Rome: an Oxford archaeological guide

No wonder, then, that the text is densus et brevis in places, simply in order to cover everything; but elsewhere Claridge's style is enlivened with phrases such as 'all hell broke loose' after the death of Alexander Severus; or the Altar of Augustan Peace, assembled by the Fascist regime and restyled, 'to put it mildly', in 2006; and 'there's always hope' for the eventual re-opening of Nero's Golden House to the public. [...]there is a guide to the principal contents of Rome's seventeen museums of classical antiquities. The history of these, the Capitoline Museums, which constitute the oldest public collections in the modern world, the Vatican Museum, the Museo della Civiltà Romana (with its Maryport altar, RIB 831, presented in 1935) and the Museum of the Early Middle Ages, is summarized by Claridge with Judith Toms (who also wrote the guide to the catacombs), as is the collecting and public display of antiquities by ancient Rome herself.