- The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 9: The Last Age of the Roman Republic 143-43 BC, 2nd Edition Edited by J. A. Crook, Andrew Lintott and Elizabeth Rawson (1994; 9780521256032) despite the huge price tag ($200+!) this is still the best overview of the period. It has both a chronological narrative of the events, as well as thematic chapters covering a massive range of topics. All the contributors are (or were) leading scholars in the field and it has extensive bibliographies for further reading. Check your local library for this one.
- Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: A Companion to the Roman Republic Edited by Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein-Marx(2007;978-1-4443-3414-5) Compared with the CAH, this is a much more affordable ($50 in paperback) and more recent overview of the Republic in a similar academic vein, with many excellent chapters on thematic topics as well as the usual high-level overviews. Many chapters are quite accessible for an academic work. Frankly, I wish this book had been available when I was an undergraduate.
- The Last Generation of the Roman Republic by Erich S. Gruen (1974 [with a few reprints]; ISBN 9780520022386) Intermediate Political – It can be very difficult to keep track of who’s who in the Late Republican Politics, and Gruen is my go-to tome for getting all the Messalli and Metelli and Severii straight (it really doesn’t help that Roman elites across generations and relatives have identical names). Gruen outlines the rather narrow, but decisively formative, time period: the last decades of the Roman Republic from the aftermath of the Civil War between Sulla and Marius to the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey. He thoroughly introduces all the key players and their backgrounds, and does an expert job in untangling from Cicero’s letters and other sources how the confusing political culture worked, from alliances to marriages, from military campaigns to corruption, from personal greed to the search for the Greater Good. The prose fluctuates between entertaining and a bit dry, and it can be cumbersome to keep track of all the different legislations and trials etc., but this is a very solid book for anyone wanting to understand the political and historical developments that led to the dissolution of the Republic.
Historical overviews (200 – 27 BC)
by
Tags:
Leave a Reply