Lucas C . Wagner
THE EPIC STORY
OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.
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Amazon Top 10 Bestseller, Ancient Military History
Amazon Top 10 Bestseller, Ancient Civilization
How do you build Rome? You learn from a Roman. Civilizations have come and gone, but Titus Livius' epic about the Roman Republic endures.A thoroughly modern and readable translation of the beginnings of the Roman Republic, this 2025 translation was designed to be as fluid and as clear as possible for 21st century readers.Coinciding with Niccolò Machiavelli's masterpiece, Discourses on Livy I-X, it is a welcome resource for students, researchers, and hobbyists of Roman history, political philosophy, and other humanities.Public Domain and Free. Forever.We believe that an educated public is absolutely critical for a modern republic, especially now. Ben Foster's 1922 Harvard/Loeb work was the last great translation of Books I-X. We consulted his work frequently. In modern day, however, the resources needed to complete a translation like Foster's are almost non-existent.As such, in 2025, we dedicated our translation to the public domain (CC0 1.0). It is free for anyone to build upon, remix, perform, and publish.
Subheadings For Simplicity
In a first for any Livy translation, we've created our own section and chapter subheadings with simplicity and ease of use in mind.We've also included circa dates so that the reader can get a feel of when these events happened.
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THE
GREATEST HITS.
For those who don't want to read the 1000-page epic, here are my most favorite parts. An action-packed journey into the Roman Republic's turbulent beginnings.Before Rome became an Empire, it was a Republic. Part frontier, part battlefield, and part political cauldron. This book is about the process of becoming Rome. Instead of the Romans fighting barbarians, the Romans are the barbarians.The First Romans invites readers to see Rome not as an inevitability, but as a succession of moments when only "honor ... training, courageousness, and great weaponry" determined whether the fragile Republic would break apart or move forward.
The Best of the Best.Learn the stories behind the legends. Romulus. Brutus. Cincinnatus. Coriolanus. Appius Claudius (and his descendants). Capitolinus. Camillus. And even a patrician bully named Caeso.In The First Romans, Lucas C. Wagner writes a kinetic version of Rome's best tales, edited and revised from his translation of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita. Along the way, references are also added from other ancient authors as Homer and Plutarch.