Roman History: Early to Republic (Classics)

Introduction

The Roman Republic continues to intrigue researchers and students alike. The rise of a small city to become mistress of the Mediterranean provoked the great Greek historian Polybius already in the 2nd century BCE and still fascinates scholars, whose output consistently swells a bibliography that can only be very selectively surveyed here. The vision of the Republic left a deep impression upon medieval Europe, upon writers and thinkers like Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and the American Founding Fathers, and it resonates even with contemporary political theorists. The achievement of the Roman Republic and the foundations upon which it rested remain subjects of compelling interest.

General Overviews

The three volumes of the Cambridge ancient history in its second edition (Astin, et al. 1989–1994) constitute an invaluable survey of the whole period. Goldberg 2016 supplies convenient and reliable entries for swift reference. Broughton 1951–1986 boasts an extraordinary assemblage of data on every public official in the history of the Republic, representing a landmark that no Republican historian can do without. Two recent “Companions” to the Roman Republic provide essays by specialists on all aspects of the subject. Flower 2004 is readable and succinct and speaks successfully to both scholars and lay readers. Rosenstein and Morstein-Marx 2006 allows much more space to its contributors. The latter volume, whose analyses are lucid, penetrating, and wide-ranging, with thorough and up-to-date bibliographies, is easily the best example of this genre.

Astin, A. E., F. W. Walbank, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie, J. A. Crook, A. Lintott, and E. Rawson, eds. 1989–1994. The Cambridge ancient history, vol. VII, part 2: The rise of Rome to 220 B.C.; vol. VIII: Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 B.C.; vol. IX: The last age of the Roman Republic, 146–43 B.C. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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These volumes of the second edition of the Cambridge ancient history trace the history of Rome from its origins to the end of the Republic. They completely supersede the previous edition. The treatment is fresh and much more extensive. Account is taken of new scholarly insights and of the considerable amount of new evidence, much of it archaeological, that has become available since the 1st edition was published.
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Broughton, T. R. F. 1951–1986. The magistrates of the Roman Republic. 3 vols. New York and Atlanta: American Philological Association.
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Broughton collects all available testimony, citing references for every magistrate, public official, priest, and military commander in the whole of the Republic. Although he gives only few (and brief) discussions of problems, this is a reference tool of unrivaled value for the study of the Roman elite. Reprinted, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986.
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Flower, Harriet I. 2004. The Cambridge companion to the Roman Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Flower's Companion is primarily addressed to those with interest but little background in Roman history, offering “an introduction to the Republic that tries not to privilege a particular time period or point of view,” but instead providing “a guide to a variety of areas, fields of study, and possible approaches that are currently being explored.”
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Goldberg, Sander, ed. 2016. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Digital ed. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Goldberg supplies a first resource for students seeking an entry to a vast array of subjects in the broad realm of Classical Antiquity. He also points students and researchers to further sources and bibliography. As an introduction to countless topics, this compendium of basic information is invaluable.
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Rosenstein, Nathan S., and Robert Morstein-Marx, eds. 2006. A companion to the Roman Republic. Oxford: Blackwell.
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An authoritative and up-to-date overview of Roman Republican history as shaped by many of its most prominent practitioners. It looks at the role played by the physical geography and environment of Italy, offers a compact but detailed narrative of military, political, social, and economic developments from the birth of the Roman Republic to the death of Julius Caesar, and offers superb discussions of current controversies in the field.
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Sources

The reconstruction of Roman history requires examination of a range of primary sources, literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological. Even when taken together, they leave large gaps in our knowledge. The practitioner of the craft needs some command of them all.

Literary Sources

Literary sources of every sort contain material that bears on the understanding of history. Historians, however, are the most directly pertinent.

Early Historians

Fragments from the early historians, whose works are no longer extant, are usefully collected by Beck and Walter 2001. Acute analyses of this material (often quite controversial) may be found in Badian 1966, Frier 1999, and Wiseman 1994.

