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In this second edition of Arthur Keaveney's classic biography, a fresh generation of students, scholars and readers are introduced to one of the most pivotal figures in the outgoing Roman Empire. A definitive book in its field, this second edition is a must read. Completely rewritten and updated to include the further discoveries of the last two decades, it challenges traditional views of Sulla as a tyrant and harsh military dictator and instead delivers a compellingly complex portrait of a man obsessed with the belief that he was blessed with divine favour. Written by a leading authority on the classical world, this lively and entertaining book transports us through Sulla's rise from poverty and obscurity to his dictatorship of Rome, highlighting his dedication and achievements in better ordering the Republic before his decline a generation later.
This is a biography of one of the most controversial figures of antiquity. Sulla was the great general who became dictator of Rome and ushered in the period of the Civil Wars.
A major work on the power of the crowd
Lucius Cornelius Sulla is one of the central figures of the late Roman Republic. Indeed, he is often considered a major catalyst in the death of the republican system. the ambitious general whose feud with a rival (Marius) led to his marching on Rome with an army at his back, leading to civil war and the terrible internecine bloodletting of the proscriptions. In these things, and in his appropriation of the title of dictator with absolute power, he set a dangerous precedent to be followed by Julius Caesar a generation later. ??Lynda Telford believes Sulla's portrayal as a monstrous, brutal tyrant is unjustified. While accepting that he was responsible for much bloodshed, she contends that he was no more brutal than many of his contemporaries who have received a kinder press. Moreover, even his harshest measures were motivated not by selfish ambition but by genuine desire to do what he believed best for Rome. The author believes the bias of the surviving sources, and modern biographers, has exaggerated the ill-feeling towards Sulla in his lifetime. After all, he voluntarily laid aside dictatorial power and enjoyed a peaceful retirement without fear of assassination. The contrast to Caesar is obvious. ??Lynda Telford gives a long overdue reappraisal of this significant personality, considering such factors as the effect of his disfiguring illness. The portrait that emerges is a subtle and nuanced one; her Sulla is very much a human, not a monster.
From the Renaissance to today, the idea that the Roman Republic lasted more than 450 years--persisting unbroken from the late sixth century to the mid-first century BC--has profoundly shaped how Roman history is understood, how the ultimate failure of Roman republicanism is explained, and how republicanism itself is defined. In Roman Republics, Harriet Flower argues for a completely new interpretation of republican chronology. Radically challenging the traditional picture of a single monolithic republic, she argues that there were multiple republics, each with its own clearly distinguishable strengths and weaknesses. While classicists have long recognized that the Roman Republic changed and evolved over time, Flower is the first to mount a serious argument against the idea of republican continuity that has been fundamental to modern historical study. By showing that the Romans created a series of republics, she reveals that there was much more change--and much less continuity--over the republican period than has previously been assumed. In clear and elegant prose, Roman Republics provides not only a reevaluation of one of the most important periods in western history but also a brief yet nuanced survey of Roman political life from archaic times to the end of the republican era.
This book is a study of Sulla s policies in Italy and in the Greek East. Its main aim is to show how Sulla revived Rome s alliances with the local elites at a critical moment for the survival of her Mediterranean hegemony. The discussion calls into play a wide range of political, economic and religious issues, and the argument is developed from three complementary standpoints: role of elites, administration, and ideology. Sulla, the Elites and the Empire deals with both the impact of a prominent individual and the impact of the Roman empire. It sets outs to offer a new understanding of Sulla and his age and, more generally, to contribute to the understanding of the late Roman Republic.
Soon after the Caudine Forks fiasco, where Roman citizens had suffered the humiliation of being forced to pass under the yoke, an act symbolising their loss of warrior status, the tactical formation adopted by the Roman army underwent a radical change. Introduced as part of the Servian reforms, the legion had originally operated as a Greek-style phalanx, a densely packed block of citizens wealthy enough to outfit themselves with the full panoply of an armoured spearman or hoplite. The function of a hoplite had been the privilege only of those who owned a certain amount of property, poorer citizens serving either as auxiliaries or as servants. Now, however, the Romans adopted the manipular system, whereby the legion was split into distinct battle lines, each consisting of tactical subunits, the maniples. In contrast to the one solid block of the phalanx, the legion was now divided into several small blocks, with spaces between them. The Romans, in other words, gave the phalanx 'joints' in order to secure flexibility, and what is more, each soldier, or legionary, had twice as much elbow room for individual action, which now involved swordplay instead of spear work. Even though still a citizen militia recruited from property owners supplying their own war gear, it was the manipular legion that faced Pyrrhus and his elephants, the Gauls and their long swords, Hannibal and his tactical genius, the Macedonians and their pikes, to name but a few of its formidable opponents. This book, therefore, will look at the recruitment (now based on age and experience as well as on wealth and status), training (now the responsibility of the state as opposed to the individual), weapons (new types being introduced, both native and foreign), equipment (ditto) and experiences (which included submission to a draconian regime of military discipline) of the legionary at the epoch of the middle Republic. The middle Republican era opens with the last great war with the Samnites (Third Samnite War, 298-290 BC) and closes with the Republic at the height of its imperial glory after the victory in North Africa (Iugurthine War 112-105 BC). The provisional legion in which the legionary served now exhibited many of the institutions and customs of the later professional legions, perhaps best reflected in one of its most notable practices, the construction of a temporary camp at the end of each day's march. Lest we forget, however, for our legionary, military service was not a career, but an obligation he owed to the state, and it was this militia army that conquered the peninsula of Italy, defeated the magnificent Hellenistic kingdoms and the mercantile empire of Carthage. All of the Mediterranean basin was now within the imperium of Rome, some of it organized into provinces governed by Roman magistrates, the rest reduced to client status. Romans were acquiring a sense that they possessed a world empire.
This biography of Marcus Cato the Younger -- Rome's bravest statesman, an aristocratic soldier, a Stoic philosopher, and staunch defender of sacred Roman tradition -- is rich with resonances for current politics and contemporary notions of freedom.
The Roman Revolution is one of the most momentous periods of change in history, in which an imperial but quasidemocratic power changed into an autocracy. This book studies the way the Roman army changed in the last eighty years of the Republic, so that an army of imperial conquest became transformed into a set of rival personal armies under the control of the triumvirs. It emphasizes the development of what has often been regarded as a static monolithic institution, and its centrality to political change.
This volume brings together a distinguished international group of researchers to explore public speech in Republican Rome in its institutional and ideological contexts. The focus throughout is on the interaction between argument, speaker, delivery and action. The chapters consider how speeches acted alongside other factors - such as the identity of the speaker, his alliances, the deployment of invective against opponents, physical location and appearance of other members of the audience, and non-rhetorical threats or incentives - to affect the beliefs and behaviour of the audience. Together they offer a range of approaches to these issues and bring attention back to the content of public speech in Republican Rome as well as its form and occurrence. The book will be of interest not only to ancient historians, but also to those working on ancient oratory and to historians and political theorists working on public speech.