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The Romans: From Village to Empire: A History of Rome from Earliest Times to the End of the Western Empire
"The Romans is currently the best textbook on Roman history available in English."--Walter Scheidel, Stanford University How did a single village community in the Italian peninsula eventually become one of the most powerful imperial powers the world has ever known? In The Romans: From Village to Empire, Second Edition, Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, Richard J.A. Talbert, and new coauthor Noel Lenski explore this question as they guide students through a comprehensive sweep of Roman history, ranging from the prehistoric settlements to the fall of the empire in 476. Addressing issues that still confront modern states worldwide--including warfare, empire building, consensus forging, and political fragmentation--the authors also provide glimpses into everyday Roman life and perspective, demonstrating how Rome's growth as a state is inseparable from its social and cultural development.
Vividly written and accessible, The Romans, Second Edition, traces Rome's remarkable evolution from village, to monarchy, to republic, to one-man rule by an emperor--whose power at its peak stretched from Scotland to Iraq and the Nile Valley--to the empire's fall in 476. Firmly grounded in ancient literary and material sources, the text describes and analyzes major political and military landmarks, from the Punic Wars, to Caesar's conquest of Gaul and his crossing of the Rubicon, to the victory of Octavian over Mark Antony, and through Constantine's adoption of Christianity. Featuring two new chapters (13 and 14), the second edition extends the book's coverage through the rise of Christianity, the growth of the Barbarian threat, the final years of the empire, its fall in 476, and, finally, to its revival in the East as Byzantium. This edition also combines chapters 1 and 2 into one--"Archaic Italy and the Origins of Rome"--and integrates more material on women, religion, and cultural history throughout.
Ideal for courses in Roman history and Roman civilization, The Romans, Second Edition, is enhanced by two new 8-page, 4-color inserts and almost 100 extensively captioned illustrations. It also includes more than 30 ancient maps, revised and improved under the supervision of coauthor Richard J. A. Talbert, and textual extracts that provide fascinating cultural observations made by ancient Romans themselves. A new Image Bank CD contains PowerPoint-based slides of all the photos and maps in the text.
Vividly written and accessible, The Romans, Second Edition, traces Rome's remarkable evolution from village, to monarchy, to republic, to one-man rule by an emperor--whose power at its peak stretched from Scotland to Iraq and the Nile Valley--to the empire's fall in 476. Firmly grounded in ancient literary and material sources, the text describes and analyzes major political and military landmarks, from the Punic Wars, to Caesar's conquest of Gaul and his crossing of the Rubicon, to the victory of Octavian over Mark Antony, and through Constantine's adoption of Christianity. Featuring two new chapters (13 and 14), the second edition extends the book's coverage through the rise of Christianity, the growth of the Barbarian threat, the final years of the empire, its fall in 476, and, finally, to its revival in the East as Byzantium. This edition also combines chapters 1 and 2 into one--"Archaic Italy and the Origins of Rome"--and integrates more material on women, religion, and cultural history throughout.
Ideal for courses in Roman history and Roman civilization, The Romans, Second Edition, is enhanced by two new 8-page, 4-color inserts and almost 100 extensively captioned illustrations. It also includes more than 30 ancient maps, revised and improved under the supervision of coauthor Richard J. A. Talbert, and textual extracts that provide fascinating cultural observations made by ancient Romans themselves. A new Image Bank CD contains PowerPoint-based slides of all the photos and maps in the text.
585 pages, Paperback
First published February 26, 2003
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January 5, 2022
This is an introductory-college-course-level textbook on Roman history. Given my lifelong obsession with Rome, it's kind of crazy that I haven't read a book like this before. It was definitely useful to read an authoritative narrative on Rome "from the earliest times to the end of the Western Empire." It has given me a scaffold on which to hang all of the disparate works I've read so far. Unfortunately the narrative was bone-dry. Turning all of Roman history into a narrative that does all of the incredible things that happened justice would of course take an entire library, so I can't blame this book for cutting out virtually all of the stories and details that make Roman history worth loving. That said, while I was reading through the bits of Roman history that I'm familiar with, I couldn't help but hate the book (hence the 3 star rating).
