I found this picture book to be informational and entertaining. It touched on many topics but did not spend too much time of each one. It also managed to cover a long period of time in a fairly short book. I thought that the pictures looked a bit outdated, but they did not take away from the story. I would recommend this for a student doing a research project on Ancient Rome. ( )

This book is starting to show its age, as it recounts a traditional and somewhat outdated view of the history of Rome. The pictures in this picture book are an unsettling mix of cartoons and caricature. While the outline of the history is fairly accurate and the myth is relegated to a page or two near the beginning, the story that unfolds is only one interpretation of the events, one that is heavily reliant on class conflict and individual characters in history to tell the story. It isn't a bad book, and the story is still accurate, but the common Roman is not teh focus of this book, so be sure to think about whether to include the book in a collection. The illustrations are especially disconcerting: as the story progresses, the "Romans" become less italianate and lose the darker pigments seen in Italy, Nero is depicted as a fat redhead, for crying out loud! ( )