>>5341 (OP)

>По Риму интересуют больше всего периоды Второй Пунической (в т. ч. личность и деятельность Ганнибала) и Золотого века Римской империи (от Нервы до Коммода, т.е. правление Антонинов). Никаких Дионов Кассиев, Жизнеописаниев Августов и Аврелиев Викторов; только научная литература.

Regal and Early/Middle Republican Periods (753-201 BC)
Ancient sources
Plutarch Primary Source: Plutarch’s Parallel Lives compare famous Romans of the republican period with Greek counterparts. He includes well known figures such as Romulus, Caesar, Pompey, Sulla and Cicero, as well as those who are more obscure, at least to most modern readers. As biographies they focus on the personality and moral character of their subjects as much as their military and political activities (although Plutarch is more ‘historical’ in his style than Suetonius), with the aim of providing lessons for the audience to follow. Modern editions usually publish selections rather than the full collection, often chosen thematically: Oxford World Classics Roman Lives, Penguin’s Plutarch series. - u/bigfridge224
Livy Primary Source: The great Latin narrative history. Only a minority of Livy’s titanic 142 book history survive, but the Periochae, a collection of summaries of each book, of variable quality, do survive for all 142 books (except 136 and 137) and are available online. Livy’s narrative, especially for the earliest period, is extremely problematic and more reflective in many ways of his contemporary Augustan society (for which he is of immense use), but nonetheless Livy is the Roman narrative historian, and the information he gives about the middle Republic is, alongside Polybius’ equally problematic account, vital.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus Primary Source: Dionysius was a Greek who came from Halicarnassus, modern Turkey, and made his career as a teacher and author in Rome under Augustus. His most important work was the Rhōmaïkḕ Arkhaiología, “Roman Antiquities”, which covered the history of Rome from the mythical foundation to the First Punic War. Of the original twenty books, the first nine have survived in their entirety, three others nearly complete and the rest in fragments. His work has a very pro-Roman ethos, often to an absurd degree, and one of his main aims was to show-off his rhetorical flourish; nevertheless, Roman Antiquities is one of our most important literary sources to the Archaic Rome and how Romans of the Augustan era understood their own early history. The 1937 Loeb English translation is available online. - /u/mythoplokos
Historical overviews
The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars by Timothy Cornell (1994; 9781136754951) Entry-Level Overview/General: This is absolutely the best introduction to the early history of Rome, carefully synthesising the incredibly difficult archaeological and literary evidence for the period. Cornell illuminates the origins of the city of Rome in the murky depths of its legendary past, carefully explaining the developments of the various social, military and political institutions that would become the foundations of Roman success in later periods. If there are any criticisms, it is that Cornell is perhaps a bit too trusting of some of the literary evidence. Nevertheless, this book is essential reading for anyone new to studying the early history of Rome. - /u/bigfridge224
A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War by Gary Forsythe (2005; ISBN 9780520249912) Entry-Level Overview/General - Clearly written and admirably knowledgeable survey of the history of Early Rome, covering all the major events, trends and debates of the period. It makes a good counterpart to Cornell’s The Beginnings of Rome, because whereas Cornell might be somewhat too trustful of ancient sources, Forsythe, as his chosen title suggests, is deeply critical and does not believe that the ancient authors had much capacity or desire to record historical facts about their distant past. Forsythe does take this scepticism to the extremes sometimes, and the truth is probably somewhere between Cornell and Forsythe. The contrast between them well illustrates how fraught with difficulties and academic disputes the study of Early Rome is. - /u/mythoplokos
Appius Claudius Caecus: La République accomplie by Michel Humm (2005; ISBN 9782728306824) Intermediate Overview/General - Unfortunately, as of yet Michel Humm’s excellent book has not been translated to English. Although, as the title suggests, Humm chooses Appius Claudius Caecus “The Blind” (c. 340 BC – after 280 BC), arguably the first Roman statesman whom we can truly historically “know” with some detail, as the main protagonist of his book, this is hardly a biography. Humm treats the cultural, social, and economic spheres to illuminate how the Republican society and state functioned during perhaps their most formative period. Humm covers everything from military to public construction, from elite culture to the shaping of new Roman identity. This is not a chronological overview, but the book consists of twelve thematic chapters. One of the more central arguments here is that the Mid-Republican Rome was not an isolated island of Romanness in the Mediterranean, but that Rome was deeply influenced by the surrounding, mainly Greek, cultures from early on. Some of Humm’s arguments should be taken with a grain of salt (such as how central he believes Pythagoreanism was to Roman elite culture and politics), but this is an original and ambitious book that treats the period in a more multifaceted manner than most. The book is available for free from the publisher online - /u/mythoplokos
