Adrian Goldsworthy > Quotes

“For what is the life of a man, if it is not interwoven with the life of former generations by as sense of history. [Cicero, quoted by Goldsworthy in his Augustus]”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: First Emperor of Rome

“It is common for those who flourish under any system to feel that the failure of others is deserved.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“Personal hatreds and rivalry loomed larger in most senator's minds than the good of the Republic. [A big problem then and now]”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: First Emperor of Rome

“A man who keeps asking you to trust him is always hiding something.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Vindolanda

“Democracy, indeed, has a fair-appearing name . . . Monarchy . . . has an unpleasant sound, but is a most practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man than many of them . . . for it does not belong to the majority of men to acquire virtue . . . Indeed, if ever there has been a prosperous democracy, it has in any case been at its best for only a brief period.’ Dio, early third century AD.1 Augustus”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: From Revolutionary to Emperor

“Roman laws tended to be long and complex - one of Rome's most enduring legacies to the world is cumbersome and tortuous legal prose.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“Napoleon was later to comment that it was better to have one bad commander than two good ones with shared authority.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“It is widely believed that Christianity remained an essentially urban cult and that the population of the countryside clung for generations to the old beliefs. The word `pagan' comes from paganus, or someone who lived in the countryside (pagus). Unfortunately, we know so little about the religious life in rural areas that this remains conjectural. Paganus was usually derogatory - something like `yokel' or `hick' would give the right idea - and may just reflect the common belief of urban dwellers that countrymen were dull and backward.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, How Rome Fell

“As Cicero would later declare, `For what is the life of a man, if it is not interwoven with the life of former generations by a sense of history?"3”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“Roman women kept their name throughout their lives, and did not change it on marriage.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: From Revolutionary to Emperor

“Caesar declared that an orator should `avoid an unusual word as the helmsman of a ship avoided a reef'.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“Caesar was a serial seducer of married women.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“Literature was an utterly respectable and highly fashionable leisure interest for the Roman elite – the mark of the truly civilised man. Julius Caesar’s staff in Gaul were an especially literary bunch, and Augustus shared Maecenas’ reverence for poets and writers.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: From Revolutionary to Emperor

“Although he paid attention to the effectiveness of the Roman military system, Polybius believed that Rome's success rested far more on its political system. For him the Republic's constitution, which was carefully balanced to prevent any one individual or section of society from gaining overwhelming control, granted Rome freedom from the frequent revolution and civil strife that had plagued most Greek city-states. Internally stable, the Roman Republic was able to devote itself to waging war on a scale and with a relentlessness unmatched by any rival. It is doubtful that any other contemporary state could have survived the catastrophic losses and devastation inflicted by Hannibal, and still gone on to win the war.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“Julia. At the most basic level a Roman husband had only to utter the phrase ‘take your things for yourself’ (tuas res tibi habeto) to separate from his wife.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: From Revolutionary to Emperor

“Quite openly, voters selected on the basis of perceived character and past behaviour rather than the views a candidate expressed. Where an individual’s nature was not obvious, the Roman people tended to be drawn to a famous name, for there was a sense that virtue and ability were inherited.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: From Revolutionary to Emperor

“The Ptolemies were Macedonians, with an admixture of a little Greek and via marriage with the Seleucids a small element of Syrian blood…Cleopatra may have had black, brown, blonde, or even red hair, and her eyes could have been brown, grey, green or blue. Almost any combination of these is possible. Similarly, she may have been very light skinned or had a darker more Mediterranean complexion. Fairer skin is probably marginally more likely given her ancestry.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Antony and Cleopatra

“Waste of good anger,’ Ferox said without looking at him. It was something his grandfather had often said. Do not waste rage. Nurture it, cherish it and use the strength it gives. Hot anger gets a man killed. Cold anger will put the other man in the earth.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Vindolanda

“Un gobernador de Sicilia especialmente notorio afirmó que un hombre necesitaba ejercer el cargo durante tres años: el primero para pagar sus deudas, el segundo para hacerse rico y el tercero para reunir los recursos necesarios para sobornar al juez y al jurado en el inevitable juicio por corrupción que seguiría tras su regreso a Roma. La”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augusto

“(Sulla gave the slave his freedom and then had the man thrown to his death”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“The tribune was betrayed by one of his own slaves and killed.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“Chosen fathers of the Senate, all men who decide on difficult issues ought to free themselves from the influence of hatred, friendship, anger and pity. For when these intervene the mind cannot readily judge the truth, and no one has ever served his emotions and his best interests simultaneously. When you set your mind to a task, it prevails; if passion holds sway, it consumes you, and the mind can do nothing.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“Livia was seen as a loyal and a compliant wife – the latter allegedly to a remarkable degree, so that she personally picked out girls for her husband to”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: From Revolutionary to Emperor

“Julius Caesar was particularly ambitious even by the standards of the Roman aristocracy. When passing through a tiny village he is supposed to have remarked that he would rather be first man in that community than second anywhere else, including Rome.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World

“I would call it inhuman cruelty if that made sense, but it cannot because it was done by men and not monsters.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, The Encircling Sea

“Tradition maintained that Rome had been founded in 753 BC. For the Romans this was Year One and subsequent events were formally dated as so many years from the `foundation of the city' (ab urbe condita).”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus

“she proved herself fiercely intelligent – the Emperor Caligula dubbed her Ulysses in a frock (Ulixem stolatum)”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Antony and Cleopatra

“People wanted to be Roman, and the Germanic tribes who carved up the Western Empire in the fifth century AD were desperate to share in the comforts and prosperity of Rome.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World

“It would have been better if the horsemen had kept their distance, using their javelins, but it was too much to expect prudence and good sense when three officers were together.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, The Encircling Sea

“Untrustworthy people tend to be selfish, which makes them simple to understand.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, The Encircling Sea