Ruthless Romans (Horrible Histories) Paperback – November 3, 2016

After finishing the Rotten Romans, I was still in the mood to read about those gruesome Romans, so I picked up the Ruthless Romans, also written by Terry Deary. This book comprises of an introduction, a timeline of early Rome, one of the republic and a third one of the Roman Empire, interesting facts about their superstitions and traditions, the gladiators, the Roman army, their enemies, evil emperors, animal cruelty, horrible punishments and so on and so forth.“The posh people in Rome were the ‘patricians’; the workers were the ‘plebeians’ (or plebs for short). The patricians may have ruled the country, but they needed to keep the plebs happy. So the patricians gave the plebs the bloody arena games, they gave them food and they gave them gifts.” Ruthless Romans, Loc. 307Despite the similarities between both Rotten Romans and Ruthless Romans, here, the author focusses more on Rome, its history, its people, insane punishments and bloody entertainment. Though I recommend this book as a whole, the chapters that stood out to me were those about the gladiators, animals cruelty and the account about the Christian who were oppressed and killed by the Romans in the arena. Those stories about the Christian martyrs left a bitter taste in my mouth and made me think how cruel humans are to those who don’t share their beliefs.“(...) the Christians suffered another 250 years of torture and death as emperor after emperor sent them to the arena to be torn apart by animals. There were many Christians who died bravely and their stories make grim and gripping reading…” Ruthless Romans, Loc. 1060If you like history and want to grab a quick read, Ruthless Romans or any other volume from the Horrible Histories series may be a good pick for you because it contains curiosities, fun quizzes, jokes, puns, stories and games which make an engaging read for kids and adult alike.

My 11 year old liked it very much. It’s a fun way to learn history.

For any kids struggling to get excited about reading and history. These books are truly magic

I've purchased a number of Horrible History and Horrible Science books for my son, and he enjoys them very much. They are light reading and fairly simplistic, and may not be 100% accurate (I haven't read them all cover to cover), but they are also entertaining, humorous and engaging. He's gleaned an assortment of interesting facts from the series and this has led him to read more about history and science topics that he wouldn't normally cover at his age (if at all). I think they could be very useful for reluctant learners.

I like the whole book has so much information what I don’t like about it is... I don’t know if I don’t like anything

I've liked these books for their humor since I was a kid. You really don't lose anything with the Kindle version, although it is taken from the British edition so there's some slang that's tough.Also: much, much better than the Rotten Romans, which focuses on the Celts that had to deal with Roman expansion. I guess that's not bad if that's what you're interested in, but I was hoping for more Rome-centric stuff. As always, history with the nasty bits left in, but nothing more graphic than you'd expect to find in any of the other books in the series.

This book was excellent. It was funny and interesting, with a few witty jokes. I finished reading it a few hours after I got it. It really grabs your attention and doesn't let go.

There are so many sides to the Roman Empire I didn't have a clue about. I purchased this book for my son and ended up reading it myself due to my son's fabulous review. This book has made him into a little historian!