And yet even this bare-bones overview was able to convey just how incredible of a journey Rome took from Bronze Age hamlet to imperial capital to center of Western Christianity. The book was also definitely a healthy thing for me to read. It gave me a timely reminder that virtually none of the history written about the time before the First Punic War can be trusted. It also corrected a misconception I had about the avarice of the Roman state. I had always assumed that Rome was a 100% predatory state bent on extracting everything it could from its neighbors, but that's really not true. The book says of Republic Rome: "In region after region, the governing elite seems to have had no clear plan for expanding Rome's power or for establishing its authority. Instead, they just seem to have made arrangements piecemeal as they responded to the unfolding of events. Moreover, despite the Roman state's need for funds, there appears to have been no desire at first to promote the systematic exploitation of conquered communities' economic resources." When Rome defeated Carthage in the Second Punic War, they didn't even demand that Hannibal be handed over for execution. When Rome defeated Jugurtha in Numidia, "Rome exacted no direct permanent gain from this costly, prolonged series of embarrassments; there was no wish to annex Numidia." Of course there were plenty of instances of mass exploitation, especially as Rome transitioned from Republic to Empire: Caesar in Gaul, the publicani (tax harvesters) of Asia, the conquests of Arabia, Dacia, Egypt, Britain, etc. The Colosseum was built with proceeds from the sacking of Jerusalem and with Jewish slave labor, and the Forum of Trajan was built with proceeds from Dacia and probably with Dacian slave labor.
By far the most interesting thing to witness over the course of the book was the evolution of "Roman-ness." Being an uneducated pleb myself, my definition of Roman-ness has been shaped by popular culture, which fixates on the era of the end of the Republic and figures like Caesar, Brutus, Pompey, and Cicero. It's still a time where much of what made the Republic so great was still going strong - the drafted citizen armies, the powerful senatorial aristocracy, the sense of duty and honor, etc. The transition to Principate under August turned Roman-ness into something that already felt a little foreign to me. First of all, the drafted citizen army became a professional volunteer army. The sense of duty and honor deteriorated, as nations were conquered systematically to strengthen Rome's frontiers. The moral corruption of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero is pretty disgusting. The concentration of power in the figure of the emperor also transformed the senatorial politicking of the Republic into palace intrigue dominated by wives, freedmen, and the Praetorian Guard. However, things turned around after Vespasian took office. He normalized/legalized the office of emperor so that it was no longer an office that was riding off of Augustus's residual prestige alone, setting the stage later on for the "Five Good Emperors" who would rule from 97-190 AD and give Rome its imperial Golden Age. During this era, "evidence paints the picture of a kind and benevolent government, characterized by harmony, and by a principle of the adoption of the most meritorious emperor." As Aristides wrote, "What previously seemed impossible has come to pass in your time: maintenance of control over an empire - a vast one, too - and at the same time firmness of rule without severity." Before this period, I think it's safe to say that Europe and the Mediterranean had NEVER experienced such a peace. So the Roman government had a breather from incessant crisis and started, slowly, to develop the innovations required to govern well. For example, Hadrian began a process of codifying Roman law that would culminate centuries later in the Theodosian and Justinian codes.
My conception of Rome and Roman-ness, although centered on the late Republic, had extended all the way out to Marcus Aurelius. I hardly knew anything about what happened after him. It turns out that after Commodus's corrupt rule, Septimius Severus and the Severan dynasty were able to more or less maintain Rome-as-I-knew-it for a few more decades. There were a few exceptions. After Commodus was assassinated, the Praetorian Guard literally sold the position of emperor to the highest bidder (Marcus Didius Julianus), an omen of the power that military was to have later. Elagabalus, one of the Severan emperors, was extremely weird. He was from Syria and worshipped a sun god called Elah-Gabal (hence his name) and tried to force worship of the god on Rome. That... doesn't feel like the old Rome I know. Part of this is due to the fact that the empire was so successful in integrating its disparate parts that even as Rome radically changed its provinces, its provinces also changed Rome. Trajan and Hadrian were both from Spain. Septimius Severus was from Libya.
