"A work of meticulous historical scholarship that reads with all the
inherent reader engagement of an extended saga..." -- Midwest Book
Review
The legends of early Rome are among the most memorable of any in the
world. They are also highly instructive. They taught generations of
Romans about duty and obedience. Duty and obedience might not seem to
amount to much these days, but it was precisely these virtues that made
Rome great. The legends are not, however, merely self-congratulatory and
they are rarely simple exercises in nationalist propaganda. On the
contrary, many reveal their ancestors' dark side, which they expose
unflinchingly.
As in the case of Greek mythology, there is no authorized version of any
Roman legend. The legends survived because they reminded the Romans who
they were, what modest beginnings they came from, how on many occasions
their city nearly imploded, and what type of men and women shaped their
story.
Defeat, loss, failure. That's where this story - the story of the
boldest, most enduring, and most successful political experiment in
human history - begins. It's the story of how a band of refugees escaped
from the ruins of a burning city and came to establish themselves
hundreds of miles to the west in the land of Hesperia, the Western Land,
the land where the sun declines, aka Italia. It's the story of a people
who by intermingling, compromise and sheer doggedness came to dominate
first their region, then the whole of peninsula Italy, and finally the
entire Mediterranean and beyond.
