The Folklore of Rome

Step beyond the ruins and into the pulse of ancient Rome—not the Rome of marble triumphs and imperial decrees, but of whispered spells, ghostly omens, and mythic memory. The Folklore of Rome: Myth, Magic, Dying, and the Making of the Empire is an immersive exploration of how stories, superstitions, and sacred rites shaped the world’s most enduring civilization from its legendary beginnings to its imperial zenith. In these pages, history meets enchantment. Chapter by chapter, the book reveals how Roman identity was bound to its folklore: the way Livy’s histories blurred myth and moral lesson, how domestic charms and street-corner incantations governed daily life, and how rituals of dying transformed death into a civic and spiritual act. From household gods to battlefield omens, from public festivals to private fears, Rome’s imagination was alive with unseen forces—powers that both inspired and restrained its people. With vivid scholarship and a storyteller’s touch, The Folklore of Rome uncovers the Empire’s hidden heartbeat: the dreams, doubts, and supernatural beliefs that gave meaning to conquest and glory. More than a study of myths and rituals, it is a rediscovery of Rome as a living myth itself—a civilization forever poised between the mortal and the divine.