Badian, E. 1966. The early historians. In The Latin historians. Edited by T. A. Dorey, 1–38. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
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Badian provides a summary, with sharp and unvarnished judgments, of the works of early Roman historians from Fabius Pictor to writers of the Sullan era.
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Beck, Hans, and Uwe Walter, eds. and trans. 2001. Die frühen römischen Historiker, herausgegeben, überzetzt und kommentiert. 2 vols. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
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The authors set forth the surviving fragments, with German translations, of historians writing in both Greek and Latin in the 3rd, 2nd, and early 1st centuries BCE who shaped the beginnings of Roman historiography and established the traditions later enshrined by Livy and others.
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Frier, Bruce W. 1999. Libri annales pontificum maximorum: The origins of the annalistic tradition. 2d ed. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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This book investigates a difficult and problematic subject: the nature of the pontifical chronicle, allegedly the earliest effort to record key events of Roman history. Frier's controversial book questions assumptions about the value of that purported chronicle.
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Wiseman, T. P. 1994. The origins of Roman historiography. In Historiography and imagination: Eight essays on Roman culture. By T. P. Wiseman, 1–22. Exeter, UK: Univ. of Exeter Press.
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This article brings a novel hypothesis, combining literary and archaeological testimony, to the question of how the myths of early Rome emerged and evolved in the hands (or the imaginations) of the first Roman historians.
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The Major Historians

The historians on whose works the reconstruction of Republican history relies most heavily have received much attention. Walbank 1972 is magisterial and indispensable on Polybius. The volume of essays on extant Latin historians, Kraus and Woodman 1997, is a valuable entry into the subject. Walsh 1963 remains the best starting point for Livy. Luce 1977 is a little more difficult but of high importance. A number of serviceable essays on Caesar as historian appear in Welch and Powell 1998, and Riggsby 2006, on Caesar's Gallic war, is the best study of that topic. Syme's classic volume on Sallust (Syme 2002, first published 1964) remains unsurpassed. Sacks 1990 and Gabba 1991 on Diodorus and Dionysius, respectively, are essential reading on those historians.

Gabba, Emilio. 1991. Dionysius and the history of Archaic Rome. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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This is the best treatment of Dionysius, a historian of high importance for understanding the perception of Rome's earliest history in the age of Augustus. Gabba shows that Dionysius' conception of Rome as a Greek city has strong roots in Roman historiography but also represents an effort to set Augustan Rome's universalizing mission in the context of Hellenic traditions.
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Kraus, Christina Shuttleworth, and A. J. Woodman. 1997. Latin historians. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A useful summary of current opinion by two leading experts in Latin historiography on the principal historians: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus.
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Luce, T. James. 1977. Livy: The composition of his history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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A somewhat more difficult read, but a penetrating in-depth study of Livy's relationship to his sources, his methods of composition, and the overall design and structure of his work.
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Riggsby, Andrew M. 2006. Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in words. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
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Riggsby's recent book is a close literary analysis of Caesar as historian of the Gallic wars. Riggsby uses case studies of key topics (spatial representation, ethnography, concepts of virtus, technology, genre, and the just war), augmented by more synthetic discussions using evidence from other Roman and Greek texts, to treat the relationship of Gallic and Roman national identity as part of Caesar's self-presentation.
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Sacks, Kenneth. 1990. Diodorus Siculus and the first century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Sacks makes a strong case for the rehabilitation of Diodorus. He shows that Diodorus does not blindly follow his sources but applies a conceptualization that reflects the intellectual and historiographical context of the late Hellenistic period.
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Syme, Ronald. 2002. Sallust. 2d ed. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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With this influential study, Syme brilliantly combines a detailed probe of Sallust's texts with the social, political, and literary contexts in which he produced them.
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Walbank, F. W. 1972. Polybius. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Walbank's Sather Lectures constitute the most important digest of views by the world's foremost interpreter of Polybius.
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Walsh, P. G. 1963. Livy: His historical aims and methods. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Lucid and readable coverage of a whole range of topics, including Livy's sources, his literary and historical methods, his narrative style, and his moral preconceptions. Reprinted, 1976.
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Welch, Kathryn, and Anton Powell. 1998. Julius Caesar as artful reporter: The war commentaries as political instrument. London: Duckworth.
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Caesar's limpid prose, often seen as straightforward and direct, is analyzed in ten essays as the work of a self-conscious and consummate stylist, rhetor and politician, seeking to finesse sophisticated and well-informed Roman readers and to advance a political career.
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Epigraphic Sources

The Corpus inscriptionum latinarum (CIL, 1973–1986) is the full repository of Republican Latin inscriptions. Degrassi 1963–1965 offers a judicious selection of the most important. The gathering of documents by Crawford 1996 is a valuable resource, as are the translations of documents on Rome's eastern expansion by Sherk 1984. The most convenient introductions to the epigraphic evidence are Keppie 1991, Bodel 2001, and Schmidt 2004.

