Roman People Author:Olivia Coolidge "So compelling and vivid is this collection of extraordinary stories that you are there in the amphitheater witnessing revolting gladiatorial spectacles, you share with the poverty-stricken poet the tense moments before a murder in the baths, you cringe before the hatchet-faced gangsters managing the charioteers, you stream out of the city with ... more »the Roman populace to pay honor to its dead on the Feast of Roses, and you realize that the time was ripe for Jesus Christ, born into the Roman world of Augustus."« less