50 Best Songs About the Roman Empire
Best Songs That Tap Into Roman Empire Themes
There’s something weirdly familiar in the way the Roman Empire keeps creeping into the present. Not in a textbook way. It shows up in movie trailers, old quotes recycled on T-shirts, TikToks that start with “I think about the Roman Empire daily, and then, somehow, in a song that sounds like it belongs in both a stadium and a ruin. There’s this odd mix of ego and collapse baked into the imagery. It’s swords and sandals one second, velvet robes and slow corruption the next. You hear a certain drumbeat or chant layered under synths and it’s like the past cracked open for three minutes.
These tracks lean into that space. Not the sanitized history class version, but the mess—the firelit drama, the paranoia, the speeches that feel way too big for the room. Some of these songs feel like a throne room with smoke in the rafters. Others sound like an army moving at night, armor clanking, nerves tight. You get pop, rock, country, and R&B songs that don’t try to clean it up. They’re interested in empire when it’s sweating, fraying at the edges, trying to hold the illusion together for one more round.
And yeah, some lean hard into the drama on purpose. That’s kind of the point. Gladiator energy never really went away. Sometimes you want a track that feels like it’s holding a goblet in one hand and a blade in the other. These songs dig into that energy and keep the scene flickering in the background, even when you’re just driving home from work. Here are the best songs that echo the Roman Empire mood without ever saying it out loud.
Top 10 Roman Empire Songs
1. 'Pompeii'—Bastille
2. 'All Roads Lead to Rome'—The Stranglers
3. 'Early Roman Kings'—Bob Dylan
4. 'The Rise & Fall of the Roman Empire'—Cal Smith
5. 'Rome (Wasn't Built in a Day)'—Sam Cooke
6. 'Roman Holiday'—Olivia Chaney
7. 'When in Rome'—Oli Julian
8. 'Roman Empire'—MISSIO
9. 'Cities in Dust'—Siouxsie and the Banshees
10. 'Crossing the Rubicon'—Bob Dylan
Roman Historical Music #11—20
11. 'Cleopatra's Cat'—Spin Doctors
12. 'Nero'—Matt Pless
13. 'The Decline and Fall of Ancient Rome'—Goldblade
14. 'SPQR'—This Heat
15. 'I Claudius Theme'—Wilfred Josephs
16. 'Roman Gods'—The Fleshtones
17. 'Legions Are Marching'—Farya Faraji
18. 'Rome'—Phoenix
19. 'The Battle'—Hans Zimmer
20. 'Now We Are Free'—Lisa Gerrard and Hans Zimmer
Songs About Ancient Roman Culture #21—30
21. 'Roman Guitar'—Lou Monte
22. 'Heart of Rome'—Elvis Presley
23. 'Autumn in Rome'—Peggy Lee
24. 'Three Coins in the Fountain'—Frank Sinatra
25. 'On an Evening in Roma'—Dean Martin
26. 'Arrivederci Roma'—Nat King Cole
27. 'La Dolce Vita'—Nino Rota
28. 'Entry of the Gladiators'—Julius Fuík
29. 'Love Theme from Spartacus'—Terry Callier
30. 'In the Colosseum'—Tom Waits
Music About Roman Leaders and Conquests #31—40
31. 'Hannibal'—Miles Davis
32. 'Spartacus'—Triumvirat
33. 'Julius Caesar in Egypt'—George Frideric Handel
34. 'The Coronation of Poppaea'—Claudio Monteverdi
35. 'Caligula'—Detlev Glanert
36. 'La clemenza di Tito'—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
37. 'Octavian to Augustus'—Land Observations
38. 'The Roman Empire'—Bulat Okudzhava
39. 'Pines of Rome'—Ottorino Respighi
40. 'Roman Soldiers of Babylon'—Inner Circle
Songs Inspired by Rome and Roman Themes #41—50
41. 'Rome'—Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi
42. 'Rome'—Lloyd Jones
43. 'Fall of Rome'—James Reyne
44. 'Roman Empire'—ElArabeOnTheTrack and APG Family
45. 'Leaving Rome'—Jo Jo Bennett
46. 'Rome'—Sugar Minott
47. 'In Ancient Rome'—Perry Keyes
48. 'We Na Forget (Rome)'—Groundation
49. 'Until Olympius Returns'—The Mountain Goats
50. 'Pines of the Appian Way'—Ottorino Respighi
© 2025 Carson McQueen
