Read SPQR

Two legionaries through the fall of the Republic; HBO and the BBC's expensive Caesar.

Petronius as a hallucination: Nero's Rome with no moral centre at all.

Legions, elephants and the Senate; the Total War that made the series.

The 50,000-seat amphitheatre where Rome staged its bloodiest spectacles for 2,000 years

Marcus Aurelius' private notes to himself on campaign; the Stoic handbook for emperors and CEOs.

Seneca writes to Lucilius on time, death and the cost of living well.

Lucius comes back to the arena twenty years on, with rhinos and a sea battle in the Colosseum.

One trip is never enough — come back for the churches, the neighbourhoods and the food you missed