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015; ISBN 978-1846683800) Entry-Level - A very accessible overview of Roman history, written by a very well-respected scholar of especially the Republican period. Beard’s chapters on the early history of Rome show a useful approach to using the problematic literary and mythological sources, treating them primarily as evidence for later Romans’ attitudes towards their own origins. She is explicit about what we can say securely and what is more fragile inference from the literary tradition, and useful to see how this material can be successfully handled. -/u/UndercoverClassicist
Political institutions
Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders edited by Kurt Raaflaub (2004; 9781405100618)IntermediatePolitical: this edited volume includes chapters by the leading scholars on the early republic, and deals with some of the most difficult issues in the history of this period. Later Romans knew that their early history was marked by social conflicts between ‘patricians’ - a tight core of noble families - and ‘plebeians’ - essentially everyone else. Unfortunately no contemporary evidence exists for these struggles, so modern scholarship has found it incredibly difficult to piece together what actually happened. To add extra importance, most of the political and social institutions that would define Rome for the rest of its history have their origins in this period. Raaflaub’s volume is the most respected, and although the contributions do not create a cohesive, unified picture, there is value in appreciating the wide variety of interpretations that can be drawn from such scant material. The book is probably a bit challenging for general readers. - /u/bigfridge224
Public Office in Early Rome: Ritual Procedure and Political Practice by Roberta Stewart (1998; ISBN 9780472034376) Advanced Political Religious - Stewart’s excellent book addresses the difficult question of the interplay between and evolution of religious and political authority in the early Republic, c. 5th to 3rd centuries BCE. Unfortunately, the book is not really for beginners, as Stewart expects a certain level of knowledge of the wider themes of the period, terminology, and ancient languages, and the arguments themselves, although presented in an erudite manner, are deeply complex. However, if one sets out to untangle them, the results are very rewarding. - /u/mythoplokos
Religion
Religions of Rome, Vol. 1: A History and Vol. 2: A Sourcebook by Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price (1998; ISBN 9780521316828 and 9780521456463) Entry-Level Religious - This two-volume monolith by three great Cambridge historians is really still the synthesis of Roman religion. The first volume covers over 1000 years of history of Roman religion, from the earliest Rome up to the age of Christian emperors in the 5th c. AD, and the second volume is a richly illustrated sourcebook for both archaeological and translated literary sources to the study of Roman religion. The book covers all the major institutions, cults, festivals, and regional variations, but what really makes it excellent is that throughout it pays attention to the more difficult theoretical and societal questions: what is and is not religion in Rome, how intertwined political and religious authority were, how did the religion of the Capital interact with the local cults in the provinces. At the time, the book set out to abolish many older views of how we understood Roman religion and introduced lots of fresh ideas, many of which have become more or less canon. /u/mythoplokos
Pantheon: A New History of Roman Religion by Jörg Rüpke (2018; ISBN 978-0691156835) Intermediate Religious - seems set to become ‘the standard’ on Roman religion - takes a long-view look at Roman religion from the 8th century BC through to Late Antiquity, emphasising the shift from a ‘religion’ as a set of rituals you did to being a community to which you might belong. In his chapters on the early period, Rüpke is particularly good at showing the differences between early religion and the more formalised, Greek-influenced beliefs and practices from the better-studied Classical period, drawing attention in particular to the multiplicity of ‘actors whose existence was not without doubt’, to the local nature of religious belief, and the limited extent to which these practices formed a unified, coherent system - /u/UndercoverClassicist
Divine Institutions: Religions and Community in the Middle Roman Republic by Dan-el Padilla Peralta (2020; ISBN 9780691168678) [Advanced] - This book frames the social changes of the Middle Republic around religion, using archaeological remains and other methods to show how the increase in temples in this period helped shape festival, civic, and pilgrimage practices. - /u/LuckyOwl14
Culture, Art, and Architecture
Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture by Axel Boethius (1978; ISBN 9780300052909) Intermediate Cultural: A slightly dated, but still valuable, survey of the beginnings of Roman architecture. Since the remains of early Rome are so scanty (recent finds around Sant’Omobono and in the Roman Forum notwithstanding), more than half of the book is devoted to the Etruscans. The rest provides a briskly-paced overview of architecture in and around the city of Rome through the Second Punic War. - /u/toldinstone
