Rome Books

City of God (Penguin Classics)

Augustine of Hippo

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Augustine's City of God, a monumental work of religious lore, philosophy, and history, was written as a kind of literary tombstone for Roman culture. After the sack of Rome, Augustine wrote this book to anatomize the corruption of Romans' pursuit of earthly pleasures: "grasping for praise, open-handed with their money; honest in the pursuit of wealth, they wanted to hoard glory." Augustine contrasts his condemnation of Rome with an exaltation of Christian culture. The glory that Rome failed to attain will only be realized by citizens of the City of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem foreseen in Revelation. Because City of God was written for men of classical learning--custodians of the culture Augustine sought to condemn--it is thick with Ciceronian circumlocutions, and makes many stark contrasts between "Your Virgil" and "Our Scriptures." Even if Augustine's prose strikes modern ears as a bit bombastic, and if his polarized Christian/pagan world is more binary than the one we live in today, his arguments against utopianism and his defense of the richness of Christian culture remain useful and strong. City of God is, as its final words proclaim itself to be, "a giant of a book." --Michael Joseph Gross

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

Peter Heather

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Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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The death of the Roman Empire is one of the perennial mysteries of world history. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Peter Heather proposes a stunning new solution: Centuries of imperialism turned the neighbors Rome called barbarians into an enemy capable of dismantling an Empire that had dominated their lives for so long.
A leading authority on the late Roman Empire and on the barbarians, Heather relates the extraordinary story of how Europe's barbarians, transformed by centuries of contact with Rome on every possible level, eventually pulled the empire apart. He shows first how the Huns overturned the existing strategic balance of power on Rome's European frontiers, to force the Goths and others to seek refuge inside the Empire. This prompted two generations of struggle, during which new barbarian coalitions, formed in response to Roman hostility, brought the Roman west to its knees. The Goths first destroyed a Roman army at the battle of Hadrianople in 378, and went on to sack Rome in 410. The Vandals spread devastation in Gaul and Spain, before conquering North Africa, the breadbasket of the Western Empire, in 439. We then meet Attila the Hun, whose reign of terror swept from Constantinople to Paris, but whose death in 453 ironically precipitated a final desperate phase of Roman collapse, culminating in the Vandals' defeat of the massive Byzantine Armada: the west's last chance for survival.
Peter Heather convincingly argues that the Roman Empire was not on the brink of social or moral collapse. What brought it to an end were the barbarians.

Meditations (Penguin Classics)

Marcus Aurelius

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Total reviews: 111 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

One measure, perhaps, of a book's worth, is its intergenerational pliancy: do new readers acquire it and interpret it afresh down through the ages? The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, translated and introduced by Gregory Hays, by that standard, is very worthwhile, indeed. Hays suggests that its most recent incarnation--as a self-help book--is not only valid, but may be close to the author's intent. The book, which Hays calls, fondly, a "haphazard set of notes," is indicative of the role of philosophy among the ancients in that it is "expected to provide a 'design for living.'" And it does, both aphoristically ("Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly.") and rhetorically ("What is it in ourselves that we should prize?"). Whether these, and other entries ("Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life.") sound life-changing or like entries in a teenager's diary is up to the individual reader, as it should be. Hays's introduction, which sketches the life of Marcus Aurelius (emperor of Rome A.D. 161-180) as well as the basic tenets of stoicism, is accessible and jaunty. --H. O'Billovich

The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found

Mary Beard

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Pompeii is the most famous archaeological site in the world, visited by more than two million people each year. Yet it is also one of the most puzzling, with an intriguing and sometimes violent history, from the sixth century BCE to the present day.

Destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE, the ruins of Pompeii offer the best evidence we have of life in the Roman Empire. But the eruptions are only part of the story. In The Fires of Vesuvius, acclaimed historian Mary Beard makes sense of the remains. She explores what kind of town it was—more like Calcutta or the Costa del Sol?—and what it can tell us about “ordinary” life there. From sex to politics, food to religion, slavery to literacy, Beard offers us the big picture even as she takes us close enough to the past to smell the bad breath and see the intestinal tapeworms of the inhabitants of the lost city. She resurrects the Temple of Isis as a testament to ancient multiculturalism. At the Suburban Baths we go from communal bathing to hygiene to erotica.

Recently, Pompeii has been a focus of pleasure and loss: from Pink Floyd’s memorable rock concert to Primo Levi’s elegy on the victims. But Pompeii still does not give up its secrets quite as easily as it may seem. This book shows us how much more and less there is to Pompeii than a city frozen in time as it went about its business on 24 August 79.

(20081006)

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

Anthony Everitt

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Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

He found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. As Rome’s first emperor, Augustus transformed the unruly Republic into the greatest empire the world had ever seen. His consolidation and expansion of Roman power two thousand years ago laid the foundations, for all of Western history to follow. Yet, despite Augustus’s accomplishments, very few biographers have concentrated on the man himself, instead choosing to chronicle the age in which he lived. Here, Anthony Everitt, the bestselling author of Cicero, gives a spellbinding and intimate account of his illustrious subject.