After the assassination of the last Severan emperor in 235 AD, Rome-as-I-knew-it pretty much disappears. The "crisis of the third century" saw Rome's stable frontiers explode, particularly on the Danube and in the East. Along the Danube, Goths invaded and in 250 AD killed the emperor Decius, "the first time Rome had ever lost an emperor in battle against a foreign foe." In 267 the Goths sacked Athens and Delphi, doing irreparable damage to the ancient treasures there. Meanwhile in the East, the weak Parthians were replaced by the powerful and aggressive Sasanians. The Sasanians sacked Antioch, the richest city in the Levant, in 253 and 260 AD. In 260, the Sasanian king captured the emperor Valerian and used him as a footstool for the rest of his life. I feel like these sorts of defeats could have happened earlier in Roman imperial history; the fact that they didn't was pure luck. In my opinion, the Roman imperial government was already fragile due to its succession issues, and the opening of these two brutal, emperor-killing fronts was too much for it to bear. If you have only one emperor and two fronts (the Danube, the East) or even three (the Rhine) or four (Britain), and your government is inherently unstable to begin with, the crisis of the third century makes total sense in my opinion. So in a weird way, even as the Cyprian plague devastated the population, 'barracks emperors' mostly hailing from Illyria were holding 1-month or 1-year long posts before being assassinated, the coinage was being debased from 100% to 2% silver, senators were locked out of important military and administrative posts, and classical pagan traditions were crumbling left and right, the empire of the third century was still the same empire of the Principate that we know and love. In other words, if the Early Principate had been subjected to these pressures, I'm pretty sure it would have responded in exactly the same way (total chaos and collapse).
The era from 284-324, that of Diocletian and Constantine, was truly transformative for the empire, in that it was molded into a form markedly different from what had existed before (which is why the empire is called the Dominate after this period instead of the Principate). Diocletian saved the empire by instituting the tetrarchy, and therefore normalizing the idea that there should be multiple emperors handling the affairs of the empire. He made legions much much smaller while also greatly expanding the size of the army. He introduced officers known as dukes (duces) and counts (comites). He broke provinces into much smaller pieces. He started to bind peasants to the land in a process that would lead to medieval serfdom. Constantine created a new capital, Constantinople, AND a new senate. During these decades, the bottom-heavy Roman bureaucracy filled out on top. Imperial staff were introduced that sound downright medieval: "The Chief of the Sacred Bedchamber", "The Count of the Sacred Largesses", "The Count of the Privy Purse", etc. The provinces were grouped into collections called "Dioceses". And most importantly, Constantine started state-sponsorship of Christianity, which would utterly change Roman culture. He's also the one who made Sunday a day of rest.
Diocletian's and Constantine's changes would give the empire relative stability until around 400 AD. However, during that time, the seeds that would lead to the Western Empire's fall were planted. In the mid 300s, the Huns invaded Eastern Europe, triggering a century-long massive migration of tribes into the Roman Empire. The emperor Valens' disastrous defeat at Adrianople in 378 by the Goths enabled the Goths to set up a semi-autonomous barbarian state within Rome's borders. These Goths under Alaric would eventually sack Rome in 410. Meanwhile, barbarian generals became more and more important in the imperial court, and we start to see names like Arbogast, Stilicho, and Ricimer being bandied about. Meanwhile, Christianity's expansion was unstoppable during this time period. As Christianity and the imperial government became more and more intertwined, talking about the quarrels within Christianity becomes unavoidable. So we start hearing about schisms and heresies and councils. We need to hear about Donatists in North Africa, Monophysites in Egypt and Syria, and the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, etc.
Although some (aka Edward Gibbons) like to blame Christianity for the fall of the Roman empire, it was truly an amazing and revolutionary cultural force. When Constantine officially adopted Christianity, the kingdoms of Armenia, Georgia, and Axum (Ethiopia) followed. It's interesting that we don't hear comparable stories regarding Mazdaism, the monotheistic religion of the Sasanians. Because Christianity was a religion "of the book" and was obsessed with the written word, this caused local languages to be written in significant quantities for the first time (with the exception of Hebrew, which had always had a strong written tradition). Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, and Coptic alphabets were created, and there was a flourishing of writing in those languages as well as in Syriac. Histories changed. The genre of ecclesiastic history was invented, and historians began to copy edicts verbatim instead of paraphrasing them. The emperors ordered the creation of massive law codes. New genres such as hagiography and apology were created. The "Holy Man" became an important figure. It became not uncommon for rich people to sell all of their possessions and live a life of ascetism, something unimaginable in pre-Christian times. For the first time, the elite became concerned with helping the poor, and the Christian church gave equality to men and women in the form of almost equally strict moral expectations.
Meanwhile, after 400 the Western Empire rapidly crumbled as it was ruled by a succession of child emperors with barbarian-general regents. Saxons invaded Britain, Franks invaded northeast Gaul, Burgundians invaded southeast Gaul, Vandals invaded North Africa and sacked Rome in 455, Visigoths invaded Spain, etc etc. They would create the synthesis of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, and Germanic culture that would eventually create Western Europe as we know it today. Even if the book's narrative was extremely dry, the story is pretty amazing. The fact that one small city could expand beyond its borders and become not just a vast empire but a powerful idea that would live on for another 1000 years after the fall of the city itself (in the form of the Eastern Roman Empire) is incredible.
