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I want to do some reading on ancient rome. What are the best reccomendations you have?
Appareantly these 2 books are quite popular, but I'm not sure which one to go with.
Theodor Mommsens History of Rome
or
Gibbsons The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
I'm more drawn towards History of Rome, because it was released more recently, but both of these books are quite old now, so I was wondering if there are any recently released books that might contain less errors?
>>8262546
Is this your first peek into Rome? What are you hoping to get out of the venture?
Both these works are extremely long and at least partially outdated/eclipsed by modern archaeology and the rediscovery of more primary sources. That's not to say they're not valuable, but if this is your first step, it would be an extremely and perhaps overly ambitious one.
Livy's "History of Rome". A book about the history of Rome written by an actual Roman.
>>8262869
A great read for sure, but misses a ton of material. Only covers ~753-290 and 218-167.
Absolutely worth reading, and a lot of fun, but useless for anyone interested in the empire. All depends on what OP is interested in, specifically.
>>8262546
Gibbons because it is amazingly written. Churchill derived most of its use of english from the book and was fascinated by it.
>>8262924
I haven't read SPQR; do you feel that it's a decent intro? Because if so then you probably could jump into Mommsen or Gibbon if you really wanted to.
As the other anon suggested, Livy provides a great perspective on the Republic, which is a pretty important part of understanding the turmoil that led to the creation of the empire; the 1st century BC was colored by ever greater departures of what were considered "old world" morals; citizens of the late Republic and the Empire looked back on the early/mid Republic kind of the same way we now look at the whole ancient world in general: as a source of greater austerity, nobility, morality, less tainted by vice, avarice, ambition, etc.
So a bit of Livy would ground you in the Republic pretty well, or maybe some Sallust (very short works). After that you're rather free to roam. I haven't read Mommsen but from what I know about him he doesn't cover much if anything about the empire itself, let alone its fall; in that sense Gibbon would be your guy as he actually follows through to the end of the empire.
Other worthwhile primary sources to consider include: Caesar's "Civil War," Appian's "Civil Wars" (broader perspective than Caesar, also more captivating style), Suetonius' "Caesars" (brief overview of first 12 emperors), and Tacitus' "Annals" and "Histories" for a narrower but much deeper view of the early empire (14-70 AD).
Possibly also check out Syme's "Roman Revolution."
>>8262978
Yeah, SPQR was alright. It provided me with an acceptable overall introduction.
I guess I'll be going with Gibbon, as that seems to be the choice of most people.
Should I start with Gibbon, and then read Livy and other Roman sources? Or would it be better to start with those, prior to reading Gibbon?
>>8263011
Definitely read a Roman source or two first. Livy as a whole is pretty long if you're not considering him a main project, so either read his first five books ("Early History of Rome" as sold by Penguin) covering the formation of Rome, the monarchy, the early Republic, and the sack of Rome by the Gauls (~300 pages total), and/or books 21-30 ("The War with Hannibal") which is longer (~600 pages) but more fun, introduces you to some of Roman history's coolest characters, and will give you a pretty good idea of military and civil life in the Republic, as seen by a Roman of the early empire (Livy died a bit after Augustus).
Sallust (~200 pages total) would be useful to see how Roman morality had become corrupted since the third punic war (146BC), and how that was viewed by contemporaries. Very interesting and short read.
Caesar and, even more so, Appian, will contextualize the social and military creation of the empire, but neither will be quite as crucial as a work on the Republic at its peak (Livy) or on the decline of the late Republic (Sallust), and if you just want a general history you can jump straight to Gibbon.
PS try to find Gibbon used. You can get an old but unopened edition in 3-6 volumes for like $30, even cheaper than the 3 paperback volumes sold by Penguin.
Hope that helps!
>>8263044
I guess I'll read some Livy once I've finished up with SPQR, and then head onto Gibbons. Though Hannibal in particular is a subject I have a strong desire to read up on, so I might get my hands on that before I get into Gibbon.
Thanks for the reccomendations.
>>8263064
Don't take Gibbon's word on the subject as sacrosanct. He approaches the decline and fall through an ideological prism--one which believes that all Empires go through a cycle of flowering and decay. This is most explicitly revealed one of his famous concluding chapters, the 'General Observations':
>the story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring as to why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it subsisted so long.
In this chapter he goes on to argue that "despotism", "immoderate greatness", and "vain luxury" corroded the morality of the Empire--making its eventual downfall inevitable. For him republics inculcated action and virtue, autocracies encouraged decadence, corruption and inertia. Ideologically speaking, Gibbon therefore, reserved his lamentations, not for the collapse of the Empire, but for the ousting of the Senate/Republic. By the start of his analysis in 2 C.E, Rome is not only in decline, it is, in a sense, already dead.
The fact that he wrote the concluding General Observations chapter BEFORE he even began his initial research on the subject, showcases, to contemporary academia at least, that his writings on despotism and luxury as the causes for collapse were not objective conclusions reached after lengthy erudition; they were assumptions he believed he could take for granted. The fact that Gibbon, in turn, applies this cycle of decay to every subsequent Empire assessed--the Barbarian Kingdoms, the Arab Caliphates, Byzantium, and even the Mongols further highlights this ideological bias.
It should also be noted that the 'Decline and Fall' is a work that far outgrows its origins and most of his volumes are centred on post-Roman events.
Gibbon's longevity arises from his place in historiography, not from his analysis per se.
If you're seriously interested in later Roman history here a some respected academic works:
P. Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History
E.A. Thompson, Romans and barbarians: the Decline of the Western Empire
S. Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire AD 284-641
Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (lots of pictures)
Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome (a penguin history and a broad accessible sweep)
>>8263312
Yes, the book I am currently reading also mentioned that Gibbon had an idealistic approach to the whole thing. But then, most books regarding ancient Rome aren't 100% objective.
Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I'll just save this entire thread.
>>8263351
This post >>8262978 has most of what I would recc but leaves out Cassius Dio.
Requesting books on Late Roman Emperors, Julian's Gods is on my list already.
>relying on modern academics and historically biased plebs like Livy
How about you nob-jobs study some substantive history and pick up Plutarch. Remember only two things are required to be a patrician: love of the great man history theory and prioritizing Greeks over all else.
>>8263550
So, Plutarch is 100% objective and accurate?
>>8263312
In a way, isn't that comment of Gibbon's (on the inevitability of decline) very Greek/Roman in substance? Even as early as Homer "Some day Priam will perish etc." you get signs of that idea, which picks up a lot of traction in the late republic (Polybius & the Platonic tradition of anacyclosis, Africanus the Younger weeping as he watches Carthage burn, fearing similar fate for Rome).
That's not to say Gibbon should be outright accepted or commended, but it seems like someone like him sufficiently comfortable in ancient political theory and tradition would be inclined to using that theory as a legitimate starting point. It seems silly to us because it seems like a case of looking for evidence after drawing a conclusion, but in the ancient world that "conclusion" would have been (and could possibly still be) considered a universal law of man/fate/fortune/the gods, so using it as a starting point would have been totally legitimate.
Again this doesn't vindicate Gibbon and if anything highlights the break between his work and modern scholarship, but I think that it's a point well worth considering.
LIFE BUMP
