Steven Saylor is best known for his Roma Sub Rosa series of detective novels about Gordianus the Finder, set in ancient Rome.

Roma is a Mich­eneresque saga, spanning 1000BC to 1BC, in a dozen vignettes following the holders of an ancient amulet. Starting with a crossroads frequented by traders, it shows the evolution of Rome from a village to the great power of the Mediter­ranean, led by Augustus Caesar, the first of the emperors. It’s an easy in­tro­duc­tion to much of Roman history, but the episodic nature of the story means that we see only fragments of that history. Each of the characters introduced nec­es­sar­i­ly gets cursory treatment, leading to a disjointed set of short stories.