Everything old is new again
4 stars
Everyone is familiar with the fall of the Roman Republic - Caesar crosses the Rubicon, becomes dictator for life, is murdered in the Ides of March and the in the ensuing civil war Octavian defeats Marc Anthony to become Augustus the first Roman Emperor.
Mike Duncan's book looks at the history of Rome in the years leading up to the Fall (146 - 78 BC) to try and answer the question of how Rome got to the point where Caesar was possible, and the answer is a combination of ambitious men who preyed on class, corruption, and Italian versus Roman fault lines to advance their careers, men who happily would shred the mos maiorum norms of Roman society to incite mob violence to further their ambitions. The penultimate leader, Sulla, ultimately set the stage for Caesar by showing how to use your legion as your own personal army to …
Everyone is familiar with the fall of the Roman Republic - Caesar crosses the Rubicon, becomes dictator for life, is murdered in the Ides of March and the in the ensuing civil war Octavian defeats Marc Anthony to become Augustus the first Roman Emperor.
Mike Duncan's book looks at the history of Rome in the years leading up to the Fall (146 - 78 BC) to try and answer the question of how Rome got to the point where Caesar was possible, and the answer is a combination of ambitious men who preyed on class, corruption, and Italian versus Roman fault lines to advance their careers, men who happily would shred the mos maiorum norms of Roman society to incite mob violence to further their ambitions. The penultimate leader, Sulla, ultimately set the stage for Caesar by showing how to use your legion as your own personal army to make yourself dictator, while his attempts to restore and strengthen the Republic did nothing to address the underlying issues that provided the fault lines that were able to be exploited.
There's a lot to think about here in relation to US current events -- actions of our modern-day politicians that have more than a faint echo to the things that happened and the themes that are in this book.
