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Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician

Anthony Everitt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 80 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

“All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.”
—John Adams

He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents’ sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome’s most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill all studied his example. No man has loomed larger in the political history of mankind.

In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life in these pages as a witty and cunning political operator.

Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus’ famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar’s dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and American revolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance to tyranny.

Anthony Everitt’s biography paints a caustic picture of Roman politics—where Senators were endlessly filibustering legislation, walking out, rigging the calendar and exposing one another’s sexual escapades, real or imagined, to discredit their opponents. This was a time before slander and libel laws, and the stories—about dubious pardons, campaign finance scandals, widespread corruption, buying and rigging votes, wife-swapping, and so on—make the Lewinsky affair and the U.S. Congress seem chaste.

Cicero was a wily political operator. As a lawyer, he knew no equal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotional enough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloved daughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intensely human, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome.

On Cicero:

“He taught us how to think."
—Voltaire

“I tasted the beauties of language, I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I imbibed from his precepts and examples the public and private sense of a man.”
—Edward Gibbon

“Who was Cicero: a great speaker or a demagogue?”
—Fidel Castro

The Borgias and Their Enemies: 1431-1519

Christopher Hibbert

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Editorial Review:

The first major biography of the Borgias in thirty years, Christopher Hibbert's latest history brings the family and the world they lived in—the glittering Rome of the Italian Renaissance—to life.

The name Borgia is synonymous with the corruption, nepotism, and greed that were rife in Renaissance Italy. The powerful, voracious Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI, was the central figure of the dynasty. Two of his seven papal offspring also rose to power and fame—Lucrezia Borgia, his daughter, whose husband was famously murdered by her brother, and that brother, Cesare, who served as the model for Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince. Notorious for seizing power, wealth, land, and titles through bribery, marriage, and murder, the dynasty's dramatic rise from its Spanish roots to its occupation of the highest position in Renaissance society forms a gripping tale.

Erudite, witty, and always insightful, Hibbert removes the layers of myth around the Borgia family and creates a portrait alive with his superb sense of character and place.

Under the Eagle: A Tale of Military Adventure and Reckless Heroism with the Roman Legions

Simon Scarrow

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Dialogue Problems 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I'll admit to being spoiled by Bernard Cornwell and Patrick O'Brian and I also admit to liking these novels enough to be reading the 3rd one right now, but I have to warn those about to embark on this series about one thing. Scarrow's Romans talk like modern middle-class Englishmen. You get caught up in the action and along comes dialogue full of "lads", "blokes", "blimey", "bloody", "have a go" and on and on. It just kind of gets in the way; breaks the spell. That said, I do enjoy the stories and hope that the history I'm learning is more accurate than the dialogue. As I said, I'm only on the 3rd book, so perhaps he's learned by now or somebody's told him. I hope so because there is a lot to like about these novels.

Editorial Review:

It is the year 42 AD, and Centurion Macro, battle-scarred and fearless, is in the heart of Germany with the Second Legion, the toughest in the Roman army. Cato, a new recruit and the newly appointed second-in-command to Macro, will have more to prove than most. In a bloody skirmish with local tribes, Cato gets his first chance to prove that he's more than a callow, privileged youth. As their next campaign takes them to a land of unparalleled barbarity - Britain - a special mission unfolds, thrusting Cato and Macro headlong into a conspiracy that threatens to topple the Emperor himself.

Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples

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A sumptuous survey of life and art in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the surrounding towns before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, published in association with the National Gallery of Art.

From the second century BC onward, prominent Romans retreated to their villas around the Bay of Naples, a popular vacation spot for relaxation and relief from the pressures of business. The picturesque bay provided an ideal setting in which to read and write, exercise, enjoy the gardens, admire the views, and entertain friends.

Julius Caesar, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero all built seaside villas in Baiae, and the emperor Augustus vacationed in Sorrento, Capri, and Posillipo. The richly decorated imperial villas set high artistic standards in the region, and the sculptors and painters whom the emperors employed found clients among the urban and suburban elite in Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The magnificent contents of these sumptuously appointed villas and townhouses are the subject of Pompeii and the Roman Villa, and with them the breadth and richness of cultural and artistic life that thrived around the Bay of Naples before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. An international team of experts, led by Carol C. Mattusch, examines this exquisite body of ancient Roman art, complemented by more than 200 lavish illustrations of paintings, sculpture, mosaics, frescoes, jewelry, glass, and more.

