Greg Fisher is a graduate of the University of Oxford, UK, and the author and editor of numerous works on the ancient world, including Between Empires (2011), Arabs and Empires Before Islam (2015), Hannibal and Scipio (2015), and Rome, Persia, and Arabia (Routledge 2020).

List of figures; List of maps; Acknowledgments; Copyright notices; Note to the reader; Chapter OneThe origins of Rome; Chapter TwoThe early Republic, 509-280 BC; Chapter Three'True athletes of warfare': Rome, Carthage, and Pyrrhus, 280-225 BC; Chapter Four'The empire of the world': Rome, Greece, Macedonia, and Hannibal, 264-200 BC; Chapter Five'Against our own Roman gods': Rome and the Greek east, 200-146 BC; Chapter SixThe collapse of public order, 140-63 BC; Chapter SevenCoup, 63-30 BC; Chapter EightMonarchy and empire: Augustus, 30 BC-AD 14; Chapter NineFrom stability to chaos, AD 14-79; Chapter TenConsolidating the principate, AD 72-138; Chapter ElevenDecay, 138-235; Chapter TwelveThe empire transformed, 235-337; Chapter ThirteenDivision and collapse, 337-493; Chapter FourteenThe end of antiquity, 491-642; Glossary; Further reading; Index