wahts a good book on ancient rome?

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― jhøshea, Saturday, 10 March 2007 20:14 (eighteen years ago)

yeah ive been watching rome and now i wanna read a book - i will not attempt to defend myself.

― jhøshea, Saturday, 10 March 2007 20:15 (eighteen years ago)

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0679423087.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_V43054406_.jpg

― m coleman, Saturday, 10 March 2007 20:21 (eighteen years ago)

The First Century by William A. Klingaman

It's not only about Rome, but it's really interesting and is a good starting point.

― Jenny, Saturday, 10 March 2007 20:26 (eighteen years ago)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e3/Carry-On-Cleo.jpg/200px-Carry-On-Cleo.jpg

― and what, Saturday, 10 March 2007 20:33 (eighteen years ago)

The History Channel special("Engineering an Empire" or something) with Peter Weller was really good.

Also, play Caesar IV.

http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/article/734/734534/caesar-iv-20060922033011163-000.jpg

― kingfish, Saturday, 10 March 2007 21:15 (eighteen years ago)

Decline and Fall is a great book, but since it's over 200 years old a lot of its historical research is inaccurate, to say the least. And it's a difficult read at times. But great. Robert Graves' Claudius novels are very enjoyable. Weirdly I haven't found many good general histories of Rome, so I hope somebody else knows of one.

― Noodle Vague, Saturday, 10 March 2007 21:19 (eighteen years ago)

in about 3 weeks i have to read this for class, will report back if it is good:

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/0801821584.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

― Maria, Saturday, 10 March 2007 21:24 (eighteen years ago)

suetonius's "the twelve caesars" is hilarious and v. v. readable (but get the robert graves translation).

i've only read a few chapters of gibbon (damn you college) but he might be the single best historian i've ever read.

― J.D., Saturday, 10 March 2007 23:56 (eighteen years ago)

"Imperium" by Robert Harris! It's all about Cicero, takes place slightly before where "Rome" starts. His "Pompeii" is great, too. Also "I, Claudius" by Robert Graves, and "Julian" by Gore Vidal.
READ ALL OF THESE, NOW!!!!!!

― Beth Parker, Sunday, 11 March 2007 00:25 (eighteen years ago)

We rewatched I, Claudius because of our Rome jones. John Hurt rocks Caligula.

― Beth Parker, Sunday, 11 March 2007 01:51 (eighteen years ago)

I'm about halfway through a seriously abridged version of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall..." and it is easily one of the best history books ever written. A lot of dry wit and just marvelously written. If you wanna go straight to the source go to Suetonius "12 Caesars" and Tacitus' "Annals and Histories". Tom Holland's recent "Crossing the Rubicon" is a great spotlight on the fall of the Republic.... myself I've grown more curious about the early days of the Republic recently, but that's not as well documented as the rise and fall of the empire.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Sunday, 11 March 2007 03:24 (eighteen years ago)

has anyone read julius caesar's own books? are they readable?

― J.D., Sunday, 11 March 2007 08:23 (eighteen years ago)

My mum read parts of'em (in Latin) and said they were GREBT. But then she's a snob about Latin and said it was best read in Latin as it *mimicked* the sound of the soldiers stomping their feet. Whatever, mom. :)

― nathalie, Sunday, 11 March 2007 09:08 (eighteen years ago)

A workmate of mine has read The Gallic Wars in translation and says they're very good.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 11 March 2007 10:48 (eighteen years ago)

A thing not often mentioned about Decline and Fall is that it is often - intentionally - hilarious, in a so-dry-you'll-miss-it kind of way.

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 11 March 2007 13:37 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, I've mentioned Gibbon's funnies elsewhere on ILX before. His opinion of the early Church is not high.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 11 March 2007 13:39 (eighteen years ago)

whatd u guys think of the gif? its pretty awesome right. although i find their inability to completely conquer the black sea kinda frustrating.

― jhøshea, Sunday, 11 March 2007 13:45 (eighteen years ago)

yeh Gibbon totally brings the roflz, especially when it comes to exposing Christian hypocrisy or credulity (his summation of the early Christian miracles of raising the dead, stopping the sun, etc. is brutally funny)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Sunday, 11 March 2007 15:42 (eighteen years ago)

Link to super-abridged version of Gibbon plz? I am never going to make it through the full version.

