Societal Collapse in the Roman Republic: a reading list

Aha, so they could not keep it. Apropos of nothing, please read the following texts:

Latin

The Latin could be much larger. Note, I have not included anything from our friend Nepos.

• Suetonius’ Lives (Augustus, Caesar)
• Sallust (yes, all)
• Cicero (pay attention!)
  • Speeches
    • In Verrem 1
    • In Catilinam 1
    • De Imperio Cn. Pompei (!!)
    • De Lege Agraria           (!!!)
    • Probably some of the Philippics but I cba
  • Letters (sorry Petrarch)
    • ad Att. 2.1, 3.15, 4.5, 7.1 (!!), 8.11, 9.10, 11.6, 14.1
    • ad Fam. 10.28, 11.6, 12.5
• Caesar Civil War (actually all we have of Caesar is good)

Greek

Genuinely pains me how little Greek I am referencing, but ok!

• Plutarch’s Lives (All the lives you think pertinent to the late Republic but, importantly, the Gracchi and Sulla).
• Appian the section of his work known as The Civil Wars in English.
• Absolutely zero Cassius Dio. Every book of his read deleted something else from this list.
• BONUS BILINGUAL: res gestae divi Augusti. The first handful of paragraphs.

English (secondary reading)

I am to keep this as light, therefore as cheap, as possible. Nothing that will incept a idea into you. Instead, anticipate and speed up those conclusions you are like to reach yourself. I have limited the recommendations to a) books; b) published in English. There is much good to be found in the European vernaculars and on JSTOR. As always, please feel free to add your suggestions.

There may be some cross-over with the previous list on ancient history, or at least the supposition that readers will be more than passingly familiar with the ideas therein.

As always, the entire contents of modern publishing houses are not worth a single page of Latin or Greek. If time poor, you know what to read.

• Scullard The Gracchi to Nero. (only the early sections).
• Syme The Roman Revolution (ignore the stuff on culture).
• Brunt The Fall of the Roman Republic (essays).
• Brunt Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic (vital)
  • Actually a lot of his stuff would work here.
• Party Politics in the Age of Caesar (I can’t recall who wrote it).

Will this list be a tincture against the takes? Especially from those living it large on the public purse, termiting our tax funded institutions? No, of course not. But it might help sharpen your own mind. Clarify your own ideas. Note, I have consciously tried to limit my engage with the Roman Republic on here because, as fascinating as it is, it is a period wet with a fucking deluge of takes from those unable to translate a generously adapted unseen. There were dynamics at play at the collapse that we often ignore or are unused to examining, e.g how interlocked the key players were.

Years ago, when I first started, I do not think I would have gone in for so mundane a parallel. I used to think they cheapened study of the ancient sources and that their complexity was such as to render any comparison pointless. Such parallel thinking, despite a hoary antiquity (thanks Plutarch!) seemed to me little better than the kinds of parlour games played by bloodless, simpering, caricatures of middle class characters. Already, I find myself wishing I had my copy of Finley’s Use and Abuse of History to hand and the foresight to have written a whole post on the validity of ancient/modern comparisons. Anyway. What changed my mind? Two things , mainly.

The fact that the same professors castigating any members of the laity for doing so were always quick to offer their own opinions or to support those of their friends/colleagues made me quickly realise that these academics cared but little for truth. It’s always in vs out group, always status. How tiresome. Secondly, all study should have some utility. Do not listen to people who have spent their entire lives from the age of five in school, have never felt the pressure to produce, perform, or improve anything in a meaningful way. We peasants are working people, and we would do well to remember that. We certainly should not be larping as 18th century aristocrats. Utility is not always a dirty word. It is certainly not a synonym for (economic) productivity.

Get ready for the takes. You shan’t be hiring mine (for I do not have one), but you can at least use Latin and Greek to inoculate yourself against the most obnoxious of the forthcoming.