The plays in this volume are all set in the ancient world: four are Roman, the other Greek. For Renaissance England, Rome represented the best and worst of civilisation, and was both exemplar and warning. From the bloody sensationalism of Titus Andronicus to the cynicism of war-weary Antony and Cleopatra to the bitter alienation of Coriolanus and the intrigue of Julius Caesar, Shakespeare uses these distant settings to explore issues of personal and political power.

         These plays combine the perennial fascination of politics with the tragic spectacle of individual destruction, bringing together the broad scope of Shakespeare’s histories and the profpund human insights of his tragedies.