The Rise of Rome (Anthony Everitt, 2012)

Poor Rome. Everyone is so obsessed with how it fell that far too often nobody takes the time to explore how an obscure little village in Italy became master of the Mediterranean. In the modern world, the adjective "Roman" is far flung, be it the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire, or the Sultanate of Rum, but early Rome was extremely local. In fact, most of this book deals with Rome's struggles with the various peoples of the Italian peninsula: Celts, Etruscans, Samnites, and even the Latins who lived just a stone's throw away from the seven hills.

Everitt acknowledges that the further back you go, the murkier the record gets. Therefore the book is divided into three major parts: "Legend", "Story", and "History". For stuff like Romulus and Remus and the connections to Troy and Aeneas, consult Part 1. For the Kings of Rome and the first century or so of the Republic, Part 2 is the place to be. Even with so much of the record having been erased with time, Part 3 is the largest part of the book, covering from the 4th century (BCE) sack of Rome by the Celts to the civil wars of the first century. Everitt draws primarily on Livy, Polybius, Cassius Dio, and Appian to chronicle the Republic's history, which gravitates between nearly-endless, increasingly far-flung wars, and civil and political unrest at home.

Naturally since this is a book about the rise of Rome, the narrative shifts into breakneck speed following the Second Punic War (the one with Hannibal) and the origins of the fall. Following that war, Rome was catapulted into the greater Mediterranean theater as the fallout from ill-advised alliances with the Carthaginians brought the Romans in new conflicts with Macedonia, Syria, and other Eastern kingdoms. All of this war eventually reflected back to Rome itself as political violence eventually blossomed into full, grisly civil war. Everitt concludes with a relatively brisk sketch of the civil war between the unsavory figures of Marius and Sulla, which effectively ended the Republic. The fallout from this is quickly linked to Julius Caesar and Octavian/Augustus and the more widely-acknowledged end of the Republic. Ironically the latter would maintain he had "restored" the Republic and it wouldn't be until a few decades and a couple or three crazy and/or sadistic emperors that it was widely understood the Republic was irreversibly gone.

Needless to say, Everitt is brief with the post-Hannibal history because it is so much better handled by other published works, including his own on Cicero and Augustus. He makes it clear that the governing structures created in the late sixth century were appropriate for a city-state or small regional power, but not an entity the size of Italy or greater. Hence, the inevitable reworking of the government, from the addition of tribunes to the dictator-for-life, transforming a collaborative model between the aristocracy and the free population to one under the sway of a single man.

If you are pretty up on your Roman history, you might find this book a little bit lightweight, but the first half is worthwhile, mainly because most literature obsesses over the fall, and not the rise. And if the book whets your appetite for what's next, there are plenty of great books out that continue the tale, though they aren't particularly....uplifting.