Dr. Emma Southon holds a PhD in ancient history from the University of Birmingham. The author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; Marriage, Sex and Death: The Family and the Fall of Rome; and Agrippina, she works as a bookseller at Waterstones Belfast.

The history of Rome has long been narrow and one-sided, essentially a history of The Doing of Important Things, and as far as Roman historians have been concerned, women don't make that history. From Romulus through "the political stab-fest of the late Republic, and then on to all the emperors, Roman historians may deign to give you a wife or a mother to show how bad things become when women get out of control, but history is more than that. Emma Southon's A Rome of One's Own is the best kind of correction. This is a retelling of the history of Rome with all the things Roman history writers relegate to the background, or designate as domestic, feminine, or worthless. This is a history of women who caused outrage, led armies in rebellion, wrote poetry; who lived independently or under the thumb of emperors. Told with humor and verve as well as a deep scholarly background, A Rome of One's Own highlights women overlooked and misunderstood, and through them offers a fascinating and groundbreaking chronicle of the ancient world.---Amazon.