Augustus began his career as an inexperienced teenager plucked from his studies to take center stage in the drama of Roman politics, assisted by two school friends, Agrippa and Maecenas. Augustus’s rise to power began with the assassination of his great-uncle and adoptive father, Julius Caesar, and culminated in the titanic duel with Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
The world that made Augustus–and that he himself later remade–was driven by intrigue, sex, ceremony, violence, scandal, and naked ambition. Everitt has taken some of the household names of history–Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Antony, Cleopatra–whom few know the full truth about, and turned them into flesh-and-blood human beings.

At a time when many consider America an empire, this stunning portrait of the greatest emperor who ever lived makes for enlightening and engrossing reading. Everitt brings to life the world of a giant, rendered faithfully and sympathetically in human scale. A study of power and political genius, Augustus is a vivid, compelling biography of one of the most important rulers in history.


From the Hardcover edition.

Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America

Cullen Murphy

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Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A meditation on the decline and fall 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book compares contemporary America to the Roman Empire. In asking whether we are Rome, Murphy is really asking whether we are doomed to decline and fall, as Rome did. When I began this book I was thinking of Rome at its peak. However, its focus is really on the decline of the empire. With the focus on the negative aspects of the (mostly late) Roman Empire and of America, it gradually becomes clear that the author does not much like either Rome or America. Two examples from the text will explain what I mean. The author takes exception to the plaque left by Neil Armstrong on the moon that says "We came in peace for all mankind," apparently on the grounds that Americans should not be speaking for all mankind. The second refers to the famous `line in the sand' episode from Roman history. In 168 BC, the Roman Consul Gaius Popillius Laenas drew a line in the sand around King Antiochus IV of the Seleucid Empire who was about to invade Egypt, saying, "Before you cross this line I want you to give me a reply for the Roman Senate". The implication was that Rome would declare war if the King stepped out of the circle without committing to leave Egypt immediately. Weighing his options, Antiochus wisely chose to withdraw. This would seem to be a triumph of diplomacy since armed conflict was averted without any loss of life or an arrow being fired. Murphy holds this up as an example of Roman arrogance. Arrogance or not, the responsibility that comes with power is such that great nations cannot be spectators and do have to show leadership.

In general the book consists of a series of musings about the similarities between American and Roman governments, militaries, industry, etc. The chapter on privatization of government services is more polemic than scholarly discussion. Unfortunately there seems to be no strong underlying thesis. That there are many similarities between Rome and America should come as no surprise because the imperatives of governing a large nation state are as universal as gravity. In keeping with this idea, most of the similarities between America and Rome would as well apply to the British Empire. Early on, the author tells us that the school history class cliché about those who forget history being doomed to repeat it is not particularly true. This is disconcerting, because what then is the point of this book?

The question posed in the title is of course rhetorical. All empires rise and fall. Murphy reminds us that in some sense Rome never went away completely. Many of our institutions today, not to mention our language, are direct descendents of their Roman counterparts. That America faces many of the same challenges as Rome did is a given. Certainly there are many similarities between the body politic of both Rome and America, but no more than with other large nations. There are also some of the same failings. Yet there are differences as well. America has many strengths, and Murphy does mention some of them at the very end, though only in passing. The entrepreneurial spirit that beginning in the late nineteenth century would power America to global prominence is not mentioned. Obviously Murphy is not happy with the America he sees around him. He makes a strong case for America being Rome at its worst and suggests some ideas to turn things around. Unfortunately, he makes a much poorer case for America NOT being Rome.

Editorial Review:

The rise and fall of ancient Rome has been on American minds from the beginning of our republic.Today we focus less on the Roman Republic than on the empire that took its place. Depending on who's doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action or a dire warning of imminent collapse. In Are We Rome? the esteemed editor and author Cullen Murphy reveals a wide array of similarities between the two empires: the blinkered, insular culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of bribery in public life; the paradoxical issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic through various forms of privatization. Murphy persuasively argues that we most resemble Rome in the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance of the world outside -- two things that must be changed if we are to avoid Rome's fate.

The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History

James J. O'Donnell

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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The dream Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar shared of uniting Europe, the Medi­terranean, and the Middle East in a single community shuddered and then collapsed in the wars and disasters of the sixth century. It was a looking-glass world, where some Romans ideal­ized the Persian emperor while barbarian kings in Italy and France worked tirelessly to save the pieces of the Roman dream they had inherited. At the center of the old Roman Empire, in his vast and pompous Constantinople palace, the emperor Justinian, with too little education and too much religion, set out to restore his empire to its glories. Step by step, the things he did to bring back the past sealed the doom of his entire civilization.

Historian and classicist James J. O'Donnell—who last brought us his masterful, disturbing, and revelatory biography of Saint Augustine—revisits this old story in a fresh way, bringing home its sometimes painful relevance to issues of our own time.

