The survival of Greek culture in the region among the descendants of Hellenic colonists was an added attraction for the educated Roman classes, for whom a knowledge of the language and literature had become an essential attainment.
In one particularly revealing moment, the mother of a middle-class Roman family cries, "For all I care, the English can win, or the Germans..
The author's first novel, originally published in Italy in 1929, tells of a middle-class Roman family in which the two adult children are morally adrift in their elders' vapid, materialistic world.
The Roman governing class had consequently come to be hated and discredited at home and abroad.
Coins minted during his rule confirm his allegiance to the traditional ideals of the Roman ruling class.
Neither model allowed for the revolutionary nature of the Italian alliance system, which was guided by the granite resolve of the Roman governing class.
Misled by signs of corruption in the Roman governing class, he failed to realize that there were limits beyond which Rome's satellite rulers could not go without provoking decisive intervention.
As a member of the Roman knightly class (whose rank lay between the commons and the Senate), Ovid was marked by his position, and intended by his father, for an official career.
In a war of propaganda, Octavian gradually convinced the western provinces, Italy, and most of the Roman upper class that Antony was sacrificing Roman interests, trying to become a Hellenistic king in Alexandria, and planning to rule the Roman world from there with Cleopatra.
"Gods of the Arena" spins a six-episode back story from last year's initial installment, "Spartacus: Blood and Sand," which charted the rise of the Thracian gladiator who led a slave rebellion against the Roman ruling class from 73 to 71 B.C.
