Review: The Roman Revolution

The Roman Revolution by Ronald Syme
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The "Roman Revolution" was more of years of civil war that seen a military despot (Julius Caesar) traded for August the autocrat; the war-like Roman city-state emerged from its bloody throes a domineering empire with a monarchy with not really much in the way of republican ideals.

Octavius was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir, then known as Octavianus (Anglicized as Octavian). This author eschews that Anglicization even to the point of calling Mark Antony Marcus Antonius. All those -ius suffixes this Anglicized reader found wearying. Surely, the author is in the right here, as he obviously knows his Roman history in detail. He speeds through it like a fanboy reeling off Marvel Comics back stories of minor characters. Before I even absorb the fact there were 800 to a thousand senators at any one time during this period, he is off on the available details of the nearly lost career of some of them.

The story is told in three acts. Act I, Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar. Act II: War! My copy has extensive marginalia from the previous reader, often about place names. It makes me realize this book needs some maps for the years of conflict about the Mediterranean.

Following their victory at the Battle of Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvirate was eventually torn apart by the competing ambitions of its members. Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by Octavian in 31 BC. Actium, here, is shown to have nationalistic impact on developing the Roman identity like Yorktown for us. Because, this is as much about the unification of Italy and an identity for the entire peninsula as hub to the provinces.

Act III: Consolidation and establishment. After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, (now named) Augustus restored the outward façade of the free Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate, the executive magistrates, and the legislative assemblies. (So much for the rewards of revolution, but the weary populace and subjugated peoples were ready for a new godhead on the throne.) Princeps Civitatis ("First Citizen of the State") oversaw a constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire.

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