The ancient Romans knew little about hygiene let alone disease, and had no defenses against nature: Half of all Roman children were dead by the age of five and only eight percent of the citizens made it over 60, while half the population consisted of teenagers. In this revealing and entertaining guide to how the Romans confronted mortality, Peter Jones shows us that all the problems associated with old age and death that so transfix us today were already dealt with by our ancestors two millennia ago. Citing intimate passages by Cicero, Virgil, Quintilian, and Pliny the Younger, Jones uses letters, odes, and epitaphs to create this thoughtful look at how the Romans both faced the facts and attempted to take the sting out of death.