I’ve done a lot of reading and studied the period of Rome from the fall of the Republic through to the end of the reign of Domitian. I’d like to expand my knowledge on the era that came before all this, i.e. the Roman Republic, it’s formation, the Punic Wars right down to the Gracchi brothers and the rise of Marius and Sulla and a little bit beyond.
Can anyone please recommend some good history books that cover this period of Roman history? I’ve googled it a bit and come up with the following 3 (in no particular order). If anyone can recommend any of these or other texts I would be very grateful. Thanks.
The Beginnings of Rome: Italy from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars by Tim Cornell
(If you haven’t listened to it, also listen to his whole free podcast The history of Rome, which covers this period in detail: he said in one of the episodes that he created the podcast to spend more time studying the periods of Roman history before the most well-known period.)
If you go to any large library or bookstore, there should be a whole range of books covering this period in the Roman history section.
If you’re going to read a book about early Rome I would highly recommend A Critical History of Early Rome by Gary Forsythe, which runs through the conquest of Italy and up to the Punic Wars. There’s also a short book called Roman Republics by Harriet Flower that might be a good introduction because it helps you break down a huge time period into manageable pieces. If you want something more fun and exciting then just read lots of Livy!
I have heard of the Gary Forsythe one but not the Harriet Flower one. Of course Livy is wonderful too and I have read a lot of him as well :). I was just after some more modern analyses of this period so was on the hunt for these. Thank you for the suggestions!
I recommend Tim Cornell, The beginnings of Rome : Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC). Routledge history of the ancient world. London: Routledge, 1995. There is a review here https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1997/1997.03.26/
Indeed your best strategy is to run some searches on the reviews at Bryn Mawr Classical Review and see what appeals.
It’s so difficult recommending books because what is appropriate depends on your level of knowledge and interests. In general older books can become outdated because of later work and they also reveal much about the preoccupations of the times in which the author lived. Nonetheless they can be insightful and are often, like Syme and Mommsen, good literature.
It sounds like you should be making recommendations to us based on your reading.
Thanks! I’ve never seen this. This is actually Forsythe’s review of Cornell’s book. It seemed to me the main difference was that Cornell accepted more of the literary tradition and Forsythe was more skeptical about it, but I thought both were very good. And if anybody is ever overwhelmed by Greek and Latin remember that Forsythe learned them when he was blind! I’d love to hear an interview about that. I heard that his wife used to transcribe material he needed into braille, but I wonder what it was like in the earliest stages.
I agree completely. I love reading old scholarship. Some of these guys were great stylists, and even when they’ve been outdated by archaeology and epigraphy, they often knew the languages so well and read so widely that they have a lot to teach us. I want to read through all of Grote’s Greek history someday.
You might be interested in this review of Forsythe’s book https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2005/2005.08.40/ which concludes
“To sum up: this is very informative study, combining personal expertise on the literary sources with widespread knowledge of data from archaeological discoveries. An example of F.’s ability is indeed the intuition that the physical remains found beneath the temple of Victory are those of the consul P. Decius Mus, who had sacrificed himself during the battle of Sentinum (p. 333). Nonetheless F.’s book seems to be overly prejudiced against the credibility of Rome’s historical tradition, in which literacy seems to have played a part from the beginning.”
This is an argument which is not confined to the early period of Roman history see T. P. Wiseman, The house of Augustus: a historical detective story. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019 - a great read.
Thanks! I have seen that one before. I don’t think we can discard the literary traditions so quickly, and I’ve often found myself defending them against archaeologist friends who are extreme skeptics, but on the other hand it’s really useful to have these skeptical approaches to remind us about the nature of our sources. I think it might be a good idea for people start with these skeptical approaches, in fact, and then keep it in mind as they read the primary sources and more traditional modern histories. In this case, I personally found Forsythe’s arguments more convincing a lot of the time, and it’s one of my favorite books about Roman history, but it’s not something I know a lot about, so I don’t have very strong opinions.