Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic |
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Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
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by Tom Holland
Sales Rank: 25464
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List Price: $15.00
$10.20
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on 8-2-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 464 pages
Published by: Anchor March 8, 2005
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 1400078970
ISBN 13 Number: 978-1400078974
Book Dimensions:
7.9 x 5.1 x 1 inches
Weighs: 15.5 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
After a palace coup demolished the reign of King Tarquin of Rome in 509 B.C., a republican government flourished, providing every human being an opportunity to participate in political life in the name of liberty. As Holland, a novelist and adapter of Herodotus' Histories for British radio, points out in this lively re-creation of the republic's rise and fall, the seeds of destruction were planted in the very soil in which the early republic flourished. It was more often members of the patrician classes who had the resources to achieve political success. Such implicit class distinctions in an ostensibly classless society also gave rise to a new group of rulers who acted like monarchs. Holland chronicles the rise to power of such leaders as Sulla Felix, Pompey, Cicero and Julius Caesar. Some of these leaders, such as Pompey, appealed to the masses by expanding the republic through military conquest; others, like Cicero, worked to reinforce class distinctions. Holland points to the suppression of the Gracchian revolution-a series of reforms in favor of the poor pushed by the Gracchus brothers in the second century B.C.-as the beginning of the end of the republic, providing the context into which Julius Caesar would step with his own attempts to save the republic. As Holland points out, Caesar actually precipitated civil wars and helped to reestablish an imperial form of government in Rome. With the skill of a good novelist, Holland weaves a rip-roaring tale of political and historical intrigue as he chronicles the lively personalities and problems that led to the end of the Roman republic. Maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Ancient history lives in this vivid chronicle of the tumultuous events that impelled Julius Caesar across the one small river that separated the Roman Republic from cataclysmic civil war. With the narrative talents that have established him as a prominent radio personality and novelist, Holland pulls readers deep into the treacherous riptide of Roman politics. To show how Caesar eventually masters that tide--if only temporarily--Holland first traces the bloody career of the ruthless dictator Sulla, who rescues an imperiled Republic even as he breaches its founding traditions. Those breaches deeply disturb the moralist Cato, but the indulgent luxury of a post-Sullan world suits Caesar well enough: a popular favorite, he sets the fashion in loose-fitting togas--and waits for his fated opening. Recounting Caesar's eventual seizure of power in pages as irresistibly cadenced as the legionnaires' march, Holland probes the tragic ironies that quickly expose the bold conqueror to idealistic assassins, who themselves soon perish in the rise of the Augustan Empire. Not a work for scrupulous scholars, but a richly resonant history for the general reader. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (Hardcover)
It is easier to pin point the ending of Tom Holland's book then its beginning - it ends with the death of Augustus in 14 AD, years after the Roman Republic has ceased to exist in anything but its name. The beginning of Holland's book, like the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic, is harder to spot. Does it start with the fall of Carthage? With the murder of reformer tribunes Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus? Or with the first clashes between Marius and Sulla? Holland tells it all, in a spellbinding narrative that is hard to put down. In just under four hundred pages, we get a short overview of the early republic, and then a focused narrative its final century. This is the story of some of history's greatest men and women, from Sulla to Cato, Pompey and Cicero and Cleopatra, and of course, Julius Caesar. It is a tale of murders and political maneuvering, honor and greed and lust. And, complicated as it all is, Holland serves as a fine guide through the intricate web of the dying republic. I think it's the power of the prose, above anything, that makes Holland's book so fascinating. It reads like a novel, probably the best written account of the Roman World I've read since Robert Graves's I, Claudius. At times, he may use anachronistic terms for the narrative ('location, location, location', or 'Mutually Assured Destruction') - but that's a misdemeanor that is easily forgivable, and some may find it charming. In the blow by blow account of the political struggles, it is sometimes hard to see a larger scheme or thesis. In as far as there is one, it is probably that the decline of the Roman Republic came through the rise of the Roman Empire. As the Romans expanded, out of Italy and into the entire Hellenistic world and beyond, its generals became increasingly rich and powerful. The armies they have raised stopped being faithful to the Republic, and shifted their loyalties to their leaders. The republic became an arena for a small number of powerful men, reducing the rest of the aristocracy to the role of near-spectators, when the best they could do was pick sides. In the introduction, Holland says that most events in the History are amenable to different interpretation, but in the text itself, there are precious few references to such instances. Holland, I think, generalizes much too much about the way 'Romans' in abstract thought, felt, or acted. His footnotes, referring exclusively to ancient sources (although his bibliography does contain much modern work) is virtually useless for anyone unless they're willing to dig into the primary sources. But at the end, that's just not that kind of a book. Holland weaves a breathtaking tapestry of characters, events, and touches of mysticism. Any flaws in the historiography are overshadowed by the triumph of storytelling.
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