For over five centuries, the Roman Empire ruled much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. It produced some of history’s greatest orators and statesmen, as well as some of its most debauched and corrupt tyrants. Shaping world affairs, the Roman Empire advanced economics, trade, archaeology and culture, but did so through conquest, bloodshed and enslavement of its enemies. This was the Roman way: vae victis, ‘woe to the conquered’. In this book, historian Jacob F. Field tells the entire story of Imperial Rome. Beginning with Julius Caesar first laying the foundations for the Empire right up to the collapse of Rome’s power, follow the journey of the Empire’s rise to unprecedented heights and learn what caused it to eventually fall. This accessible and entertaining history tells the stories of the greatest triumphs and most catastrophic disasters, the battles that defined the era, and what it was like to live under the Romans.