With contributions by Mary Beard, Bettina Bergmann, Stefano De Caro, Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, Kenneth Lapatin, and Carol C. Mattusch. 250 illustrations, 200 in color.

The Lost Painting

Jonathan Harr

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.

The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn’t alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.

Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others–no one knows the precise number–have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.

Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ–its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.

Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. The fascinating details of Caravaggio’s strange, turbulent career and the astonishing beauty of his work come to life in these pages. Harr’s account is not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and enthralling.
". . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, A Civil Action, was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy? The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not inconsiderable." --The New York Times Book Review


"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read." --The Economist


From the Hardcover edition.

The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller

Carlo Ginzburg

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Nonsense Book with No Evidence and Weak Logic 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The Cheese and the Worms has got to be the most ridiculously over-rated academic work of history of the past 3 decades. The author's central argument of the existence of an essentially unchanged Indo-European folk culture that spans both millenia and continents is both completely lacking in evidence and, from a theoretical view, patently ridiculous.

You can't simply sit down and find vague similarities between what a 16th century miller says and what some guy 2000 years earlier said in India and then, without any evidence or even a compelling argument of how the expressed ideas would have been transmitted, claim that this is proof positive that a substrata of Indo-European popular culture formed the predominant mentalite of most of the population of Europe throughout the latter ancient, medieval, and early modern periods. That's nonsense.

Besides the obvious paucity of evidence, the author has a seriously deficient understanding of how popular culture works. Popular culture, whether modern or ancient, is simply NOT static over millenia of time and over thousands of miles of geography. Did premodern popular culture evolve more slowly than culture today? Yes, it probably did, and it also long retained certain features (particularly features tied to technology constraints and the natural world) -- but it did change. In fact, careful historical analysis of popular culture during the early modern period, based on extensive use of archival material, has shown that pre-modern popular culture actually seems to evolve quite a bit more quickly than was previously thought. The notion of an unchanging rural European culture, developed by late 19th century intellectuals, simply doesn't hold up when confronted with the actual evidence. Economic patterns change, elements of elite culture sift down and are adopted/incorporated by the populace, different foods are introduced, marriage and family patterns shift, devotional practices evolve, and so on -- and here I am talking only of diachronic issues, let alone geographic diversity.

One cannot simply do as Ginzburg has done and find some aspect of early modern European popular culture and then, with no evidence whatsoever to support one's supposition, assume that this feature extends indefinately into the medieval past. When thinking about history, it is always of great importance never to assume that trends move in a straight progression -- they don't, they go up and down and this way and that. Heresy is a great example. There is always a certain amount of popular heresy present in medieval Europe, but the nature of the beliefs, the organization of the heretics, their geographic foci, etc. all changes over time.

The Cheese and the Worms was a success because it fit the Baby Boom generation of academics anti-hierarchical ideology, not because it was good scholarship. There was an element of that generation that wanted to believe that the 'true' popular culture of Europe had nothing to do with the church or literature or anything else. Instead, they wanted to believe that the 'true' culture consisted of some eternal Indo-European folkloric belief system and that peasants merely gave superficial lip service to the 'impositions' of the elites (Christian faith in particular). The Cheese and the Worms told them what they already wanted to believe, so they believed it.

If you want a book on medieval popular culture that A) was written by someone with both intelligence and common sense and B) actually has genuine evidence for what the author claims (imagine that!), read Medieval Popular Culture, by Aron Gurevich. Giovanni and Lusanna by Gene Brucker is also a good, light little book that provides a window into the culture of Renaissance townsfolk in Italy.

Don't waste your time with Ginzburg. He's not an historian -- he's an idealogue.

Editorial Review:

A survey of popular culture in 16th century Italy.