Interesting stories:
- Mithridates, the infamous king of Pontus, had a concubine/wife who "manly qualities... were so outstanding that he was said to have called her by the masculine form of her name, Hypsicrates." There is a statue base with her name that confirms this.
- When Cicero was governor of Cilicia, Brutus (the "righteous" guy who would later be one of the organizers of the conspiracy against Caesar) "urged Cicero to help two businessmen friends of his recover a loan made to the city of Salamis in Cyprus. The more that Cicero learned of this matter, the more shocked he became. The interest rate on the loan had illegally been fixed at 48%. The businessmen had been allowed to use a squadron of cavalry to harass the city council for repayment; the cavalry had then confined the council members in their meeting place, starving five to death. Eventually, Brutus revealed that his 'friends' were in fact his own agents, and that the loaned money was his, not theirs."
- "Although they were fabulously wealthy, Melania and her husband decided to liquidate their assets, free their slaves, and move to the Holy Land to live a life of ascetism."
- Simon the Stylite lived as an ascetic on the top of a column for 40 years.
And yet even this bare-bones overview was able to convey just how incredible of a journey Rome took from Bronze Age hamlet to imperial capital to center of Western Christianity. The book was also definitely a healthy thing for me to read. It gave me a timely reminder that virtually none of the history written about the time before the First Punic War can be trusted. It also corrected a misconception I had about the avarice of the Roman state. I had always assumed that Rome was a 100% predatory state bent on extracting everything it could from its neighbors, but that's really not true. The book says of Republic Rome: "In region after region, the governing elite seems to have had no clear plan for expanding Rome's power or for establishing its authority. Instead, they just seem to have made arrangements piecemeal as they responded to the unfolding of events. Moreover, despite the Roman state's need for funds, there appears to have been no desire at first to promote the systematic exploitation of conquered communities' economic resources." When Rome defeated Carthage in the Second Punic War, they didn't even demand that Hannibal be handed over for execution. When Rome defeated Jugurtha in Numidia, "Rome exacted no direct permanent gain from this costly, prolonged series of embarrassments; there was no wish to annex Numidia." Of course there were plenty of instances of mass exploitation, especially as Rome transitioned from Republic to Empire: Caesar in Gaul, the publicani (tax harvesters) of Asia, the conquests of Arabia, Dacia, Egypt, Britain, etc. The Colosseum was built with proceeds from the sacking of Jerusalem and with Jewish slave labor, and the Forum of Trajan was built with proceeds from Dacia and probably with Dacian slave labor.
By far the most interesting thing to witness over the course of the book was the evolution of "Roman-ness." Being an uneducated pleb myself, my definition of Roman-ness has been shaped by popular culture, which fixates on the era of the end of the Republic and figures like Caesar, Brutus, Pompey, and Cicero. It's still a time where much of what made the Republic so great was still going strong - the drafted citizen armies, the powerful senatorial aristocracy, the sense of duty and honor, etc. The transition to Principate under August turned Roman-ness into something that already felt a little foreign to me. First of all, the drafted citizen army became a professional volunteer army. The sense of duty and honor deteriorated, as nations were conquered systematically to strengthen Rome's frontiers. The moral corruption of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero is pretty disgusting. The concentration of power in the figure of the emperor also transformed the senatorial politicking of the Republic into palace intrigue dominated by wives, freedmen, and the Praetorian Guard. However, things turned around after Vespasian took office. He normalized/legalized the office of emperor so that it was no longer an office that was riding off of Augustus's residual prestige alone, setting the stage later on for the "Five Good Emperors" who would rule from 97-190 AD and give Rome its imperial Golden Age. During this era, "evidence paints the picture of a kind and benevolent government, characterized by harmony, and by a principle of the adoption of the most meritorious emperor." As Aristides wrote, "What previously seemed impossible has come to pass in your time: maintenance of control over an empire - a vast one, too - and at the same time firmness of rule without severity." Before this period, I think it's safe to say that Europe and the Mediterranean had NEVER experienced such a peace. So the Roman government had a breather from incessant crisis and started, slowly, to develop the innovations required to govern well. For example, Hadrian began a process of codifying Roman law that would culminate centuries later in the Theodosian and Justinian codes.
My conception of Rome and Roman-ness, although centered on the late Republic, had extended all the way out to Marcus Aurelius. I hardly knew anything about what happened after him. It turns out that after Commodus's corrupt rule, Septimius Severus and the Severan dynasty were able to more or less maintain Rome-as-I-knew-it for a few more decades. There were a few exceptions. After Commodus was assassinated, the Praetorian Guard literally sold the position of emperor to the highest bidder (Marcus Didius Julianus), an omen of the power that military was to have later. Elagabalus, one of the Severan emperors, was extremely weird. He was from Syria and worshipped a sun god called Elah-Gabal (hence his name) and tried to force worship of the god on Rome. That... doesn't feel like the old Rome I know. Part of this is due to the fact that the empire was so successful in integrating its disparate parts that even as Rome radically changed its provinces, its provinces also changed Rome. Trajan and Hadrian were both from Spain. Septimius Severus was from Libya.
After the assassination of the last Severan emperor in 235 AD, Rome-as-I-knew-it pretty much disappears. The "crisis of the third century" saw Rome's stable frontiers explode, particularly on the Danube and in the East. Along the Danube, Goths invaded and in 250 AD killed the emperor Decius, "the first time Rome had ever lost an emperor in battle against a foreign foe." In 267 the Goths sacked Athens and Delphi, doing irreparable damage to the ancient treasures there. Meanwhile in the East, the weak Parthians were replaced by the powerful and aggressive Sasanians. The Sasanians sacked Antioch, the richest city in the Levant, in 253 and 260 AD. In 260, the Sasanian king captured the emperor Valerian and used him as a footstool for the rest of his life. I feel like these sorts of defeats could have happened earlier in Roman imperial history; the fact that they didn't was pure luck. In my opinion, the Roman imperial government was already fragile due to its succession issues, and the opening of these two brutal, emperor-killing fronts was too much for it to bear. If you have only one emperor and two fronts (the Danube, the East) or even three (the Rhine) or four (Britain), and your government is inherently unstable to begin with, the crisis of the third century makes total sense in my opinion. So in a weird way, even as the Cyprian plague devastated the population, 'barracks emperors' mostly hailing from Illyria were holding 1-month or 1-year long posts before being assassinated, the coinage was being debased from 100% to 2% silver, senators were locked out of important military and administrative posts, and classical pagan traditions were crumbling left and right, the empire of the third century was still the same empire of the Principate that we know and love. In other words, if the Early Principate had been subjected to these pressures, I'm pretty sure it would have responded in exactly the same way (total chaos and collapse).
The era from 284-324, that of Diocletian and Constantine, was truly transformative for the empire, in that it was molded into a form markedly different from what had existed before (which is why the empire is called the Dominate after this period instead of the Principate). Diocletian saved the empire by instituting the tetrarchy, and therefore normalizing the idea that there should be multiple emperors handling the affairs of the empire. He made legions much much smaller while also greatly expanding the size of the army. He introduced officers known as dukes (duces) and counts (comites). He broke provinces into much smaller pieces. He started to bind peasants to the land in a process that would lead to medieval serfdom. Constantine created a new capital, Constantinople, AND a new senate. During these decades, the bottom-heavy Roman bureaucracy filled out on top. Imperial staff were introduced that sound downright medieval: "The Chief of the Sacred Bedchamber", "The Count of the Sacred Largesses", "The Count of the Privy Purse", etc. The provinces were grouped into collections called "Dioceses". And most importantly, Constantine started state-sponsorship of Christianity, which would utterly change Roman culture. He's also the one who made Sunday a day of rest.
Diocletian's and Constantine's changes would give the empire relative stability until around 400 AD. However, during that time, the seeds that would lead to the Western Empire's fall were planted. In the mid 300s, the Huns invaded Eastern Europe, triggering a century-long massive migration of tribes into the Roman Empire. The emperor Valens' disastrous defeat at Adrianople in 378 by the Goths enabled the Goths to set up a semi-autonomous barbarian state within Rome's borders. These Goths under Alaric would eventually sack Rome in 410. Meanwhile, barbarian generals became more and more important in the imperial court, and we start to see names like Arbogast, Stilicho, and Ricimer being bandied about. Meanwhile, Christianity's expansion was unstoppable during this time period. As Christianity and the imperial government became more and more intertwined, talking about the quarrels within Christianity becomes unavoidable. So we start hearing about schisms and heresies and councils. We need to hear about Donatists in North Africa, Monophysites in Egypt and Syria, and the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, etc.
