I really really wish, there was a VR game/app where I can transport myself to different places/times in the past and just walk around to get the texture and feel for what it felt like living in that time.
Walking around a Roman town, hearing what people talked like, what they wore, what technology was around, what did they do most of the day.
I can highly recommend Lindsey Davis' Falco series, murder mysteries set in Ancient Rome. She brings the city to life, it's remarkably vivid, and -- I promise this comment is on topic for this thread! -- Roman apartment living is threaded throughout the series and apartment building construction even forms a major plot point in one book.
I can't say more without spoilers. Excellent for "feeling" what Rome was like.
I’m looking for new fiction to add to the queue but my reading time is limited (unless you count children’s books in which case I’m reading 100s of books per year).
Do I need to read the first book in the series, or are they independent? If independent, can you recommend the best one for someone who only has time to read one?
It's been several years since I read them, but I think starting with the first book is good. It's not quite as polished as the others, and I think not quite with the same tone, but it introduces the characters that will be throughout the series. My memory is the series is more lighthearted in general than the first book is.
You make me think I should reread, and I will start at the beginning here too.
See how pots strike and dint the sturdy pavement.
There’s death from every window where you move.
You’d be a fool to venture out to dine,
oblivious of what goes on above,
without your having penned that dotted line,
of your last testament.
This feels very modern. "Sure, you might get randomly killed by a pot flying out a window, but there are _walkable_ restaurants!"
Its very much everywhere you have large swaths of people pasding through. I distinctly remember my aunt complaining that in the student dorms back in the day, two students bought a whole pig and roasted it in the iron bathtub
I really enjoyed the film Fellini Satyricon because it shows a couple of regular guys on a crazy adventure after their apartment building in Rome collapses in an earthquake. Most other stuff about Rome/Romans follows leaders, generals, aristocrats, etc. so it was refreshing to see regular people.
And completely not based on reality, I also liked the British comedy series Plebs that also follows regular people living Rome. But it's just a way to show modern issues satirically, not really historical.
“ Most other stuff about Rome/Romans follows leaders, generals, aristocrats, etc. so it was refreshing to see regular people”
A lot of history focuses too much on leaders and elites. I would like to see much more information about how regular people lived. Or for example, when a some king “built” something, maybe we should know how life was for the workers there.
It's not as widely promoted, but if you're genuinely interested, there are more of those histories written then you'll ever have time to read yourself.
There's a classic five volume series "A History of Private Life" that works through a breadth-first survey over time. It can make for a great starting point, and is a bit like an encylopedia in the way you can engage with it as essays on certain times and topics instead of being expected to read it through serially.
One of Mary Beard's documentaries ('Meet the Romans' I think) touches on Roman insulae. Literal death traps, and seemingly miserably uncomfortable at the best of times. At least you're out of the rain (except on the top floors).
And someone below mentioned 'Plebs', which is the humorous take on all this. Recommended.
They called them insulae meaning "islands". They had no concept of fire escapes, and barely any plumbing (despite this image of Roman engineering). They really were the harris end of Roman architecture.
I guess that's the rear (or arse) end, if anyone else is puzzled and doesn't have a couple of spare minutes to chase it down ...
>> top floors were the least desirable. Poorer residents occupied the upper story.
Some writers placed Julius Caesar's aristocratic but down at the heel family in the lower floors of a Subura tenement, but apparently it really was a house.
I really really wish, there was a VR game/app where I can transport myself to different places/times in the past and just walk around to get the texture and feel for what it felt like living in that time.
Walking around a Roman town, hearing what people talked like, what they wore, what technology was around, what did they do most of the day.
Someone please make it real.
I can highly recommend Lindsey Davis' Falco series, murder mysteries set in Ancient Rome. She brings the city to life, it's remarkably vivid, and -- I promise this comment is on topic for this thread! -- Roman apartment living is threaded throughout the series and apartment building construction even forms a major plot point in one book.
I can't say more without spoilers. Excellent for "feeling" what Rome was like.
https://www.goodreads.com/series/42173-marcus-didius-falco
I’m looking for new fiction to add to the queue but my reading time is limited (unless you count children’s books in which case I’m reading 100s of books per year).
Do I need to read the first book in the series, or are they independent? If independent, can you recommend the best one for someone who only has time to read one?
It's been several years since I read them, but I think starting with the first book is good. It's not quite as polished as the others, and I think not quite with the same tone, but it introduces the characters that will be throughout the series. My memory is the series is more lighthearted in general than the first book is.
You make me think I should reread, and I will start at the beginning here too.
That's still very real in NYC. https://tribecacitizen.com/2026/04/27/rubble-falls-from-the-...
Its very much everywhere you have large swaths of people pasding through. I distinctly remember my aunt complaining that in the student dorms back in the day, two students bought a whole pig and roasted it in the iron bathtub
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mansions_of_the_Gods
I really enjoyed the film Fellini Satyricon because it shows a couple of regular guys on a crazy adventure after their apartment building in Rome collapses in an earthquake. Most other stuff about Rome/Romans follows leaders, generals, aristocrats, etc. so it was refreshing to see regular people.
And completely not based on reality, I also liked the British comedy series Plebs that also follows regular people living Rome. But it's just a way to show modern issues satirically, not really historical.
The only thing that has changed is the technology and the gods. Humans in particular their behavior in most things are the same unfortunately…
“ Most other stuff about Rome/Romans follows leaders, generals, aristocrats, etc. so it was refreshing to see regular people”
A lot of history focuses too much on leaders and elites. I would like to see much more information about how regular people lived. Or for example, when a some king “built” something, maybe we should know how life was for the workers there.
It's not as widely promoted, but if you're genuinely interested, there are more of those histories written then you'll ever have time to read yourself.
There's a classic five volume series "A History of Private Life" that works through a breadth-first survey over time. It can make for a great starting point, and is a bit like an encylopedia in the way you can engage with it as essays on certain times and topics instead of being expected to read it through serially.
Plebs felt to me like the Inbetweeners set two thousand years earlier.
One of Mary Beard's documentaries ('Meet the Romans' I think) touches on Roman insulae. Literal death traps, and seemingly miserably uncomfortable at the best of times. At least you're out of the rain (except on the top floors).
And someone below mentioned 'Plebs', which is the humorous take on all this. Recommended.
They called them insulae meaning "islands". They had no concept of fire escapes, and barely any plumbing (despite this image of Roman engineering). They really were the harris end of Roman architecture.
> the harris end
I guess that's the rear (or arse) end, if anyone else is puzzled and doesn't have a couple of spare minutes to chase it down ...
>> top floors were the least desirable. Poorer residents occupied the upper story.
Some writers placed Julius Caesar's aristocratic but down at the heel family in the lower floors of a Subura tenement, but apparently it really was a house.