Jack Semancik’s Reviews > SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome > Status Update

Chapter 8 focuses on the daily life of the Roman population during the late Republic, with an unintentional focus on the elite (because their lives are the best attested).

The Social War and the Dictatorship of Sulla offer an insight into the sociopolitical position of the Italian cities (the socii) within the Roman Republic.

Chapter 5 offers an insightful look at Roman identity during the expansion of their empire (up to about the First Century BCE). Especially compares and contrasts the culture, identity, and politics of the Romans with their Greek neighbours to the east (a cultural group which is comparably well-attested in the written record). Roman identity was much more expansive than is imagined by us in our world of nation-states.

Overturns a lot of the assumptions made by Roman historians of the First Century BCE about the early history of Rome.