Bodel, John P. 2001. Epigraphic evidence: Ancient history from inscriptions. London: Routledge.
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A selective but solid introduction to the world of inscriptions and what they can reveal about specific aspects of ancient life. In less than 250 pages Bodel offers a useful and highly readable account of the remarkable diversity of our inscriptional legacy from the Graeco-Roman world and the challenges confronting the modern investigator who must rely on such evidence.
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Corpus inscriptionum latinarum, vol. 1. 1973–1986. 2d ed. Berlin: Reimerum.
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This is the fundamental collection of all Republican Latin inscriptions, continually added to with new finds. It now exists online with a searchable database.
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Crawford, Michael H., ed. and trans. 1996. Roman statutes. 2 vols. London: Institute of Classical Studies, Univ. of London.
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This valuable collection of documents assembles both epigraphic texts and literary sources for all known Roman laws and proposals for which some part of the text survives. Crawford prints each document and the sources for it, with brief introduction, translation, notes, and bibliography. The texts encompass statutes from the Twelve Tables to the lex de imperio Vespasiani.
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Degrassi, Attilio. 1963–1965. Inscriptiones latinae liberae rei publicae. 2 vols. Florence: La Nuova Italia.
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Degrassi's collection assembles the most significant inscriptions for historical purposes, providing an accessible two volumes for researchers and teachers.
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Keppie, Lawrence J. 1991. Understanding Roman inscriptions. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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A serviceable tool for approaching epigraphic documents. It supplies a brief guide to the reading and dating of inscriptions, the array of subjects covered by them, and the abbreviations and conventions found in them.
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Schmidt, Manfred G. 2004. Einführung in die lateinische Epigraphik. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
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For those who read German, this serves as a convenient handbook for beginners in matters of epigraphic formulae, significance, and connection to historical problems.
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Sherk, Robert K., ed. and trans. 1984. Rome and the Greek East to the death of Augustus. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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The volume includes such materials as treaties of alliance and friendship, honorary decrees, official letters of Roman governors, decrees of the Roman senate, dedications of statues, Roman laws, reports of embassies, religious cults, legal decisions, loyalty oaths to Rome, athletic contests, calendars, and minutes of an audience in Rome given by the emperor. Brief commentary and notes accompany the translations, making this book a collection much used by students and teachers of ancient history.
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Numismatic sources

Crawford 1974, with illustrations and brief commentary on all the coins, remains the fundamental reference work. Howgego 1995 offers a valuable guide to the topic. Both Crawford 1985 and the essays in Burnett and Crawford 1987 present a variety of perspectives on the effects of Roman coinage at home and abroad.

Burnett, A. M., and Michael H. Crawford, eds. 1987. The coinage of the Roman world in the late Republic. Oxford: Osney Mead.
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Essays by specialists in various regions of the Roman empire in the Republic from Spain and Sicily to Egypt and Africa, surveying the role of coinage as an index of Roman influence and intervention in each area.
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Crawford, Michael H. 1974. Roman Republican coinage. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A comprehensive study, cataloging the issues of each coiner in the period 280–31 BCE and describing and dating them as accurately as the evidence permits. It is essential both as a starting point for study of the coinage and as a reference tool for scholars and students.
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Crawford, Michael H. 1985. Coinage and money under the Roman Republic: Italy and the Mediterranean economy. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Crawford's extensive command of Republican coinage buttresses this effort to deploy it as a means of shedding light on the history, economy, and society of various regions of the Republican empire: Spain, Sicily, North Africa, Greece, the Near East, and the Balkans. The large number of illustrations and images add to the book's value.
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Howgego, Christopher. 1995. Ancient history from coins. London: Routledge.
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Demystifies this specialized subject and introduces students to the techniques, methods, problems and advantages of using coins in the study of ancient history. Howgego's numerous examples shows how the character, patterns, and behavior of coinage bear on major historical themes. Covering the period from the invention of coinage (c. 600 BCE) until the reign of Diocletian, this study examines topics ranging from state finance and economic policy to imperial domination and political propaganda through coin types.
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Archaeology

Potter 1987, a convenient and readable book, gives a handy introduction to the subject. The reference works of Richardson 1992 and Steinby 1993–2000 on the city of Rome are essential for consultation. The essays in Coulston and Dodge 2000 speak to various aspects of the city's archaeology. Gros 1996–2001 provides a comprehensive survey of Roman architecture. Urban developments are treated more generally by Gros and Torelli 1994. The new translation of Coarelli 2007, a magisterial archaeological guide to Rome, is a landmark event.

