Skip to content
Rome: The Eternal CityAI-generated content label

Cover photo: Andrew Peloso (Unsplash, CC0)

History22 min

Rome: The Eternal City

From the she-wolf of Romulus to the coins of the Trevi Fountain — twenty-seven centuries of history, layer by layer.

About

In Rome, you cannot dig a tunnel without stumbling on an imperial barracks — because this city is not one, but many, built one on top of another. In this audiobook we peel the layers back one by one: the kingdom of Romulus and the seven hills, the Republic that swore "never again a king" and its war with Hannibal and his elephants, Caesar falling with twenty-three stab wounds on the spot where a colony of cats now lives, the Empire that left us the Colosseum and the Pantheon, the Rome of the popes, of Michelangelo and Bernini, the capital of a united Italy with a whole foreign state inside it, the mark of Mussolini, the Dolce Vita and the Years of Lead. A tour through twenty-seven centuries — so that, when you visit, every stone around you speaks.

Sources

  • Wikipedia: "History of Rome"; "Punic Wars"; "Assassination of Julius Caesar"; "Colosseum"; "Pantheon, Rome"; "Lateran Treaty"; "Years of Lead (Italy)"; "Trevi Fountain".
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Rome"; "ancient Rome"; "Julius Caesar".
  • Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars — the Ides of March, "even you, my child?", "city of marble".
  • Plutarch, Life of Pompey — "the die is cast" said in Greek at the Rubicon.
  • Tacitus, Annals — the great fire of 64 and the Christians.
  • Musei Capitolini — the Capitoline She-wolf.
  • ANSA/Reuters (2016) — the discovery of the Roman barracks at the Metro Line C works.
Read the full transcript

Similar audiobooks

  • The Fall of Constantinople
    History
    11 min

    The Fall of Constantinople

    The night Constantinople fell — and a thousand-year empire came to an end.

    The Fall of Constantinople
  • How Artificial Intelligence Is Becoming Our New God
    Ideas & Philosophy
    21 min

    How Artificial Intelligence Is Becoming Our New God

    From the Oracle of Delphi to a glowing screen at midnight: why we trust a machine like an authority.

    How Artificial Intelligence Is Becoming Our New God
  • The Invasion of Cyprus
    History
    17 min

    The Invasion of Cyprus

    The coup that was staged in the name of union — and brought partition instead.

    The Invasion of Cyprus
  • Constantin Carathéodory
    Biographies
    11 min

    Constantin Carathéodory

    The Greek mathematician Einstein came to for help — and who saved a library inside a burning city.

    Constantin Carathéodory