THE FOLIO SOCIETY

Abandoned twins suckled by a wolf, Aeneas fleeing the sack of Troy, Jupiter’s shield falling from the sky with the fate of a city written upon it... Rome was fascinated with the legends of its own beginning, seeing in them the foundation of its manifest destiny to rule an empire that stretched from Scotland to Persia. Over the centuries, Rome’s historians and poets recorded and elaborated them, telling tales of unforgettable heroism and tragedy. Our own culture – in music, art, literature and politics – resounds with Roman legend. Horatius at the bridge has long provided a touchstone of courage and patriotism, while the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud and the formation of the republic have inspired countless democrats and revolutionaries.

This new collection has been specially compiled for The Folio Society by Lawrence Norfolk, the award-winning novelist whose books affirm the imaginative power of classical legend in modern literature. He has selected all the most iconic stories, drawing on Plutarch, Virgil, Livy and Ovid amongst others, but also lesser-known traditions, including some of the more bizarre Roman superstitions, such as the Lupercalia in which youths dressed in animal skins and smeared with dog blood would whip female onlookers with strips of goatskin to promote fertility. Most books on Roman legend comprise summaries which capture little of the epic force of the originals. Here, fresh and readable translations shatter the assumption that the Roman deities are merely pale shadows of the Greek pantheon and demonstrate incontrovertibly the huge diversity of these stories and their distinctive protagonists: the unique heroes, gods, and villains both worshipped and feared in Ancient Rome.