![]() As soldiers were killed or tied up in endless wars, their small farms failed, and those with the gold could scoop up the land sold by the desperate survivors. Decisions of foreign policy rested with the elite, as did the command and spoils, but they reaped a double-benefit. ![]() Having started with a base of citizen/farmers, the elites endlessly engendered wars of conquest, in which small farmers formed the rank and file troops. The elites had an excellent system for effecting this. The starving masses depicted by gentlemen historians of Rome (all of them from the upper classes) didn't start that way: they were methodically created by the ruling class. ![]() Going through a long list of attempted reformers over the course of about a hundred years and their miserable ends, Parenti shows how the wealthy elites of Rome systematically impoverished, disempowered and, when necessary, murdered its more humble citizens in an insatiable pursuit of wealth. In doing so, he reveals Rome not only as the vicious war machine that we all know and love, but as a place where the ruling class turns the acquisitiveness and violence of its foreign policy on its own people. Parenti traces the current of attempted Populist reform and Elite repression that ended with Caesar's assassination and the Civil Wars that terminated the Republic. Who were they? How did they live? And most importantly, how did they get that way? I've read estimates that in the late Roman Republic up to 70% of the population was either in slavery or impoverished urban proletariats on the dole. Michael Parenti chooses to focus exactly on this group of people. The common people are usually depicted as violent, shiftless mobs who didn't have the good sense to get born into a wealthy family or make a ton of money. It's as if someone wrote the history of the United States but never mentioned anyone who earned less than $500,000/yr. With Sallust, Plutarch, Tacitus, Seutonius, Cicero and others, what's left out is the 99.9% of the population that are NOT wealthy politicians or generals. ![]() Above all, you get a growing sense that things are being left out. Julius Caesar: Kennedy-like reformer or cynical opportunist? Cicero: defender of the Republic or grasping tool of the supperrich? You begin to get a feel for Rome's march through time, from the increasingly unstable Republic to the thundering military dictatorship of imperial Rome. As you read more you start to get multiple ancient viewpoints of a single figure. When you embark on ancient history, the first historians you read seem dull and obscure, referring to events and personalities you've never heard of, or have heard of as vague heroic figures. So partly this review is about reading history, just as Parenti's book is about writing history. I've read nearly all the original sources that Michael Parenti drew on for his analysis of the Late Republic era of Rome, some of them twice. I should precede this review with the confession that I've been obsessively reading Roman History for the last few years. Rome and the Maccabees: A Friendship Set in Bronze?Īll-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:Ī Rare Look at the Jewish Catacombs of Rome Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.How much did I like this book? Enough to go on Amazon and slap the daylights out of idiot negative reviewers 4 years after the fact. The aftermath of the civil war would see the incorporation of much of the eastern reaches of the Mediterranean, including Egypt and Judea, into the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar’s assassination would start a civil war and spell the end of the Roman Republic. Carrying out a wide-reaching political coup, around 60 Roman senators-including some of Caesar’s closest allies-stabbed him nearly two dozen times. The area includes the remains of four Republican-era temples as well as part of the theater of Pompey, a one-time rival and friend of Caesar.įamously portrayed in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 BCE in the Curia of Pompey, a meeting hall of the senate at the entrance to the theater of Pompey. Now, after considerable work to make the area accessible, tourists and history buffs alike can explore the ancient square, located several feet beneath the modern city of Rome. Known as the Largo di Torre Argentina, the site of Julius Caesar’s assassination was uncovered by archaeologists in 1926 during construction work but has remained largely off-limits to visitors.
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