The Social History of Rome

by Géza Alföldy, David Braund (Translator), Frank Pollock (Translator)

Géza Alföldy provides a succinct chronological introduction to Roman social history from the time of Romulus and Remus to the "last Emperor," Romulus Augustulus. Expanding the focus of some approaches to this subject, Alföldy examines Rome's social structure against the broader and more familiar background of its political history. This book treats such topics as the structure of archaic Roman society; social changes from the beginning of Roman expansion to the Second Punic War; slave uprisings and other conflicts in the society of the Late Republic; the social system of the early Empire; the crisis of the Roman Empire; and late Roman society to the fall of the Empire.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Roman History, Ancient History

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Redsteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scholarly, but suprisingly readable considering that this work is very dense, translated from German and with lots of untranslated Latin terms. I was impressed at the author's description of the gradual changes in the upper and lower social strata of the Roman Republic (and, later, Empire), their degrees of homo- and/or heterogeneity and how these changes contributed to the growth, stability (early Empire), instability (Late Republic and Late Empire) and eventual decline and fall of Rome.

[Olivier Goossens · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very complex subject brought down to its most simple outlines. Well translated. Well structured. Absolutely perfect starter for anoyone who wants to delve deeper in Roman social history. Some chapters have repititions which might come across as sloppy, but then again, this can be excused by the difficulty of the subject as well as the relative novelty of writing an overview of the social history of the entire Roman period.

[Courtney Sells-Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly learned so much from reading this book. I would read again, to be honest.

[Giuliano Verardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eu li sim, confia.

[Lutz Barz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than most.