Society
Romulus’ Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian by Emma Dench (2005; 9780198150510) Intermediate Social: Dench examines later uses of Rome’s foundation myths in the construction of Roman identity, in terms of the paradox between, on one hand, the Roman’s inclusivity of new people and, on the other, their sense of shared ethnic roots and common descent. As the title of the book suggests, her analysis goes far beyond the Regal and early republican periods, but nevertheless this is an important study for how later Romans thought about their own origins. - /u/bigfridge224
Economy
Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy by Seth Bernard (2018; ISBN 9780190878788) Intermediate Economic - Seth Bernard excels in illuminating how ancient economies cannot be studied just as numbers and markets, but in their complex social and cultural contexts. Bernard studies here the development of early Roman urbanism from 396 to 168 BCE, and his study covers slavery, conquest, public construction, market exchange, the adoption of coinage, demography, elite values and many other factors that brought forth the birth of Roman cities. The book handles confidently abundant literary, archaeological, and epigraphic material. - /u/mythoplokos
Military
Roman Colonization Under the Republic by Edward Salmon (1969; ISBN 9780801405471) Intermediate Military: an old book now, but still the basic survey of how the Romans colonized Italy from the fourth century BC onwards. Salmon discusses how and why Roman motivations for colonization changed across the period, and covers the longer-term consequences. - /u/bigfridge224

>>5341 (OP)
The Late Republic (200 - 27 BC)
Ancient sources
Appian Primary Source: Cassius Dio also includes a narrative of the late Republic, and one can be pieced together from Plutarch, but Appian’s is probably the most important (surviving!) Imperial Period narrative history of the late Republic. The Foreign Wars and especially the Civil Wars provide for us one of the most well developed narratives of the late Republic. Book 1 of the Civil Wars in particular is the only surviving comprehensive narrative history of the latter half of the second century B.C. and the beginning of the first.
Cicero Primary Source: Cicero is, beyond question, the most important contemporary source for Rome in the first century B.C., and he is also the most prolific surviving Latin prose author. His speeches and letters (of which there are over 900) are the most important for the historian interested in dates and events, but his philosophical works provide crucial information for understanding how an educated (if hardly “average”) Roman who thought a great deal about the operation of the state conceived of Roman institutions and the role of public rhetoric.
Plutarch Primary Source: Plutarch’s Parallel Lives compare famous Romans of the republican period with Greek counterparts. He includes well known figures such as Romulus, Caesar, Pompey, Sulla and Cicero, as well as those who are more obscure, at least to most modern readers. As biographies they focus on the personality and moral character of their subjects as much as their military and political activities (although Plutarch is more ‘historical’ in his style than Suetonius), with the aim of providing lessons for the audience to follow. Modern editions usually publish selections rather than the full collection, often chosen thematically: Oxford World Classics Roman Lives, Penguin’s Plutarch series. - u/bigfridge224
Polybius, The Histories Primary Source: One of the most enlightening and influential ancient works of history, that has done much to form modern opinions of the Roman Republic in general and the Roman army in particular. Polybius wrote for a Greek audience and his (stated) primary purpose was to explain how this insignificant Italian people had come to rule most of the known world in just a few generations. He made a very credible attempt at this, helped in no small part by his access to the Scipio clan and by writing about a period not long before his own lifetime. Polybius is not a writer with a great sense of style or patience for poetic license, but rather hard-nosed in his pursuit of the truth and preferring stark, mechanistic explanations to more nebulous appeals to morals, virtue or national spirit like Livy sometimes does. This, together with his very entertaining rants against his fellow historians, can seduce the modern reader into thinking him more rational and clear-sighted than his contemporaries. This should be avoided. Polybius has many biases, both because of his close association with the Cornelii Scipiones and because of his own mindset and should be read with the same amount of care and scepticism as any other ancient historian. That said, though sometimes dry, his work remains one of our best sources on the Roman Republic and the Punic Wars. - u/iguana-on-a-stick
Historical overviews
The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 9: The Last Age of the Roman Republic 143-43 BC, 2nd Edition Edited by J. A. Crook, Andrew Lintott and Elizabeth Rawson (1994; 9780521256032) despite the huge price tag ($200+!) this is still the best overview of the period. It has both a chronological narrative of the events, as well as thematic chapters covering a massive range of topics. All the contributors are (or were) leading scholars in the field and it has extensive bibliographies for further reading. Check your local library for this one. - u/bigfridge224
Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: A Companion to the Roman Republic Edited by Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein-Marx(2007;978-1-4443-3414-5) Compared with the CAH, this is a much more affordable ($50 in paperback) and more recent overview of the Republic in a similar academic vein, with many excellent chapters on thematic topics as well as the usual high-level overviews. Many chapters are quite accessible for an academic work. Frankly, I wish this book had been available when I was an undergraduate.- u/iguana-on-a-stick
The Last Generation of the Roman Republic by Erich S. Gruen (1974 [with a few reprints]; ISBN 9780520022386) Intermediate Political - It can be very difficult to keep track of who’s who in the Late Republican Politics, and Gruen is my go-to tome for getting all the Messalli and Metelli and Severii straight (it really doesn’t help that Roman elites across generations and relatives have identical names). Gruen outlines the rather narrow, but decisively formative, time period: the last decades of the Roman Republic from the aftermath of the Civil War between Sulla and Marius to the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey. He thoroughly introduces all the key players and their backgrounds, and does an expert job in untangling from Cicero’s letters and other sources how the confusing political culture worked, from alliances to marriages, from military campaigns to corruption, from personal greed to the search for the Greater Good. The prose fluctuates between entertaining and a bit dry, and it can be cumbersome to keep track of all the different legislations and trials etc., but this is a very solid book for anyone wanting to understand the political and historical developments that led to the dissolution of the Republic. - /u/mythoplokos
Political institutions
Politics in the Roman Republic by Henrik Mouritsen (2017; ISBN 9781107651333) Political: Cheap, concise (only 172 pages!), and by one of the most important current scholars in the field of late Republican political history. Mouritsen builds on his seminal 2001 Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic in offering a reading of Republican politics that breaks from the long-dead “frozen waste” theory of aristocratic clans mustering clients in electoral coalitions but that still attempts to relegate popular participation in politics to a fairly insignificant role. An easy read, but very controversial.
Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Republic by Robert Morstein-Marx (2008; ISBN 9780521823272) Political: Morstein-Marx, a leading member of the school of thought opposed to Mouritsen’s view of Republican politics as largely excluding popular participation, responds to Plebs and Politics. Morstein-Marx analyzes mainly the contio, a Roman institution of public speeches (a bit like a modern political rally) that for decades has been recognized as a cornerstone of Republican politics but which was previously poorly understood, for indications as to the place of public oratory and the way that the Republic was formed in public rhetoric. Morstein-Marx and Mouritsen are best read together, and weighed against each other, along with the narrative of the late Republic as presented in the Cambridge Ancient History
Reconstructing the Roman Republic: An Ancient Political Culture and Modern Research by Karl-Joakim Hölkeskamp (2010 [translation from a 2004 German original, revised and updated]; ISBN 978-1-4008-3490-7) Advanced Political: For all those who love nothing more than trips into the thickest theoretical forests and bitter academic disputes, with chapter titles like “From Structures to Concepts, Problems of (Self-) Conceptualization of an Alien Society” (aren’t you excited already!). Many of the Hölkeskampian main theses, and those of the previous scholars that he responds to here, are summarised in a more approachable form in the above books, so this is for those who want to go DEEP. Hölkeskamp is a long-standing titan of Roman Republican studies, and here he puts his long expertise and very original mind into answering questions like how did the Republic work, who had the power in the Republic, what did political authority mean in the Republic, with the help of sociological theories. The other important theme is his commentary (and largely, criticism) of previous scholarly work in the area. Hölkeskamp can be unnecessarily vicious towards his colleagues, especially towards the late Fergus Millar, whose 1996 monograph The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic renewed the challenge to the consensus that Roman Republic was in practice an oligarchy, where the People had little power. Regardless, a thought-provoking and exciting book. /u/mythoplokos
Roman Voting Assemblies from the Hannibalic War to the Dictatorship of Caesar by Lily Ross Taylor (1966; ISBN 978-0472081257) Political: Best read alongside LRT’s 1949 Party Politics in the Age of Caesar. Lily Ross Taylor was one of the titans of twentieth century scholarship on the politics of the late Republic, and though the “frozen waste” model on which most of her work, like all of her contemporaries, is predicated is no longer accepted, LRT’s work on putting together the procedures of the voting assemblies is still foundational. For those more interested in a deeper look at Roman elections there is Alexander Yakobson’s Elections and Electioneering in Rome: A Study in the Political System of the Late Republic (2002). All of these are rather difficult reads, but with a little effort should be understandable by the non-specialist
