"Bestselling classical historian Barry Strauss tells the story of the Roman Empire through the lives of ten men who ruled Rome, from Augustus, the founder, to Constantine, who refounded the empire as Christian and established a new capital at Constantinople, three and a half centuries later. During these centuries Rome gained in splendor and territory, then lost both. The empire reached from modern-day Britain to Iraq, and over time emperors came...

The Trojan War is the most famous conflict in history, the subject of Homer's Iliad, one of the cornerstones of Western literature. Although many readers know that this literary masterwork is based on actual events, there is disagreement about how much of Homer's tale is true. Drawing on recent archeological research, historian and classicist Barry Strauss explains what really happened in Troy more than 3,000 years ago. For many years it was thought...

Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar. Each was a master of war. Each had to look beyond the battlefield to decide whom to fight and why, to know what victory was and when to end the war, to determine how to bring stability to the lands he conquered. Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar had to be not only generals but statesmen. And yet each was a battlefield commander, a strategist, a leader of men-in short, a warrior. Tactics change, weapons change, but the ultimate...