Customer Reviews

The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 9: The Last Age of the Roman Republic, 146-43 BC

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cambridge has a wonderful reputation. It has the advantage of putting into one book some of the greatest scholars. In this volume E. Rawson, A. Lintott and Crook have themselves along with other scholars written about the last period of the Roman Republic. I feel that a scholar, Eric S. Gruen, has not been given his due in this volume. Gruen in his ground breaking book the Last Generation of the Roman Repubic asserts that the Republic, contrary to common thought, was not showing signs of decay, neglect or sloth. Quite the contrary. He shows a Republic meeting problems with skill and determination. I do not mean to imply that Gruen feels that all was well. He simply annihilates the view that corruption ruled, ignorance prevailed and rot was running riot. He is a very thorough scholar. One may disagree with him. However after his book I do not see how his thesis can be simply ignored. Ignore is what CAH (Last Age...) does. I do not feel that the scholarship in this volume reflects full and fair grappling with the views set forth by Gruen. However, I have found the last chapters on Law, plebs urbana, intellectual growth and religion very helpful and interesting. This book is very much worth reading, if one keeps in mind that certain ideas, for whatever reasons, have not been given their due.

This volume in Cambridge's Ancient History series covers the last years of the Roman republic from 146-43BC.This was the period of the dynasts when men like Marius,Sulla,Pompey and Caesar competed with each other for power.This book covers that period in extensive detail,describing not only the political developments but also changes in the society,economy and culture of Rome.Readers who consider buying this book should be aware that it is a specialist history and reference book and therefore perhaps not for everyone.Some of the writing and some of the chapters can be very dry at times eg.the chapter on the development of Roman law.However if you want a book which is an authoritative source for almost any topic concerning the late Roman Republic then this it.For this reason I gave it five stars.

The CAH series is without peer. I'm an armchair historian, not a professional, yet found this work eminently readable. Enjoyable, in fact. What really struck me about this older edition is the level of scholarship and the lack of silly sidebars that contemporary historians fall into. I've read many works published after the 1980's or so, but very few before WWII, so reading this was something new for me.

No "gender identity" politics (although the roles of women and well presented) and silly solipsistic and deconstructionist panderings in this volume. It is truly refreshing to read something without the foibles and circumlocutions to which contemporary academic writings fall prey.

Buy the new edition - difficult as it is given Amazon's bad bibliographic citations of this series- but buy this one too. You'll be pleased you did. And the old book are darned handsome, too.