Peter Jones was Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne until his retirement. He has written many books for the student of Latin and Greek, most recently Reading Ovid (Cambridge, 2007), Reading Virgil (Cambridge, 2011) and (with Keith Sidwell) the Reading Latin textbook series. Keith Sidwell is Emeritus Professor of Latin and Greek, University College Cork and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary. He has written on Greek drama, later Greek literature and Neo-Latin writing; his books include Lucian: Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches (2004) and Aristophanes the Democrat (Cambridge, 2009). As well as co-authoring the Reading Latin series with Peter Jones, he is the author of Reading Medieval Latin (Cambridge, 1995).

Introduction; Part I. Plautus and the Roman Comic Tradition: Section 1. Plautus' Aulularia; Section 2. Plautus' Amphitruo; Part II. Early Roman History: From Aeneas to Hannibal: Section 3A. Aeneas and the Trojan War; Section 3B. Romulus and Remus; Section 3C. The rape of Lucretia; Section D. Hannibal; Part III. The Demise of the Roman Republic: Section 4. Provincial corruption: the Verres scandal; Section 5. The conspiracy of Catiline in Rome, 64-62; Section 6. Poetry and politics: Caesar to Augustus; Additional reading; Total Latin-English learning vocabulary.