Although some (aka Edward Gibbons) like to blame Christianity for the fall of the Roman empire, it was truly an amazing and revolutionary cultural force. When Constantine officially adopted Christianity, the kingdoms of Armenia, Georgia, and Axum (Ethiopia) followed. It's interesting that we don't hear comparable stories regarding Mazdaism, the monotheistic religion of the Sasanians. Because Christianity was a religion "of the book" and was obsessed with the written word, this caused local languages to be written in significant quantities for the first time (with the exception of Hebrew, which had always had a strong written tradition). Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, and Coptic alphabets were created, and there was a flourishing of writing in those languages as well as in Syriac. Histories changed. The genre of ecclesiastic history was invented, and historians began to copy edicts verbatim instead of paraphrasing them. The emperors ordered the creation of massive law codes. New genres such as hagiography and apology were created. The "Holy Man" became an important figure. It became not uncommon for rich people to sell all of their possessions and live a life of ascetism, something unimaginable in pre-Christian times. For the first time, the elite became concerned with helping the poor, and the Christian church gave equality to men and women in the form of almost equally strict moral expectations.
Meanwhile, after 400 the Western Empire rapidly crumbled as it was ruled by a succession of child emperors with barbarian-general regents. Saxons invaded Britain, Franks invaded northeast Gaul, Burgundians invaded southeast Gaul, Vandals invaded North Africa and sacked Rome in 455, Visigoths invaded Spain, etc etc. They would create the synthesis of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, and Germanic culture that would eventually create Western Europe as we know it today. Even if the book's narrative was extremely dry, the story is pretty amazing. The fact that one small city could expand beyond its borders and become not just a vast empire but a powerful idea that would live on for another 1000 years after the fall of the city itself (in the form of the Eastern Roman Empire) is incredible.
Interesting stories:
- Mithridates, the infamous king of Pontus, had a concubine/wife who "manly qualities... were so outstanding that he was said to have called her by the masculine form of her name, Hypsicrates." There is a statue base with her name that confirms this.
- When Cicero was governor of Cilicia, Brutus (the "righteous" guy who would later be one of the organizers of the conspiracy against Caesar) "urged Cicero to help two businessmen friends of his recover a loan made to the city of Salamis in Cyprus. The more that Cicero learned of this matter, the more shocked he became. The interest rate on the loan had illegally been fixed at 48%. The businessmen had been allowed to use a squadron of cavalry to harass the city council for repayment; the cavalry had then confined the council members in their meeting place, starving five to death. Eventually, Brutus revealed that his 'friends' were in fact his own agents, and that the loaned money was his, not theirs."
- "Although they were fabulously wealthy, Melania and her husband decided to liquidate their assets, free their slaves, and move to the Holy Land to live a life of ascetism."
- Simon the Stylite lived as an ascetic on the top of a column for 40 years.
April 5, 2022
☆ 4.5/5
pretty good for a textbook
pretty good for a textbook
August 13, 2023
TW/CW: Death, assassination, talk of incest, talk of cruelty, torture, suicide
REVIEW: I have always had a fascination with the Roman empire, so I decided it was a good time to find some books and read them. Of what my library had, this one seemed to cover the greatest time period (from the Etruscans to Constantine), so I decided to read it first.
This book is very dense and has a lot of information between its pages. It is more text book than regular non-fiction book, and the writing can be dry. There’s a lot of frustration about the source material (for obvious reasons) and the book lays out before each chapter exactly what they’ve been able to find find and what is conjecture. There were things I would have liked to hear more about – especially the lives of the women and the the slaves, although I realize that any existing evidence about those two marginalized groups would be very rare, if it exists at all.
This book throws a lot of names and place and battles at you, but if you want the history, it’s definitely here! Obviously it can’t go into depth on everything, but I think it gave me a basic knowledge base to go read other books from now, which is kind of what I was looking for, so this book worked for me! I’d recommend to people who don’t mind reading kind of dry history and are interested in pretty much the entire history of Rome.
REVIEW: I have always had a fascination with the Roman empire, so I decided it was a good time to find some books and read them. Of what my library had, this one seemed to cover the greatest time period (from the Etruscans to Constantine), so I decided to read it first.
This book is very dense and has a lot of information between its pages. It is more text book than regular non-fiction book, and the writing can be dry. There’s a lot of frustration about the source material (for obvious reasons) and the book lays out before each chapter exactly what they’ve been able to find find and what is conjecture. There were things I would have liked to hear more about – especially the lives of the women and the the slaves, although I realize that any existing evidence about those two marginalized groups would be very rare, if it exists at all.
