I made it! This really is an epic work, in that it shows both breadth and depth of knowledge and insight. The use of the themes of luxury and liberty and excellent lenses through which to view the Classical World and the use of Hadrian as the unifying character is great. I suppose his reign is not only illustrative of the peak of Roman power, but he is also an excellent bridge between Greek and Roman. ( )

An epic undertaking - and at times it felt like reading two epics in succession - one (the Latin) more easily accessible than the Greek, to me at any rate. The threads chosen to draw this together - luxury, justice etc - can come to feel a bit contrived and tenuous and loom in and out of view throughout the book. I rather prefer the patchwork quality of the book, where you catch glimpses of different individuals, civilisations and other matters, with some rather dull ground in between. I certainly feel as if I've learned a lot more about the classical world - and may possibly (but not now) feel inspired to return to read more of the classical authors...

A good read spanning two great civilizations. Well worth it as an introduction to the classical world. ( )

It may just have been my personal bias, but I thought the Roman half of this history was considerably more interesting than the Greek half. Throughout the book, in any case, the author often seems to assume that the reader already knows a fair bit about all this, and so doesn't explain things as well as he might. ( )

As others have said, this is a bright and breezy dash through the more interesting bits of the ancient world. RLF is unapologetically selective in what he covers, so it feels a bit superficial when you come to an area of ancient history you already know something about, but it does a good job of showing you how the other bits fit together. I think this would make very useful preparatory reading for someone about to start a high school or undergraduate ancient history course and wanting to get a bit of perspective before plunging into the details. If you're using it in this way, you should be aware that he doesn't cover everything: we don't learn very much about what was going on outside the immediate Greek and Roman area, and the story starts with Homer and ends with the emperor Hadrian.
Where the book is really strong is in conveying the author's enthusiasm for the period, and particularly for his heroes — Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus and Suetonius are the real stars of this story, not Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. I finished the book with a feeling that I ought to go back and read these authors (untouched since school) properly: I don't know whether I shall... ( )