NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE KANSAS CITY STAR From Anthony Everitt the bestselling author of acclaimed biographies of Cicero Augustus and Hadrian comes a riveting magisterial account of Rome and its remarkable ascent from an obscure agrarian backwater to the greatest empire the world has ever known. Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Rome grew to become the ancient worlds preeminent power. Everitt fashions the story of Romes rise to glory into an erudite pageturner filled with lasting lessons for our time. He chronicles the clash between patricians and plebeians that defined the politics of the Republic. He shows how Romes shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding the reach of her burgeoning empire. And he outlines the corrosion of constitutional norms that accompanied Romes imperial expansion as old habits of political compromise gave way leading to violence and civil war. In the end unimaginable wealth and power corrupted the traditional virtues of the Republic and Rome was left triumphant everywhere except within its own borders. Everitt paints indelible portraits of the great Romansand nonRomanswho left their mark on the world out of which the mighty empire grew Cincinnatus Romes George Washington the very model of the patrician warrioraristocrat the brilliant general Scipio Africanus who turned back a challenge from the Carthaginian legend Hannibal and Alexander the Great the invincible Macedonian conqueror who became a role model for generations of wouldbe Roman rulers. Here also are the intellectual and philosophical leaders whose observations on the art of government and the good life have inspired every Western power from antiquity to the present Cato the Elder the famously incorruptible statesman who spoke out against the decadence of his times and Cicero the consummate orator whose championing of republican institutions pu