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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Gao, post: 942418, member: 19409&quot;]I usually like to go primary with what I read.&nbsp; Suetonius&#039; Twelve Caesars is probably one of the most accessible works from the ancient world, so it&#039;s probably a good starting point.&nbsp; It&#039;s a collection of biographies about Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of Rome.&nbsp; It has some pretty good information, but Suetonius quite liked colorful anecdotes, and it can come off a bit tabloid-esque at times.&nbsp; Honestly, I think that&#039;s part of why he&#039;s so enjoyable to read.</p><p><br /></p><p>I also rather like Herodian&#039;s <i><a href="http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodian/hre000.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodian/hre000.html" rel="nofollow">History of the Roman Empire since the Death of Marcus Aurelius</a></i>.&nbsp; It&#039;s not the most accurate or thorough history, but Herodian knows how to tell a good story, and it&#039;s often compared to a novel.&nbsp; It covers the late second and early third century, so you&#039;ll get the history surrounding some rather affordable coins.&nbsp; Unfortunately, this work is obscure enough where you might have trouble finding a physical copy anywhere, but it is available online in its entirety for free at the site I linked to.</p><p><br /></p><p>My favorite ancient historical text is Herodotus&#039; <i>Histories</i>.&nbsp; It&#039;s long and dense, and it will take work to fully appreciate it, but if you put in the effort, you will get a lot out of it.&nbsp; It&#039;s not so much a straight history like most other sources, as Herodotus spent a lot of time describing all the cultures that were remotely relevant (he even takes the entire second book to describe Egypt even though they only had a small part in the war that the Histories is about), and he says himself that a lot of his sources are of dubious quality, so a large portion of it is legend and folk tale.&nbsp; However, it does cover one of the most important periods of European history, it gives great insight into the Greek mind, and this work along with that of Thucydides is the foundation of the study that we call &quot;history&quot;.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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