All Roads Lead to Rome: Why We Think of the Roman Empire Daily

HOW often do you think about the Roman Empire? Videos of women posing this question to the men in their lives and their bewilderment at receiving the answer 'daily', or 'several times a week', went viral on social media a couple of years ago.

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Rhiannon Garth Jones (Aurum, £22)

Their confessions didn't surprise Rhiannon Garth Jones, who sets out in this engaging popular history to explain why Rome remains so present in our 21st-century lives, in politics, architecture and popular culture.

Her overall contention is that Rome has held such sway across millennia because it symbolises power and that leaders throughout history, be they queens or dictators, politicians or priests, have claimed legitimacy, and asserted their authority and superiority over others, by casting themselves as the legitimate heirs of Rome, shaping their image of Rome to suit their own agenda.