This book throws a lot of names and place and battles at you, but if you want the history, it’s definitely here! Obviously it can’t go into depth on everything, but I think it gave me a basic knowledge base to go read other books from now, which is kind of what I was looking for, so this book worked for me! I’d recommend to people who don’t mind reading kind of dry history and are interested in pretty much the entire history of Rome.
May 16, 2012
Nice easy read, solid narrative, well-segmented, handy out takes. Good college text. Ends with Constantine. Low on actually stories.
November 7, 2014
Stops right at the part you probably don't care about anyway!
May 13, 2025
Ok. Well basically, this is a textbook, so I am not sure quite how one reviews something like this. However, it was an informative and lively read. Certainly not for everyone, but I enjoyed it.
August 18, 2025
This is a good textbook that surveys Ancient Roman history. Sure, textbooks aren’t the most entertaining reading material, but they are designed to be comprehensive and take you from point A to point Z. This covers Rome as a disorganized collection of huts alongside other Italian tribes to Rome starting to clear away and develop what would become the Roman Forum under shared elite Etruscan culture, the legendary Romulus founding Rome and killing his brother Remus in a quarrel, the expulsion of the last king of Rome after the rape of Lucretia and the subsequent founding of the republic, the struggle of the orders between the plebeians and patricians, the social wars, the Carthaginian Wars, the Macedonian Wars, Sulla’s dictatorship, the Civil Wars between Caesar and Pompey for power, Caesar’s dictatorship and assassination, the further civil wars between Octavian and Antony, the early Principate under the Julian-Claudians, the Flavian Emperors, the Severan Emperors, and the seemingly endless civil wars and disorder from a lack of a accepted method of succession, the rise of Christianity, the economic problems from debased coinage and paying such a large-standing army, the constant conflict at the borders with the Parthians and then the Sassanians in Persia, and the constant invasions of Germanic tribes, and finally the decline of Rome. The book also explores social and cultural history including religion, women, marriage, and revisits each of these topics at different points with Roman history. Each chapter delves into the sources we have for each period.
While the book gets the job done by covering a lot of material with reasonable level of detail, there was definitely points I wanted more explanation of concepts or events. At times, the book leaves out pertinent information. For example, the book mentions an uprising by a general named Magnentius and Constantius II defeating him at Mursa, and eventually led to his suicide, which gives the impression his suicide happened as result of his defeat in this battle. However, there was another battle that occurred after Mursa called the Battle of Mons Seleucus that Magnentius and Constantius II fought before he committed suicide, but this battle is never mentioned. By not including this information the book gives the unaware reader a false impression. Overall the organization is fine, but there were points the authors make some weird choices. For example, the mythological story of the abduction of the Sabine women that was part of Rome’s founding mythology is only mentioned briefly in the context of it being the site of Rome’s Circus Maximus and placed in a chapter dedicated to the institutionalization of the Principate. However, this is not an isolated incident and I found other parts where I wonder why this information wasn’t mentioned earlier.
While the book gets the job done by covering a lot of material with reasonable level of detail, there was definitely points I wanted more explanation of concepts or events. At times, the book leaves out pertinent information. For example, the book mentions an uprising by a general named Magnentius and Constantius II defeating him at Mursa, and eventually led to his suicide, which gives the impression his suicide happened as result of his defeat in this battle. However, there was another battle that occurred after Mursa called the Battle of Mons Seleucus that Magnentius and Constantius II fought before he committed suicide, but this battle is never mentioned. By not including this information the book gives the unaware reader a false impression. Overall the organization is fine, but there were points the authors make some weird choices. For example, the mythological story of the abduction of the Sabine women that was part of Rome’s founding mythology is only mentioned briefly in the context of it being the site of Rome’s Circus Maximus and placed in a chapter dedicated to the institutionalization of the Principate. However, this is not an isolated incident and I found other parts where I wonder why this information wasn’t mentioned earlier.
July 19, 2021
This is a good, university level textbook which covers the history of the Roman Empire from its foundation to its end. Written by a team of first-rate scholars, this book provides a strong overview for the Romans and is an excellent place to start the study of the Romans. This edition is the second edition, so it has presumably been updated from the first (I hadn't read the first edition, so I can't comment on improvements).
