For the Roman writers "Fighting for Rome" became not the expansive imperialism of the all-conquering 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 the Cold War, they have been updated and rewritten to make a book that brings the ancient texts before the reader in a strikingly immediate way.