For the Roman writers 'Fighting for Rome' became not the expansive imperialism of the all-conq uering Republic, but a collapse into horror and un-Roman autocracy brought about by the Caesars' fighting for control of Rome. The essays in this volume range across the literary forms, history and satire, lyric and epic, working closely with particular texts. Conceived over the decade after Cold War, they have been updated and rewritten to make a book which brings the ancient texts before the reader in a strikingly immediate way.