What I enjoyed about this text is its blend of political and social/cultural history for each period. It makes interesting connections to cultures around it, as well as giving a good view of what was going on internally which influenced the development of the Roman state and culture. For me, it was a good review and, as I had intended it, a good general resource for my teaching, when I need to remind myself about something. That makes it a quite useful text.
Like any textbook, the view is general and there's always nuances that one might want to make, but for which there isn't space. However, this book gives a strong sense of the field and deserves a place on the shelf for anyone interested in Roman history.
What I enjoyed about this text is its blend of political and social/cultural history for each period. It makes interesting connections to cultures around it, as well as giving a good view of what was going on internally which influenced the development of the Roman state and culture. For me, it was a good review and, as I had intended it, a good general resource for my teaching, when I need to remind myself about something. That makes it a quite useful text.
Like any textbook, the view is general and there's always nuances that one might want to make, but for which there isn't space. However, this book gives a strong sense of the field and deserves a place on the shelf for anyone interested in Roman history.
January 23, 2021
Very academic. Makes sense though as it seems to be a popular textbook for classes. Didn't know that before I read it but it was still pretty interesting. A good high-level, broad account of the Roman republic/empire. It covers a bit of everything, a mile wide and an inch deep some would say. Can be a bit of a snooze fest depending on which era you're in tho. Yawn am I right. Would recommend.
December 4, 2021
This was a book for my Roman History class! We learned a lot of material from this book. While it was a long, hard read, it had a lot of good information on the Romans. I struggled with reading this book, but eventually got through it. I find Roman History interesting, but in this almost textbook format, it was still quite a hard read.
June 29, 2017
3.5 - 4 stars
February 27, 2019
Excellent reference for the serious historian.
October 23, 2020
V. scholarly !
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May 23, 2021jesus CHRIST that was a lot of Roman history
December 20, 2022
A decent encapsulation of Roman history. I felt like some of the emperors were covered in too much detail while others only got a paragraph when they deserved more.
July 26, 2023
A decent textbook though its absurdly massive scope results in a rushed history at a frantic pace.
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May 12, 2025Was hesitant to log this because it was the key text for a class rather than a book I read by choice but I’m going to anyways.
October 22, 2015
Highly informative and well researched account, but written in a very rambling style with a lot of repetition. The rambling style makes it very hard to follow the chain of events in important phases of Roman history, such as the conflict between Marius and Sulla, to name just one. Essentially the same map of the region seemed to be reproduced at least 10 times at various points in the book. And in the first few chapters on the beginnings of Rome, if I had a dime for every time I encountered the phrase "votive deposits", I would have a million dollars by now! But I still learned a LOT from this book.
December 17, 2012
I found this book a fairly engaging read. It certainly covers the political history of the Roman polity with sufficient clarity and comprehensiveness. The maps, photos of antiquities, and informational aids at the back of the book (glossary, map index, timeline, ...) were quite helpful. However, I would have preferred to read less about emperors' careers and more about 1) the religious beliefs and philosophical currents that are frequently mentioned but left completely unexplained and 2) people's daily lives and physical environment (e.g. sewers).
March 12, 2015
I took a class on Ancient Greece and Rome my freshman year of college (it was a 300 level; I don't know what I was thinking) and this book was one of the necessary books.
I absolutely despised this book in comparison to the one I read on Ancient Greece. In my opinion, it was more difficult to read and I just couldn't comprehend it.
In all honesty, I didn't even properly read this book. I skimmed it and took notes in class. And, somehow I managed to still get a high B in the class!
I absolutely despised this book in comparison to the one I read on Ancient Greece. In my opinion, it was more difficult to read and I just couldn't comprehend it.
In all honesty, I didn't even properly read this book. I skimmed it and took notes in class. And, somehow I managed to still get a high B in the class!
April 8, 2021
I read this book for my classics class, and I found it helped me get a grip of some of the critical happenings that were mentioned in my lectures. It's written clearly, and I would recommend it for study. With a lot of these books that go into Ancient Rome, there is a lot of Latin, in this book, there is too, but it is easy to understand. I also used this book for my essay and it was quite useful.
May 19, 2010
Read this book for my Roman History class in college. Also, my professor (Boatwright) is the author. The book is a solid introduction to Roman history with lots of illustration and good overview of the people and events.
September 24, 2007
Not bad. Wonderful images, intelligent yet easy to understant and to learn from.
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May 27, 2011Gift from Frances Hahn, spring 2008.
June 11, 2012
It's really nice to take a history class with a professor that has written the textbook being used and is a recognized authority in Roman History. Plus, Professor Talbert is British!
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