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STEP BACK IN TIME TO ANCIENT ROME

August 5, 2007 12:35 am

"ROMA." It's Rome, as in Empire, fall of, with parallels to American foreign adventures. Are our armies overextended? Can we govern foreign peoples whose customs diverge radically from our own?

As we grapple with the answers, we may find ourselves dusting off classical histories and profiting from the past. Steven Saylor has provided a helpful overview.

Enter "Roma," as in prehistoric settlement, eventual seat of an early republic. Saylor has organized the first millennium of Roman history around the place where things happened.

He composes narratives for the lives of those who one way or another brush up against historical events. For concrete grounding, an amulet is forged from earliest times and handed down over generations and centuries. It comes to symbolize continuity despite all the upheavals. Through its possessor's eyes we enter the story of the mythical founders, Romulus and Remus, the abduction of the Sabine women, the invasion of the Gauls, the role of the Vestal virgins, the emergence of the Forum and all its intrigues, and the flawed rulers who seize the Roman vision and further shape it.

It ends with the Julius Caesar's triumph and its bloody aftermath. The stage is set for the next act: the rise and fall of the mighty empire. We have been treated to a most entertaining journey through time that is also rooted in place. And we have been given much to ponder.

Dan Dervin is a freelance writer living in Fredericksburg.