Before Augustus: The Collapse of the Roman Republic

by Natale Barca

This new history of the last years of the Roman Republic sets the leading men, and women, in the complex social and political system of the time, to provide a full context to the historical events and epic battles of the 1st century BC. Scholar Natale Barca examines the actions not only of the leading actors of the political process but also to those with a smaller role – history is not just made up of great individuals. To understand the end of the Roman Republic it is necessary to also examine the key figures’ relationship with family and friends – essential relationships in an era where ties and interactions between individuals, families, and clans constantly shaped the political process, and thus the Roman state. This account also attempts to decolonize this history – liberating it from a Romano-centric perspective and restoring it to indigenous populations. The history of a subjugated people does not begin with their conquest, and the Roman conquest was basically a predatory practice, although it cannot be denied Roman domination did – in some territories – lead to a transformation of the vanquished into friends and allies, and then to Roman citizens, with all that this could entail in terms of social integration. This wide-ranging narrative, examining both the actions of key individuals and the experience of subjugated populations, provides a new insight into this most important and turbulent era of Roman history.

Genres: History

384 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2023

Reviews

[Toog · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent, comprehensive and detailed review of the end of the republic — the very end as it only starts in 60BC, when Caesar was already 40 years old. As the title suggests, it runs to Octavian’s defeat of Antony and the immediate aftermath.

Based on the intro, I thought it might be very different from other popular histories, but it wasn’t; it was fresh without being odd. The most notable difference is in style; it is written in the “historical present” (a bit like Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell books, though obviously this is nonfiction). Commentary on the book says it builds out the role of “minor characters”; it certainly isn’t a biography, but it seemed quite balanced in discussing the people (mostly men) who were most relevant to events, without descending into trivia.

This is not military history. The accounts of battles, logistics, and the like are brief. There’s some social history, but again it seemed balanced — no exhaustive descriptions of what the lower classes ate, or anything like that. The author assumes some basic understanding of ancient Rome, and doesn’t always explain terms like mos maiorum when they are first mentioned. For those who have read about the era before, this is welcome, but a reader unfamiliar with Rome will need to consult the glossary, or to start with something more basic.

Overall, I found the book immersive and well written, and a nice alternative to the many books that approach the end of the republic entirely through biography, mainly of Caesar.

[Rodney Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very detailed (sometimes overwhelmingly so) account of the very last years of the republic. There were certainly times when Natale insisted in providing more minutiae than I needed, but this was a small price to pay for the overall quality of the text. I very much enjoyed this fine historical account of one of the key defining events in the history of western Europe.