Coarelli, Filippo. 2007. Rome and environs: An archaeological guide. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Conveniently organized by walking tours and illustrated throughout with 189 clear maps, drawings, and plans, this guide covers all of the city's ancient sites, and, unlike most comparable works, includes the major monuments in a large area outside Rome proper but within easy reach, such as Ostia Antica, Palestrina, Tivoli, and the many areas of interest along the ancient Roman roads. An essential resource for tourists interested in a deeper understanding of Rome's Classical remains, it is also the ideal book for students and scholars approaching the topography of ancient Rome. It features maps, drawings, and diagrams, an appendix on building materials and techniques, and an extensive bibliography.
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Coulston, J. C, and Hazel Dodge, eds. 2000. Ancient Rome: The archaeology of the eternal city. Oxford: Oxford Univ. School of Archaeology.
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The chapters, by an impressive list of contributors, address a wide span of topics dealing with the archaeology and topography of the city of Rome, including the food and water supply, houses and tombs, and the construction industry. There are new maps for the topography and monuments of Rome. A huge bibliography contains 1,700 titles.
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Gros, Pierre. 1996–2001. L'architecture romaine du début du IIIe siècle av. J.C. à la fin du haut Empire. 2 vols. Paris: Picard.
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This monumental survey in French by a premier scholar in the subject covers public buildings, palaces, domestic architecture, villas, and tombs.
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Gros, Pierre, and Mario Torelli. 1994. Storia dell'urbanistica: Il mondo romano. 3d ed. Rome: Laterza.
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With the aid of a rich iconographic apparatus and the most recent archaeological searches in Italy, this volume reconstructs the long process of city formation and organization of the territory from the first pre-Roman takeovers to the great realizations of imperial Rome. This new edition conserves the organization of the subject in two parts: in the first Torelli considers urban planning in ancient Italy, in particular in Etruria and Latium, as well as Rome itself, and the Roman colonies. In the second part, Gros reconstructs the urban planning of Rome, Italy and the provinces in the imperial age.
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Potter, T. W. 1987. Roman Italy. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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This general survey of Roman Italy brings together the wealth of evidence available from literary sources, inscriptions, and recent discoveries in Roman archaeology. Written in lively prose with the lay reader as well as the scholar in mind, Potter's account treats the whole of the Italian peninsula.
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Richardson, Lawrence. 1992. A new topographical dictionary of ancient Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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The bibliographic summaries at the ends of most articles are helpful, and Richardson's general bibliography is a useful guide. Illustrations, though somewhat less numerous than one would have liked, are well chosen. Few American scholars have the breadth of knowledge that has enabled Richardson to produce this work.
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Steinby, Eva Margareta. 1992–2000. Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae. 6 vols. Rome: Quasar.
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A series that covers every literary reference made in Antiquity, and all the main archaeological discoveries that relate to the ancient city of Rome. The fully referenced entries for each site are arranged alphabetically and are followed by plans and illustrations. The text is in Italian.
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Early Rome to 264 BCE

Nothing is more difficult or disputed than the reconstruction of early Roman history from the much later literary sources and the limited archaeological data.

Surveys and General Studies

Cornell 1995, a highly intelligent survey, is essential reading. His general trust in the reliability of the surviving evidence contrasts with the more skeptical approach of Forsythe 2005 and the provocative but always stimulating interpretations of Wiseman 1995 and Wiseman 2004. A more technical approach to the construction of myths about early Rome can be found in Fox 1996. Holloway 1994 provides an intelligible introduction to the archaeological material. A more detailed and in-depth treatment appears in Smith 1996. Bonfante 1986 brings together a series of engaging essays on Etruscan culture and society in her accessible handbook.

Bonfante, Larissa, ed. 1986. Etruscan life and afterlife: A handbook of Etruscan studies. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press.
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The dean of Etruscan scholars in the United States here assembles readable survey articles by specialists on Etruscan history, art, architecture, coinage, language, and daily life.
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Cornell, Tim J. 1995. The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC). London: Routledge.
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Cornell makes the best case for the (general) reliability of later literary sources on the history of early Rome. His extensive, detailed but lucid survey is the most readable treatment available. It continues to exercise wide influence.
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Forsythe, Gary. 2005. A critical history of early Rome. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Forsythe takes a more skeptical line than Cornell on the trustworthiness of the literary evidence. His thorough and careful treatment, though somewhat harder reading, should be used in conjunction with Cornell 1995.
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Fox, Matthew. 1996. Roman historical myths: The regal period in Augustan literature. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Fox focuses on the literary reconstruction of Rome's origins and earliest history by both historians and poets in the age of Augustus. His aim is to analyze the interpretation of the distant past as a mode of representation for the Augustan present.
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Holloway, R. Ross. 1994. The archaeology of early Rome and Latium. London: Routledge.
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Holloway's valuable, careful, and detailed survey of the archaeology encompasses tombs, houses, walls, inscriptions, and sanctuaries of early Rome and the major cities in Latium, such as Lavinium and Praeneste.
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Smith, Christopher J. 1996. Early Rome and Latium: Economy and society c.1000–500 BC. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Smith fully details the archaeological and literary evidence from early Rome and the surrounding region of Latium, spanning from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the 6th century BCE. He attempts to set the region of Latium in its proper context as participant, witness, and ultimately victim of the radical transformation of civilization in central Italy and in the Mediterranean as a whole.
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Wiseman, T. P. 1995. Remus: A Roman myth. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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An innovative interpretation of Rome's foundation myth, setting Remus in the center of an alternative vision of Rome's Archaic community, and one very different from that shaped by later writers at the time of Rome's imperial power.
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Wiseman, T. P. 2004. The myths of Rome. Exeter, UK: Univ. of Exeter Press.
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Wiseman endeavors to take Rome's foundation myths out from under the shadow of Greek mythology and to restore their place as a continuous reshaping of Roman identity that persists through the early Empire and has resonance in the modern era.
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Social and Political Institutions

