About book Ancient Rome: The Rise And Fall Of An Empire (2008)
If you, like me, don't know much about the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire it spawned, or the impact of Roman culture on the subsequent millennia beyond what you saw on television when men in golden breastplates flogged and stapled history's most successful anarchist to a cross of wood between Paul and Jan Crouch's sobs and pleas for money, you could do worse than read this book. Though largely artless, it is not naively so, and proves as unrelenting as any anonymous, sweaty, bloodthirsty beefcake in fish scale bikini briefs in its presentation of the epochal moments that gave form to that lodestar of classical civilization.Rome, at least mythological Rome, was founded first on murder, and then as a sanctuary for the detritus of other societies -- criminals, exiles, refugees, their tired, their poor, their huddled masses. Then these castoffs invited their neighbors to the city, ostensibly in observance of a religious festival, only to steal their womenfolk so they could make babies. Babies that would grow up not to invite neighbors to do anything other than to submit to Rome or be put to the sword. With such violent origins, one is moved to wonder if their hymns would keep time with the Star Spangled Banner.A popular history from BBC Books, I cannot help but think that author Simon Baker is, at times, addressing the United States in a roundabout fashion. Perhaps this is self-consciously nationalistic of me because the paranoid Puritanical founding of my own country casts such a long shadow. Maybe he has merely succeeded in touching upon the overarching themes native to all civilizations with the conceit to aspire to imperialism. It amounts to the same.Romans, like Yankees, soon tired of their kings (Etruscan, by the bye, from whom we inherit the word fascism because they would carry a bundle of elm or birch branches bound together with an axe at its center called a fasces), ran them off and founded that most remarkable and fragile of things, a republic. A republic that gave lip service to the political freedom of its citizens, but nevertheless vested the power of the kingship in two elected consuls that would share power for a set period of time and that, in practice, came from the wealthiest two percent of adult Roman males. Yet even so, the memory of one man rule would stay with Romans and, in times of crisis, dictatorial powers would be ceded to that one happy man to do as he saw fit to restore order and preserve the republic. But Rome would succumb to triumphalism despite its high mindedness. Riding the wave of its economic and military successes -- made almost exclusively on the backs of the middle and lower classes and through the strategic application of pre-emptive wars of self-defense -- Baker notes:In becoming a superpower, Rome, so it was said, abandoned the very values with which it had won its supremacy. At the pinnacle of its achievement, the virtues that had made the Roman republic so successful failed it and were lost forever.An idealistic man by the name of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a military hero and the grandson of Scipio Africanus, himself famous for having saved the young republic from the wrathful genius of Carthage's Hannibal, would attempt to redistribute lands he perceived as unjustly taken from the citizen militia who, while fighting Rome's wars of conquest, would see their properties go untended, fall into arrears, and then bought up on the cheap by the aristocracy. In the first politically motivated murder of the republic, Tiberius would be killed and his mangled body unceremoniously dumped in the Tiber River.Then would come the Caesars, the obsolescence, the decline, and the monotheistic statism. As I write these last words, my eyes wander to a Roman coin that I purchased some months ago and which I have worked at cleaning nearly daily. The profile of some emperor or other adorns one side; the image of an entire man holding what appears to be a bow, or perhaps even a plough, the other. One day I will set to examining it more closely in the hopes of dating it. Maybe I'll even try to decipher the Latin that haphazardly rings it. However, I will only do these things in the vein of an antiquarian. Our history cannot be found on any coin or written in any book. It can only be found in us, and I sometimes despair that it will never be overcome.
This book basically sums up Ancient Rome history. The plot begins with the story of how Ancient Rome began. This leads to talking about the important figures that changed Rome history like Julius Caesar. This book explains in great detail battles and turning points that took place that caused positive and negative effects like the three punic wars. It mentions how once Ancient Rome use to fight for justified reasons which turned to greed. My favorite character was Publius Cornelius Scipio because although he wasn't mentioned much like the other characters, the accomplishments he made in the second punic war and how he strategizes. My favorite part of the book is when they start to mention Pompey and Julius Caesar. I found that one of the most interesting parts in the book. I like how the author Simon Baker was able to describe Ancient Rome in great detail in one book. I love how he made me really think if the Romans intentions were truly for the good and who was really benefiting. This book really is interesting and I kept turning the pages because of how each character fit in Roman history. I love the very last sentence of the story and how it was written I didn't really like how the book ended in general. Yes, I do love the concluding sentence , but the ending as a whole not so much. It felt as if there was much more, but it just stopped there. Another I didn't like was that at some parts of the book I found it confusing. I personally would give this book a four star rating because I love Roman history and I found this book intriguing, but I was confused at some parts. I would recommend this book to those that are interested in Roman history.
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Easy to read history of Rome that does a great job with many of the basics. This is organized into six important events of the Roman Empire, a great approach in limiting the enormous amount of information that is available. This is a companion book to the BBC series which I am almost done with, and agree that these really complement each other. My favorite section was the first, which covers the "Revolution" in Rome attempted by Tiberius Gracchus, which sets the groundwork for Caesar and the Roman Empire. This is a very good introduction.
—Patrick
Given the length of the Roman Empire (and as advertised this book covers the origins of the empire from a small city-state), its breadth, its complexity, and its historical importance it is impossible to go in depth in a book of this length. Roman specialists should find a lengthier, more detailed book but for those who are new to Rome (like me), or seeking to acquire just a general understanding of one of the most important--and arguably the most important--civilization in world history this book passes with flying colors.
—Omar Masood
This is a brief overview of ancient Rome's critical turning points. It isn't just a play-by-play of the BBC's docudrama (excellent btw), it goes much deeper. From reading other reviews, I was worried this book might be too dry or too shallow to arouse my interest, but it did just the opposite. Baker's Ancient Rome is a highlight of several key figures in Roman history that shaped the old Empire and ultimately western societies. It is not a detailed account of ancient roman life or a strictly political analysis either, it's more so an insight into the minds of leaders and the motivations that might have propelled their actions. I'd recommend this book to anyone who's curious about the subject or just wants a fun crash course. Make sure to watch the amazing TV series Rome too. That'll get you properly hooked on bickering senators and raging generals.
—Freddy
