Books by Philip Matyszak - Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day

Welcome to Rome, city of the Caesars!

This carefully researched guide contains everything the modern tourist needs for a journey across time to Rome in 200AD. You need pack only your imagination and a toothbrush - this guide will do the rest, taking you through the best places to stay and shop, what to do and what to avoid.
Starting with how to arrange your sea journey to Italy, the guide describes the road to Rome, the famous seven hills of the city and what to see on each. You will learn what to take to a posh dinner party (A dining robe, your own napkin, and indoor shoes), and where to find the best markets, public baths and brothels.
Find out where to see the chariot races and where to sit while gladiators battle to the death in the colosseum. The largest and most populous city in the ancient world has a hundred spectacles and and more to offer. A series of walks takes you through all the sights of the eternal city, from the opulence of the imperial palace on the Palatine hill, through the bustle of the forum to the granduer of temples such as the Pantheon and the temple of Capitoline Jupiter.
This fresh and accessible guide to the ancient city of Rome will appeal to specialist and casual readers alike.

'Matyszak imparts so much information so imaginatively that it would be a great thing if his success inspires an entire Thames & Hudson series on similar lines'

The Observer Review

'Learning about real life in ancient Rome has never been so entertaining ... so beautifully illustrated and so quirkily written that it ought to be on a bestseller list'

The Glasgow Herald

'... brings the ancient city back to life'

The Mail on Sunday

'Performs the functions of all the best guides: it packs in a vast amount of easily retrieved information and gives a vivid picture of the destination ... an excellent introduction to Roman life'

The Times Literary Supplement

'Ancient sociology was never more palatable'

The Spectator

A travel guide to somewhere 2000 years away. Would anyone want to read it?

At the time this was being prepared, we suspected that a somewhat quirky book of this type would either be thoroughly successful or sink without trace. As can be seen by this book's imitators and successors, readers quickly took to the idea, and Rome for 5 denarii has turned out to be a definite success.

I got the idea for a travel guide to Rome when talking to another writer who had done a book on the trans-Siberian Railway. He explained that though not many people want to actually do this journey, they like to travel there in their imaginations. Shortly thereafter I was playing bridge at the house of friends, and while I was dummy I picked up a copy of a wonderful travel spoof called Molvania, a land untouched by modern dentistry.

It occurred to me that if people liked reading travel books about lands they would not go to, then I could write a travel book about a land they could not go to, as inaccessibility would not matter. And so Rome on 5 denarii was born. The working title was 'The time traveller's guide to ancient Rome' but it was changed to its punchier present name by T&H's New York desk. I've long ago learned that my strength is in writing things. Marketing and layout are best left to professionals, and here certainly the professionals knew best.

This book, as a travel book, allowed me greater freedom to express my own feelings about Rome, and like any travel book, it is to some degree a subjective experience. The rule of thumb I used in writing it was 'if time travel were possible, could someone using this material successfully bluff that they had been to the Rome of 200 AD?'.

It's been pleasing to hear from people who certainly thought so, and from people who have taken it to the Rome of 2007/8 AD and also found it useful there.