The most recommended Roman Republic books

Named for the river that Julius Caesar crossed when he invaded Italy and began the civil war which brought the Roman Republic to its knees, this book offers a sweeping account of the Republic’s fall and has been rightly described as narrative history at its best. All the major characters are vividly presented, from Marius and Sulla to Pompey, Cicero and Caesar, in prose that manages to remain readable and fast-paced while spanning almost 400 pages. Tragedy is arguably more apparent than triumph, understandably in a book devoted to the collapse of the Republican order. But the glory of the Republic does also shine through, and the story is told on a larger scale than my book would have allowed.

Crassus is one of the most important yet least known of the major characters inhabiting the late Roman Republic in its transition to Empire. Cicero, Pompey, Mark Antony, and Julius Caesar are much more prominent in the public eye, yet the huge wealth of Crassus was decisive in promoting the upward trajectory of Caesar himself.

Crassus is mainly noted from the film Spartacus, where, portrayed by Sir Laurence Olivier, he crushed the gladiator and slave revolt led by Spartacus. But Crassus also met a tragic end when invading Parthia with inadequate resources.

His story is related in magnificent prose by former Times editor Peter Stothard, whose description of Crassus’ heart-rending demise, as molten gold was poured down his throat by the victorious Parthians, brings the adventure to a spectacular and climactic termination.

Mystery writer Steven Saylor’s recreations of late Republican Rome are the best out there. The Venus Throw finds Saylor’s detective, Gordianus the Finder, investigating the death of an Egyptian ambassador visiting the city. Through Gordianus’ search we meet a range of Romans known from historical sources including a noble woman, a love poet, and a eunuch priest of the eastern goddess Cybele. Saylor captures the variety of the city’s inhabitants and its places. You step into elegant houses, a dive bar with sour wine, and public baths where the floor is “heated to just the right temperature by the hot-water pipes underneath.” The Venus Throw is not the first entry in the Gordianus series but you can start with it, as I did, and then read all the others. One of these books’ many strengths is attention to the lives of slaves.

I’ve used this text a number of times teaching courses on the Republic and it is a terrific overview that will expand on many areas. Short, informative, packed with anecdotes and examples and surveying the whole of the Republic. For those interested in a more academic survey, while still very approachable, text on the period of the Republic, Gwynn’s work offers just the right balance of depth and briskness. 

Just like the Falco mysteries showed me that you could have fun with your historical detectives, this book showed me that there’s more drama in Ancient Roman history than in any daytime soap opera, and this novelisation of Marius and Sulla packs a lot more of an emotional punch than any textbook ever could. 

I don’t know enough about Marius and Sulla to say how much poetic license the author took, but this really does read as a seamless and in-depth exploration of the bloody power struggles between two very different but equally ambitious men in the time of the Roman Republic.   

The whole series is fantastic!

Cicero, the statesman who stood in defense of the Roman Republic against Julius Caesar's popular uprising, was himself a fine writer. Assassinated in the civil war, he never had a chance to write a history of his time. For that reason, I have chosen this beautiful, balanced, profoundly humane study by one of France's greatest historians. Cicero's often solitary stand against the man who was once his friend, his stoic acceptance of what the consequences were to be to himself and his family, and on the other side, the heavy personal cost to Caesar himself of his own advance, are all laid out, illuminated by the light of a profound understanding of the human condition, another name for which is "wisdom".

For any reader seeking a short (not much more than 100 pages) and concise account of the Republic’s fall, Shotter has provided an excellent foundation. The key themes and events are clearly explained, as are the sometimes rather complicated structures and offices of the Republican political system, in a series of compact chapters organized around the leading individuals from the Gracchi brothers to Mark Antony and Octavian (the future emperor Augustus). Shotter’s emphasis is very much on clarity and accuracy rather than dramatic narrative, and my students have found this an ideal book to read in order to acquire a solid grounding before moving on to longer and more intensive volumes.

Duncan walks the reader through the generations leading up to the fall of the Republic, examining the political, economic, and social conditions that led to civil war and, eventually, the transition to Empire. While Duncan provides biographies of key figures like the Gracchi brothers, he also sets them in the context of their world: its constraints, its faith, its competing pressures. The Storm Before the Storm opens a window into an under-examined period of history, one which has echoes in modern-day politics.

The title of this book, written by one of my colleagues at Royal Holloway, recalls the classic work of Ronald Syme, whose The Roman Revolution appeared in 1939 against the backdrop of the rise of Nazi Germany. Alston narrates in detail the crucial period from Caesar’s murder on the Ides of March 44 BC through to the death of the first emperor Augustus (Caesar’s adopted son) more than half a century later. This was the time of Brutus, Antony, and Cleopatra which so appealed to Shakespeare, and Alston disentangles skillfully the complex political and military events and demonstrates the achievement of Augustus who claimed to restore the Republic while establishing the Empire which ruled the Mediterranean world for the next 400 years.

Most Ancient Roman biographies are about men.

This is mainly because there is much less information about Roman women than men. As in many ancient societies, Roman women were not considered equal to men, and did not hold positions of power or authority.

Writing by Roman women themselves is also rare. But modern biographers and historians are attempting to redress the balance. This book is part of the Women in Antiquity series, and tells the life story, as much as can be known, of a formidable woman.

Fulvia was married to and widowed by two powerful Romans before her third marriage to Mark Antony. She was a huge influence on him, and a power in Rome in her own right, wielding authority in Antony’s name, even when he was in the east, gallivanting with Cleopatra.

Another vital source for my Mark Antony series, this book is a great read about… show more.