Roman Republics
There was no single Roman Republic, only a sequence of them, each breaking under pressures the last had not faced.
Flower’s short and combative book argues that there was never one Roman Republic. There were several, each a distinct constitutional settlement that answered the pressures of its moment and then broke under new ones. The familiar story of a stable order that suddenly collapsed in the first century BC is, on her account, an artefact of how the sources were written. Periodisation sounds dry; here it rewrites what the fall of the Republic even means.
Recommended by 1 Person
Adrienne Mayor
Flower has a really original and striking interpretation of Roman history, and she explains it very clearly in this short book. Her thesis is that the Roman Republic is not a single, monolithic power from the very beginning, and then 450 years later it suddenly crumbles and falls to pieces in the first century BC.
Interview · May 2010
As an Amazon Associate, bookstoread.org earns from qualifying purchases. Links to Amazon on this page may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Spotted an error on this page? Tell us and we will fix it.