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Resources

All these resources are ordered from most useful to least useful within their categories.

Books
Unsurprisingly, books are the way to go. The following books are all accurate in their depiction of history, even the fiction ones (for the most part). A few of the below are indispensable for running a game in Rome, no role-playing book can be enough.

Fiction

• I, Claudius, Robert Graves -- Perhaps the classic book of the lives and tribulations of emperors. An amazing look how an emperor's personal life might have been.
• Claudius the God, Robert Graves -- The continuation of I, Claudius, this gets into some detail of why emperors were really deified.
• Under the Eagle, Simon Scarrow -- Life in a Roman legion, including battles with a nice (chaotic) feel to them. The character's speech feels a bit too modern however.
• Household Gods, Judith Tar and Harry Turtledove -- A street level look at life in a provincial Roman town. The main character is a bit grating towards the beginning.

Nonfiction

• Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome, Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins -- The indispensable encyclopedia of Ancient Rome. Its hard to read this book cover to cover, but it is the best reference source you can buy as far as I'm concerned.
• The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome, Chris Scarre -- A great collection of maps, not just maps of provinces, but maps of select cities, maps with trade routes, maps of just about everything. A great book to have on hand in session.
• Daily Life in Ancient Rome, Jerome Carcopino and Henry T. Rowell -- A very readable introduction to life in Rome. This is probably one of the first books you should read.
• City, David Macaulay -- Amazing line drawings of a typical Roman city. Gives a real impression of what Rome looked like, more than any photographs of ruins ever can.
• The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius -- As primary sources go, this one is pretty readable. A fairly short yet comprehensive guide to the first 12 emperors. The best part is the anticdotes that are often skipped in modern histories.
• Byzantium: the Early Centuries, John Julius Norwich -- An excellent history of the Roman empire, both halves, under Constantine and later emperors. If you want to run a game set after 300 CE you should read this book. Especially interesting are the discussions of how military opponents and religious heresies shaped imperial policy.
• The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar -- The fundamental primary source for the period. A good way to get a feeling for how a Roman viewed the barbarians, not a great work of history.
• Teach Yourself Latin Dictionary, Alastair Wilson -- Obviously you don't need to learn Latin to roleplay in Rome. But it can be very nice to give a character a cognomen that means something significant, or to pull out a Latin phrase for flavor. This book includes a consise but clear and complete grammar aid, which makes it the best dictionary I've seen.
• Cults of the Roman Empire, Robert Turcan -- A specialist text, and not a very accesable one. But if you want to focus on any of the cults that became important in the early empire this is the book for you.
• Becoming Roman: the Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul, Greg Woolf -- On the scholarly side, this book talks about how ordinary people adjusted to Roman rule. If you are going to run a provincial game before 100 CE you should probably read this book.
• Latin for All Occasions, Henry Beard -- Fun with Latin.
• Latin for Even More Occasions, Henry Beard -- More fun with Latin.
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon -- The classic secondary source for the period. Unfortunately its a bit dated and not very readable. But you should own a copy to impress your friends.

Movies
Movies are good for mood and bad for details.  So don't replace book research with movie watching.  The one error I've noticed in all these films is that the sets are almost exclusively white marble while the people wear colorful clothes. In fact the opposite was true, people only wore white (for the most part) while the buildings were garishly painted.

• Spartacus, Stanley Kubrick -- The classic movie about the gladiatorial games. And slave revolts for that matter, but I think its the only movie about slave revolts.
• Ben Hur, William Wyler -- Charleton Heston meets Jesus. The classic movie about the Circus Maximus.
• Gladiator, Ridly Scott -- If you look past the emperor's sister dressed as a common tavern whore, the constant swinging with thrusting swords, the a-historically arid North Africa, and the siege weapons in a formal battle, you are left with... well... Russel Crowe. And that's enough for me.
• Gladiator Eroticus, John Bacchus -- No, I haven't see this, but I really want to. This movie's historical credibility comes from its depiction of female gladiator's apparel. Or lack there of. Seriously, female gladiators really did bare at least one breast.

N.B.  Clicking on these links and purchasing something gives us nothing except a warm fuzzy feeling. Amazon will probably financially benefit though...

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