With unexpected detail and in his hauntingly vivid style, O'Donnell begins at a time of apparent Roman revival and brings us to the moment of imminent collapse that just preceded the rise of Islam. Illegal migrations of peoples, religious wars, global pandemics, and the temptations of empire: Rome's end foreshadows our own crises and offers hints how to navigate them—if we will heed this story.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Volumes 1-3 (Everyman's Library)

Edward Gibbon

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 68 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Book 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

First one thing: do not, on any account, get the abridged version. If I could take one book to a desert island, it would be this one. That's because it is extremely long, and every word of it is worth it.

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire remains as relevant as ever. And this is in spite of its hugely ambitious scope, treating of the history of the Roman and Byzantine empires (both considered Roman by Gibbon) from the end of the 1st century AD to the 15th. Gibbon is a modern historian. He is shrewdly selective of his sources, judiciously reserved, and coldly analytical. He differentiates between proximate and ultimate causes. He has a humanistic but impartial point of view. At the same time, he is an 18th century Englishman. While this is reflected in some of his opinions, such as that the extinction of republican freedom was what determined Rome's decline, it makes them no less valid and often the more interesting; it is hard to imagine anyone today being able to treat the early Christian controversies with the same tact and humour, for example.

And Edward Gibbon wrote like an enchanter. I read somewhere that his style was an inspiration to Churchill. No wonder. Every line of this tome of perhaps a million words is a delight to read. You will laugh out loud. His thought is clear and convincing. And there are simply magical moments, such as when he produces that mythical animal that appeared in the Roman circus, an animal no one in Europe has seen since then... a giraffe. Or the dissertation on whether Europe remains at threat of invasion from the Mongols.

The Decline and Fall is full of telling anecdotes, and yet it always holds to a general picture. It is filled with detail and colour but never loses the reader. It is packed with events, and it offers discussion of longer trends - notably those that participated in Rome's decline and led to its eventual fall - political, religious, military, economic. And it is even more impressive when one thinks of the modern tools its author did not have at his disposal, in particular archaeological and numismatic. Approximately half of the book is dedicated to the Roman Empire proper, up to the late 5th century. This is where Gibbon is at his strongest, his research the most thorough. The rest deals with Byzantium, touching heavily on European history up to the fall of Constantinople, and has a broader sweep. His work ends with a description of Rome as it looks today (i.e. in the late 18th century).

I finished reading my copy (after several happy months) in Rome itself, in a little place with a view of the Pantheon. If you have the luck of being able to do that, you will never forget it.

Editorial Review:

British parliamentarian and soldier Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) conceived of his plan for Decline and Fall while "musing amid the ruins of the Capitol" on a visit to Rome. For the next 10 years he worked away at his great history, which traces the decadence of the late empire from the time of the Antonines and the rise of Western Christianity. "The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic memorials, pose equal difficulties to the historian, who attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration," he writes. Despite these obstacles, Decline and Fall remains a model of historical exposition, and required reading for students of European history.

Caesar: Life of a Colossus

Adrian Goldsworthy

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Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

As Adrian Goldsworthy writes in the introduction to this book, “in his fifty-six years, Caesar was at times many things, including a fugitive, prisoner, rising politician, army leader, legal advocate, rebel, dictator . . . as well as husband, father, lover and adulterer.” In this landmark biography, Goldsworthy examines all of these roles and places his subject firmly within the context of Roman society in the first century B.C.

Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of Caesar’s life from birth through assassination, Goldsworthy covers not only Caesar’s accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult, captive of pirates, seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his two main political rivals, and rebel condemned by his own country. Ultimately, Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar’s character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate some two thousand years later.

The Early Church (The Penguin History of the Church)

Henry Chadwick

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Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Concise, readable overview. 5 out of 5 stars.
17 of 18 people found this review helpful.

In very few pages, the author manages to give an excellent recap of the key events and forces which shaped church history in the first 6 centuries. He goes into enough detail, howwever, that I'll bet even avid readers of church history will still find here material previously unknown to them. His organizing the material according to topics rather than by a strict chronological order makes it particularily easy to understand how the church grappled with its' earliest issues and crises. He does not seem to hold any partisan view: he even seems to regret that Arianism did not take hold in the mainstream church!

This book can be recommended for readers at any level who wish to learn about church history.

Understand The Names You Recognize! 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

"The Early Church" provides the reader with an excellent history of the first six centuries of Christianity. Author Henry Chadwick covers structural and doctrinal development, along with the rise and fall of heresies and introductions to the leading characters of the period.

This excellent book provides an overview of so many things which casual students of Church history probably heard of but may not have really understood. From my reading of this book I have a better understanding of early heresies including Arianism (Jesus was not co-eternal with the Father), Donatism (no reconciliation with apostates) Manichaeism (a secret, gnostic type sect) and Pelagianism (denial of original sin). The role of councils, such as Nicaea, in combating heresy and guiding the development of orthodoxy is made clearer. A greater understanding of the roles of the Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Theodore of Mopsuestia, St. Jerome and St. Augustine is gained by the reader of this book.

From a theological or historical perspective this book is a treasure. One test I apply to books is whether they inspire me to study more. This one does. I am confident that it will do the same for you.

Editorial Review:

Examines the beginning of the Christian movement during the first centureis AD, and the explosive force of its expansion throughout the Roman world.