― Hurting 2, Sunday, 11 March 2007 16:09 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.amazon.ca/Decline-Fall-Roman-Empire/dp/0375758119/ref=sr_1_4/701-9260326-6145922?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173631124&sr=1-4

still a whopping 1,275 pages. main drawback seems to be no footnotes. Edition begins around 98 AD, so it skips a bunch of the juiciest stuff about the early, more famous Caesars (Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Claudius, Caligula, etc. - but you can get that stuff from Suetonius and Tacitus).

― Shakey Mo Collier, Sunday, 11 March 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)

I feel like I'm never going to make it thru either. I'm on Chapter 51 and it's taken me a loooong time. Probably a lot of the book after the fall of the Western Empire is missable, which I think is what many abbreviations do. Penguin Classics version is great I'm sure, it was a Penguin Classics abridgement that got me into Macaulay's History of England, which is up there with Gibbon as G.O.A.T. for me.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 11 March 2007 16:45 (eighteen years ago)

The Roman Republic, by Michael Crawford (not THAT one)

and

The Roman Empire, by Colin Wells

These are from a series of 5 books about the Ancient World that are generally the best place to start for anyone wanting to read about Ancient History. They were recommended reading for my undergrad degree.

― Roberto Spiralli, Sunday, 11 March 2007 19:39 (eighteen years ago)

I remember "The Twelve Caesars" by Michael Grant as being a pretty good general history.

― leavethecapital, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:41 (eighteen years ago)

I highly recommend Rubicon by Tom Holland. It is one of the most readable popular histories I've read in quite some time. It covers the major events since the beginning of the republic, but the brunt of it is the fall, so the careers of Juilus Caeser, Pompey, etc... are covered in some depth (for a popular history). Basically, if you want to know more about the period from the Rome TV series, it's a great place to start.

Gibbon is good, but itself now more of a historical document in some respects. Watch for the Germanic love, the trend that would run through the nineteenth century and then lead to the justification of Nazism.

The notion that the Roman Empire actually "fell" has been controversially picked up again within academic circles, and there are two very good recent books on the topic. The short The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization by Bryan Ward-Perkins is an amusing diatribe. For a more fleshed out take, check out Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History. Those two were available in Borders, so I though I'd recommend them. Seek out Walter Goffart's writings to get a wider grasp of the sides.

― Gukbe, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:10 (eighteen years ago)

I'm reading the Peter Heather book right now. The book does a good job of describing the interactions between the barbarians and the Romans. Heather points out that by the end of the western Empire the relationships between the Germanic Tribes and the Romans were so intertwined that both groups were playing each other off for control of the Empire. Romans invited Germans in as mercenaries and settlers while Germans tried to and sometimes succeeded in becoming part of the Roman military elite. By the 400's so much of the western Empire was under German control that the Empire was gone in all but name.

Also check out Barbarian Week on the History Channel.

― leavethecapital, Monday, 12 March 2007 02:15 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah. Essentially, the Romans didn't have armies, they just hired out barbarians for most of the work. The issue of fluidity in late antiquity is still hotly debated, and Heather and Ward-Perkins are sort of leading a charge at the moment that while it might not be the strict "fall" as Gibbon thought, there was still a definite point where it ceased to be the Roman Empire. I'm undecided myself, though the contemporary writings of and about Boethius give much food for thought.

Heather's book on the Goths is worth looking at as well. He gets into a lot of the ethnogenesis stuff.

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 02:37 (eighteen years ago)

how come no one give a shit abt the byzantine empire?

― jhøshea, Monday, 12 March 2007 05:26 (eighteen years ago)

I love the Byzantine Empire. Ties into my appreciation of Russian history.

I highly recommend Rubicon by Tom Holland.

Seconded. Tom Ewing liked it as well.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 12 March 2007 05:36 (eighteen years ago)

Decline and Fall is a great book, but since it's over 200 years old a lot of its historical research is inaccurate, to say the least. And it's a difficult read at times. But great.

I thought the research was unimpeachable (although Gibbon's main theories are no longer accepted).

― abanana, Monday, 12 March 2007 07:26 (eighteen years ago)

Nah, I believe Gibbon misreads texts, relies too heavily at times on unreliable authors and simply doesn't have access to information - especially archaeology - which was available to later historians. I'm not saying he wasn't brilliant; but it would be very strange if his research hadn't been superceded in 200+ years.

His interpretations, on the other hand, I find more modern and less decisive than he's sometimes given credit for. Although he nominally sets a date for the "fall" of the Empire, he continues to describe the complexity of the relationships of Barbarians and Romans in a way that seems pretty undogmatic to me.

― Noodle Vague, Monday, 12 March 2007 11:03 (eighteen years ago)

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