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The Roman Revolution is a profound and unconventional treatment of a great theme - the fall of the Republic and the decline of freedom in Rome between 60 BC and AD 14, and the rise to power of the greatest of the Roman Emperors, Augustus. The transformation of state and society, the violent transference of power and property, and the establishment of Augustus' rule are presented in an unconventional narrative, which quotes from ancient evidence, refers seldomly to modern authorities, and states controversial opinions quite openly. The result is a book which is both fresh and compelling.
On March 15th, 44 BC a group of senators stabbed Julius Caesar, the dictator of Rome. By his death, they hoped to restore Rome's Republic. Instead, they unleashed a revolution. By December of that year, Rome was plunged into a violent civil war. Three men--Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian--emerged as leaders of a revolutionary regime, which crushed all opposition. In time, Lepidus was removed, Antony and Cleopatra were dispatched, and Octavian stood alone as sole ruler of Rome. He became Augustus, Rome's first emperor, and by the time of his death in AD 14 the 500-year-old republic was but a distant memory and the birth of one of history's greatest empires was complete. Rome's Revolution provides a riveting narrative of this tumultuous period of change. Historian Richard Alston digs beneath the high politics of Cicero, Caesar, Antony, and Octavian to reveal the experience of the common Roman citizen and soldier. He portrays the revolution as the crisis of a brutally competitive society, both among the citizenry and among the ruling class whose legitimacy was under threat. Throughout, he sheds new light on the motivations that drove men to march on their capital city and slaughter their compatriots. He also shows the reasons behind and the immediate legacy of the awe inspiringly successful and ruthless reign of Emperor Augustus. An enthralling story of ancient warfare, social upheaval, and personal betrayal, Rome's Revolution offers an authoritative new account of an epoch which still haunts us today.
"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--
An original interpretation of the fundamental transformations of Rome's society, culture and identity during the period of its imperial expansion.
Kay examines the economic change in Rome between the Second Punic War and the middle of the first century BC. He focuses on how the increased inflow of bullion and expansion of the availability of credit resulted in real per capita economic growth in the Italian peninsula, radically changing the composition and scale of the Roman economy.
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THE ROMAN EMPIRE STANDS as the greatest political achievement in the history of Western civilization. From its humble beginnings as a tiny kingdom in central Italy, Rome grew to envelope the entire Mediterranean until it ruled an empire that stretched from the Atlantic to Syria and from the Sahara to Scotland. Its enduring legacy continues to define the modern world. Mike Duncan chronicled the rise, triumph, and fall of the Roman Empire in his popular podcast series "The History of Rome." Transcripts of the show have been edited and collected here for the first time. Covering episodes 1-46, The History of Rome Volume I opens with the founding of the Roman Kingdom and ends with the breakdown of the Roman Republic. Along the way Rome will steadily grow from local power to regional power to global power. The Romans will triumph over their greatest foreign rivals and then nearly destroy themselves in a series of destructive civil wars. This is the story of the rise of Rome.
The decadence and depravity of the ancient Romans are a commonplace of serious history, popular novels and spectacular films. This book is concerned not with the question of how immoral the ancient Romans were but why the literature they produced is so preoccupied with immorality. The modern image of immoral Rome derives from ancient accounts which are largely critical rather than celebratory. Upper-class Romans habitually accused one another of the most lurid sexual and sumptuary improprieties. Historians and moralists lamented the vices of their contemporaries and mourned for the virtues of a vanished age. Far from being empty commonplaces these assertions constituted a powerful discourse through which Romans negotiated conflicts and tensions in their social and political order. This study proceeds by a detailed examination of a wide range of ancient texts (all of which are translated) exploring the dynamics of their rhetoric, as well as the ends to which they were deployed. Roman moralising discourse, the author suggests, may be seen as especially concerned with the articulation of anxieties about gender, social status and political power. Individual chapters focus on adultery, effeminacy, the immorality of the Roman theatre, luxurious buildings and the dangers of pleasure. This book should appeal to students and scholars of classical literature and ancient history. It will also attract anthropologists and social and cultural historians.
THIS SEARCHING INTERPRETATION of past and present addresses fundamental questions about the fall of the Roman Empire. Why did ancient culture, once so strong and rich, come to an end? Was it destroyed by weaknesses inherent in its nature? Or were mistakes made that could have been avoided -- was there a point at which Greco-Roman society took a wrong turn? And in what ways is modern society different? Western history is split into two discontinuous eras, Aldo Schiavone tells us: the ancient world was fundamentally different from the modern one. He locates the essential difference in a series of economic factors: a slave-based economy, relative lack of mechanization and technology, the dominance of agriculture over urban industry. Also crucial are aspects of the ancient mentality: disdain for manual work, a preference for transcending (rather than transforming) nature, a basic belief in the permanence of limits. Schiavone's lively and provocative examination of the ancient world, "the eternal theater of history and power", offers a stimulating opportunity to view modern society in light of the experience of our forebears.
Fergus Millar is one of the most influential contemporary historians of the ancient world. His essays and books, including The Emperor in the Roman World and The Roman Near East, have enriched our understanding of the Greco-Roman world in fundamental ways. In his writings Millar has made the inhabitants of the Roman Empire central to our conception of how the empire functioned. He also has shown how and why Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam evolved from within the wider cultural context of the Greco-Roman world. Opening this collection of sixteen essays is a new contribution by Millar in which he defends the continuing significance of the study of Classics and argues for expanding the definition of what constitutes that field. In this volume he also questions the dominant scholarly interpretation of politics in the Roman Republic, arguing that the Roman people, not the Senate, were the sovereign power in Republican Rome. In so doing he sheds new light on the establishment of a new regime by the first Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus.