Reddit mentions of Livy: The Early History of Rome, Books I-V (Penguin Classics) (Bks. 1-5)

First, the city of Rome is quite different from the empire. For hundreds of years, Rome was first a kingdom, then a republic, but it became an empire under Augustus (who ruled from 30 B.C to 14 A.D.).

Traditionally, the founding of the city of Rome was dated to 753 B.C. Two brothers, Romulus and Remus (who were allegedly left by the riverside and nursed by a she-wolf) grew up and decided to found a city. They quarreled over where the site should be, and fought. Romulus killed his brother Remus, founded the city, and became the first king of Rome. Seven kings ruled Rome from 753 B.C. until 509 B.C., when the last king Tarquin the Proud was overthrown and Rome became a republic.

Now, our primary source for the early history of Rome is Livy, who lived from 59 B.C. to 17 A.D. and wrote a 142 book history of Rome. 35 of these books have survived, and books 1-5 cover Rome from its founding up to 390 B.C.

Here is his Wikipedia article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livy

And here you can buy his early history: http://www.amazon.com/Livy-Early-History-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140448098

However, a lot of questions have been raised about how reliable Livy is. He was writing hundreds of years after the beginning of Rome, and we don't know very much about his sources. Did he have access to historical records from the era of the kings and the early republic? Was he simply relating myths and folk tales about early Rome? We don't know for sure, and a many historians have argued (and are still arguing) about this.

To add to this, recently archaeologists have found evidence of a Roman wall and pottery fragments that date from 850 B.C. or even before that. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/13/archaelogists-find-rome-century-older-than-thought

Rome was probably originally just a good place for traders and travelers to cross the river. As commerce grew, a village sprang up on a couple of the hills, and that village slowly grew into a town, which then grew into a small city.

Sources: Livy's "The Early History of Rome."

Anthony Everitt: "The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire."

Well, you could try Livy's first few books. Livy is pretty readable.

The translations are well written. I read a couple of his books on the early history of Rome for one of my college courses. This is one of the ones we read. He died shortly after the reign of Augustus (the first), and into the beginning of Tiberius.

You can't go wrong with Livy:

http://www.amazon.com/Livy-Early-History-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140448098

I'm guessing it is only the first 5 books (in reality papyrus rolls) of his surviving work (35 extant out of originally 142), corresponding to this Penguin volume.

So you need the other 3 volumes to have a complete set of his surviving writings.

Do you want to stick with Roman stuff? Because Thucydides (history of the Peloponnesian War) is amazing. It is dealing with Greece centuries before the Romans got going, but really fascinating. This is a great way to read it as well, with lots of maps and diagrams and such.

If you want to stick with Roman: Caesar Civil Wars is ok, but I think you find it less compelling than Gallic Wars. You might enjoy the early books of Livy, about the beginnings of Rome. The Roman historian Sallust also has two different monographs: one of the War with Catiline and one about the Jugurthine War in Africa. The latter one might be of interest to you. link