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The Rise Of Rome: The Making Of The World's Greatest Empire (2012)

by Anthony Everitt(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1400066638 (ISBN13: 9781400066636)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Random House (NY)

review 1: Chronicles the rise of Rome as a superpower , from ab urbe condita to the Dictatorship of Lucius Cornielius Sulla Felix in detail to the assassination of Julius Caesar in passing. This was ok - a bit whistle - stop tour for me - but as an introduction to the subject it is excellent - the Punic Wars make a great set piece and - as I knew from his excellent biographies of Cicero and Augustus previously , this author has a great eye for a telling anecdote - cannot wait to start his life of Hadrian - a personal hero of mine - Highly recommended
review 2: Everitt, a professor of visual and performing arts, has a hobby: classic studies. The author of several biographies of famous Romans, he has produced a readable history of the Republic from its legendary founda... moretions until its collapse. Rather than presenting a long, dry recapitulation of archaeological evidences as regards the formation of the Roman state, Everitt treats of the legends as represented by late Republican and early Imperial authors such a Cicero, Livy and Varro. In other words, he combines the legends they relate as a coherent narrative, contrasting it occasionally with what we can reconstruct from physical evidences and common sense. This serves as a means to get at what they thought of themselves, their city and their civilization. This, he believes, tells us something of their character as a people, their virtues and their flaws. The real historical record begins around the time of the invasion of Pyrrhus in the early third century B.C.E. Here the narrative continues as a description of growth and the fitful attempts by such as the Gracchi to adapt the traditional institutions of the city to its ever-expanding domain, wealth and population. Without saying as much, parallels with more modern empires, their rises and their falls, are evident. What most struck me were the (unspoken) similarities between Rome and Nazi Germany as regards the treatment of subject populations, Here the genocides, enslavements, lootings, forced deportations and scorched earth practices of the Romans--behaviors I've long known about but never quite appreciated the enormity of--prefigure the worst, but all too common, practices of subsequent powers. It's not a pretty picture. less

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