Mark Rizk Farag’s Reviews > The Romans: A 2,000-Year History > Status Update

It is fascinating to read about church fathers such as Athanasius, John Chrysostom and others from a secular, historical perspective.

St Shenoute, an 83 year oldcoptic monastic saint travelling all the way across the empire to smack a 'heretic' over the head with a bible is objectively hilarious 😅😂

One of the things I love about this book, is that we get a continuation of the narrative history of the Western Roman Empire, above and beyond almost any other book I have read.

Thus we learn about Gothic rulers of the Western Empire, such as Alaric and Theodric, about the Vandal kingdom in Africa and how these changes and degenerations affected European society.

We never learnt that there was a North African Roman emperor in school (Septimus Severus).

Then again, we never learned about Elagabalus, who is reported to have demanded a vagina be made for him, paraded his meteor God into Rome and danced non stop according to Cassius Dio!

Gaius Gracchus is an absolutely fascinating and underrated figure in Roman history.

His worldview, struggle and eventual murder make the prospect of reading about class struggle in Ancient Greece and Rome all the more compelling.

THIS WAS THE BOOK ON ANCIENT ROME I NEEDED AHHHHHHH