcast! they both review n summarize roman history in a way thats v lighthearted and funny. ok so this is a bit unorthodox but my favorite way of engaging w ancient texts is reading a blurb summarizing the events/story (like even a wikipedia page) to get the overall gist of whats going on n then read the ancient source itself (w commentary ofc). im reading caesar's commentaries on the gallic war rn (in latin tho. & for class) n im having a lot of fun. also cicero's speeches r real fun when ur reading a translation n dont have to deal w his latin. mary beard's SPQR is highly recommended but i havent read it yet. plutarch is rly fun but do keep in mind he wasnt shy abt being a massive gossip so do take any... empirical facts he tries to establish w a grain of salt.
& if ur into poetry i do recommend catullus despite his incel poems. theyre also all relatively short (so not an actual epic like the aeneid). the translation i read had a little blurb before each poem explaining the background + summary. ovid's metamorphoses is also really fun, and is generally broken into individual stories so u can just start at any point bc u dont rly have an overarching plot.
i cant recommend hbo's rome enough (from tumblr user romehbo? shocking). HOWEVER, its best u watch it after uve at least done like. the most basic reading (even wiki pages tbh). this way it doesnt completely impact ur notion of the actual historical events (bc they made up a bunch of shit). i do think its exceptional in humanising all these ppl n events as well as in putting everything into perspective. a few of my professors said it rly encapsulates the essence of what it was like to live in the roman republic. have fun!!!!
@ followers - any recs?
