Of special interest to the teacher of history are juvenile stories of Roman history, written for boys in fiction form, since many of these truly portray a part of the life of ancient Rome. It must be observed, however, that books for boys are subject to some limitations not placed upon novels written for their elders. Such well-known authors of books for boys as the Rev. Alfred J. Church and G. A. Henty have recognized that they must present a hero who will appeal especially to boys, and that this hero must have adventures illustrating schoolbook history. In Church’s book _Two Thousand Years Ago_, Spartacus is represented as a truly noble figure, while in _The Young Carthaginian_, Henty makes Hannibal the real hero. But the technical hero in each of these books is an idealized youth, who rushes from one exciting adventure to another. Moreover, both Church and Henty tried to make the study of history instructive, by introducing into their fictions for boys favorite incidents of the history books. The result was that their novels for boys became too heavy with history. The general criticism may also be made of such books for boys, that they make too much use of the life of the soldier and the gladiator, to the exclusion of other elements in Roman life. There is, however, a fairly accurate portrayal of Roman life, from a teacher’s point of view, in some books for boys; such books are not to be confused with religious stories of the Sunday-school type, and have a definite connection with our subject. After excluding novels which use Roman life merely to make other work attractive, or as an artificial background for religious instruction, we find that there still remain a considerable number which attempt to portray Roman life, but are unsuccessful. The novelist may fall short of his aim through lack of scholarship, through want of appreciation of the essential worth of his subject, or through sheer inability to appeal to his readers directly. There may be found on the shelves of public libraries, many novels, in which the characters have Roman names and are supposed to live in ancient Rome; but many of these novels do not really portray the life of Rome at all. Some of them feebly essay to imitate books of established reputation, and prove to be very poor imitations. The present study will be chiefly concerned with those novels which make a serious portrayal of the life of ancient Rome for its own intrinsic interest.