Barry Strauss stands as one of today’s foremost classicists, his exhaustively researched and accessibly written books opening window after window into the history and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.

The Cornell University historian visits the Library a fourth time to discuss his latest volume, Ten Caesars, which tracks the reigns and impact of 10 of the most important emperors over a 3½-century span of the Roman Empire—from Augustus to Nero to Marcus Aurelius to Constantine. The Empire grew in that time in size and splendor, and lost both.

Strauss, a professor of history and classics at Cornell and a leading authority on ancient military history, last spoke at the Library in March 2015 on his book The Death of Caesar: The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination.