Rome - The Life and Death of the Republic : Basic Roleplaying

Firstly this is not a rulebook!
If you want rules then you will have to invest in Chaosium's Basic Roleplying system.
But what you do get is a very extensive sourcebook which in effect is a great history lesson of Rome from the Monarchy to the last days of the Republic. Great to use with any game system or just to educate yourself! (There's enough here for school projects I'm sure!)
There is a massive amount of detail on Roman society and culture to give you a feel for the setting and later chapters detail the army, gladitorial combat and games, religion and philosophy.
There are a few rules on creating characters - which mainly boil down to profession ideas and prices. Easy to understand if you have ever played Call of Cthulhu as the stats and basic rules are the same.
There is also a little magic and some mythical creatures thrown in if you want to run that kind of game.

I'm a bit disappointed that there is no introductory adventure but the authors explain that they didn't do this due the wide scope of possibilities of class and 700 years of history. They do however provide 10 pages of campaign and adventure ideas.

The book is nicely illustrated with old prints and some line drawings of mythic creatures that aren't too bad.
Each page has a Latin quote on it from contempory Roman and Greek authors which add to the flavour.

The sum up - I am pleased with this purchase and now I am inspired to go off to watch HBO's Rome again and then start working on a new campaign!