Religion
The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden: Religion at the Roman Street Corner by Harriet Flower (2017; ISBN 978-0691175003) Entry-Level Religious - An important recent study in to the lares, the tutelary deities of households and neighbourhoods that form a distinctively Roman aspect of Roman religion. Flower focuses on the importance of their cult in daily life, and on the connections between ‘religious’ activity and other aspects of cultural, social, economic and political life. While the book’s scope runs throughout the Classical period, her most important case studies are concentrated in the Late Republic: Part III deals with the worship of the lares compitales on Delos from 120-90 BC and with the festival of the Compitalia, where the cult of the lares compitales became a flashpoint for violence and unrest in the 50s BC. An important book to evaluate what ‘religion’ means when discussing Ancient Rome. -/u/UndercoverClassicist
Culture, Art, and Architecture
Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic by Elizabeth Rawson (1985; ISBN 9781139025959) Entry-Level Cultural - This is still the classic handbook for understanding what intellectual life was like in the last few decades of the Republic. Rawson covers, with encyclopedic expertise, all the major fields and their players, such as education, medicine, rhetoric, mathematics, philosophy, ethnography, law, literature, historiography, music and so forth. She intelligently illuminates the dynamic interplays between political situations and cultural life, the dialogue between Greek and Roman identities, systems of patronage and institutions. The book is not written for the popular audience per se, but it is written clearly and entertainingly enough to work as a great first step to the wonderful world of Roman intellectual culture. - /u/mythoplokos
The Birth of Critical Thinking in Republican Rome by Claudia Moatti (2015 [translation of a 1997 French original] ; ISBN 9781139025959) Intermediate Cultural - Moatti takes here a highly original and largely, very persuasive, approach to writing cultural history. She sees the Late Republic as a culmination of an “epistemological revolution”, whereupon the Republican Romans began a critical reassessment of their past and present and started (to some extent) replace old traditions and religious authority with new appreciation for rationality and logic. This process, she sees, was mainly set off by the political crises in the Mediterranean, the Roman expansion, and the development of Latin writing. It led to a period of great creativity and dynamism, a “Golden Age” of Roman intellectuals, where people like Cicero and Varro analysed and examined all areas of knowledge, history, language, and Roman society. My one criticism is that although Moatti treats the birth of critical thinking as a Republican “evolution”, the chronological outlines remain somewhat blurred and she sometimes uses later (Imperial) authors to illustrate the supposed mindset of earlier Romans. Regardless, a fantastic book that is well worth a read. - /u/mythoplokos
Society
The Roman Family by Suzanne Dixon (1992; 978-0801842009) Entry-Level Social. Quite simply the best introduction to Roman society’s fundamental building block. Dixon covers the portrayal of Roman families in law, and the discrepancies between that picture and the reality of family life. There are also chapters on marriage, children, and old age. The whole book is sound scholarship, based on close analysis of literary and epigraphic evidence. Absolutely the place to start for anyone interested in this aspect of Roman history. - u/bigfridge224
Slavery and Society at Rome by Keith Bradley (1994; ISBN 9780511815386). Bradley is one of the top scholars of Roman slavery. This book is a useful introduction to the topic, spanning the Republic to empire in sources and discussion. The book covers topics like sources of enslaved people, their labor and daily life, and resistance. - /u/LuckyOwl14
Economy
Conquerors and Slaves by Keith Hopkins (1978; 9780521281812) Advanced Social Economic. Only the first two chapters or so are relevant here, but they are absolutely essential for understanding the economy of the Late Republic. Hopkins examines the impact of Roman conquest on the economy of Italy, especially the massive influx of enslaved people onto the growing estates of the rich. The model he creates has been incredibly influential on most scholarship that has followed. - u/bigfridge224
Military
Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: A Companion to the Roman Army Edited by Paul Erdkamp (2010;978-1444339215) Another excellent reference work in the same series as the abovementioned Companion to the Roman Republic, this time with a more narrow focus on the Roman military system. The book covers the entire period of the Ancient Roman civilisation from its misty origins to, though as is not uncommon in works of this vein the information on late antiquity is more limited. - u/iguana-on-a-stick