The Eagle's Conquest: A Novel

Simon Scarrow

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Thrilling read, a page-turner 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Very fast read, it's very difficult to stop reading Simon Scarrow's books. The characters are interesting, especially the "secondary" Vespasian, he's the most believable of the lot; the suspicions about his wife's loyalty, her past, and how it affects his personal and love life. Obviously our heroes Macro and Cato are vey likeable. One of the major merits of this author is that the characters ARE Romans, with the sense of superiority, civilizing force in this world and the might makes right way of thinking that characterized that culture. They are not the typical hollywoodian Heroe with no "flaws" and anachronistic way of thinking. Obviously there are some expressions and actions that wouldn't be said or done in the ancient world, but that's a way that the author uses to be understood by the modern audience (I really don't understand the reviewers that criticize authors on this matter; NO AUTHOR USES THE EXPRESSIONS OR PHRASE CONSTRUCTION THAT THE ROMANS USED!!!), I really believe the substance rules over form. Naturally some completely anachronic terminology should be avoided. There are some "less good" things in this book: Emperor Claudius may not be the wise hero of "I Claudius", but I really doubt he was a complete idiotic buffoon. The Britons are also shown like the hardest bunch, strange how they were defeated so easily (and the romans always praised valorous adversaries - more glory to the victors); and the use of captured ballistas by the britons in the last battle and using them to hit elephants (!!!) is completely silly; war machines were't easy to use, untrained troops couldn't use them even seeing them being used frequently; how could Britons use them so efficiently seeing them almost for the first time??? All in all it's a good read, with a easy to hate, but smart, villain and a fast paced military and cloack and dagger plot (although a bit deus ex machina). Four Stars.

Editorial Review:

When Centurion Macro and his young subordinate, Optio Cato arrive on the shores of Britain to take part in the Emperor Claudius' invasion in AD 43, Macro knows the desperately outnumbered Roman army will be facing one of the toughest campaigns ever. Meanwhile, a sinister organization is secretly betraying the brave men of the legions. When assassination rumors coincide with the Emperor's arrival, the soldiers realize they are up against a force more ruthless than the Britons, and that time is running out if they are to prevent Claudius's glorious victory from turning to disaster.

Murder of a Medici Princess

Caroline P. Murphy

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Murder of a Medici Princess, Caroline Murphy illuminates the brilliant life and tragic death of Isabella de Medici, one of the brightest stars in the dazzling world of Renaissance Italy, the daughter of Duke Cosimo I, ruler of Florence and Tuscany.
Murphy is a superb storyteller, and her fast-paced narrative captures the intrigue, the scandal, the romantic affairs, and the violence that were commonplace in the Florentine court. She brings to life an extraordinary woman, fluent in five languages, a free-spirited patron of the arts, a daredevil, a practical joker, and a passionate lover. Isabella, in fact, conducted numerous affairs, including a ten-year relationship with the cousin of her violent and possessive husband. Her permissive lifestyle, however, came to an end upon the death of her father, who was succeeded by her disapproving older brother Francesco. Considering Isabella's ways to be licentious and a disgrace upon the family, he permitted her increasingly enraged husband to murder her in a remote Medici villa. To tell this dramatic story, Murphy draws on a vast trove of newly discovered and unpublished documents, ranging from Isabella's own letters, to the loose-tongued dispatches of ambassadors to Florence, to contemporary descriptions of the opulent parties and balls, salons and hunts in which Isabella and her associates participated. Murphy resurrects the exciting atmosphere of Renaissance Florence, weaving Isabella's beloved city into her story, evoking the intellectual and artistic community that thrived during her time. Palaces and gardens in the city become places of creativity and intrigue, sites of seduction, and grounds for betrayal.
Here then is a narrative of compelling and epic proportions, magnificent and alluring, decadent and ultimately tragic.

The Rommel Papers (Da Capo Paperback)

Erwin Rommel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

rommel papers 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

great book written from the surviving papers after his death there would have been more but a lot of his stuff was taken by the Nazis, and much more was lost to the US Army but his wife and son saved some and from this B.H. LIDDELL-HART was with the help of the wife and son to put his great skill as a battlefield commander in a new light A must read for any student of WWII also checkout ATTACKS by Rommel this book is about his time as a young lieutenant in WW I

Editorial Review:

When Erwin Rommel died—by forced suicide at Hitler’s command—he left behind in various ingenious hiding places the papers that recorded the story of his dramatic career and the exact details of his masterly campaigns. It was his custom to dictate each evening a running narrative of the day’s events and, after each battle, to summarize its course and the lessons to be learned from it. He wrote, almost daily, intimate and outspoken letters to his wife in which his private feelings and—after the tide had turned—forebodings found expression. To this is added by Rommel’s son Manfred the story of the field marshall’s last weeks and the final day when he was given the choice of an honorable suicide or an ignominious trial for treason. An engrossing human document and a rare look at the mind of the ”Desert Fox,” The Rommel Papers throws an interesting light on the Axis alliance and on the inner workings of Hitler’s high command.