The development of social and political institutions in the early Republic, characterized by the contests of patricians and plebeians, stands among the most hotly debated and still unresolved problems of Roman history. Divergent interpretations are presented by Richard 1978, Hölkeskamp 1987, and Mitchell 1990. The subject receives treatment from a variety of angles in the essays collected by Eder and Ampolo 1990 and Raaflaub 2004. Stewart 1998 examines the religious elements involved in the evolution of political institutions in the Republic's first centuries.

Eder, Walter, and Carmine Ampolo, eds. 1990. Staat und Staatlichkeit in der frühen römischen Republik. Stuttgart: Steiner.
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An important collection of essays, in various languages, exploring the legal, constitutional, social, and religious aspects of early Roman institutions.
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Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim. 1987. Die Entstehung der Nobilität: Studien zur sozialen und politischen Geschichte der römischen Republik im 4. Jhdt. v. Chr. Stuttgart: Steiner.
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This book focuses on the critical period from 366 to 287 BCE in the transformation of the patrician elite to a patricio-plebeian oligarchy that would dominate Republican politics for more than two centuries thereafter.
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Mitchell, Richard E. 1990. Patricians and plebeians: The origin of the Roman state. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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Mitchell supplies a carefully argued but controversial thesis expressing sharp skepticism about the nature of our literary tradition on the “Struggle of the Orders.”
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Raaflaub, Kurt A., ed. 2004. Social struggles in Archaic Rome: New perspectives on the conflict of the orders. 2d ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
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This widely respected study of social conflicts between the patrician elite and the plebeians in the first centuries of the Roman Republic examines the issue from diverse approaches by numerous leading scholars. It has now been enhanced by a new chapter on material culture, updates to individual chapters, an expanded bibliography, and a new introduction.
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Richard, Jean-Claude. 1978. Les origines de la plèbe romaine: essai sur la formation du dualisme patricio-plébéien. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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This massive volume conducts an exhaustive exploration of the sources and scholarship on the origins of the plebs, the social, economic, and institutional structure that it developed, and the means whereby it expressed its political will in the earliest period of its formation.
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Stewart, Roberta. 1998. Public office in early Rome: Ritual procedure and political practice. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Stewart provides an acute interpretation of Roman political offices and magistracies in the process of formation and their association with religious practices from the 5th through the 3rd centuries. A difficult and important book, not for the beginner.
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Rome and Italy

The spread of Roman authority throughout Italy and the changes wrought in the Italian peninsula have prompted many studies. A recent analysis by Auliard 2006 concentrates on the earliest period when Rome fashioned its diplomatic tools in dealing with Italian cities. Salmon 1969 and Salmon 1982 provide comprehensive surveys of expansionism. The problems that expansionism generated for troubled relations between Romans and Italians are the subject of books by Mouritsen 1998 and Keaveny 2005. The important work of Dench 2005 examines Roman attitudes toward Italians and the role that they played in the shaping of Rome's own identity. Bispham 2007 explores the incorporation of Italian cities into the Roman system after the Social War.

Auliard, Claudine. 2006. La diplomatie romaine: L'autre instrument de la conquête, de la fondation à la fin des guerres samnites (753–290 av. J.-C.). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
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A detailed analysis of the diplomatic tools fashioned by Rome in the early years of wars and expansion in Italy. Auliard examines the treaties, compacts, and interstate relations developed in dealings with Latins, Etruscans, and Samnites that accompanied and facilitated the growth of Roman authority in the peninsula.
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Bispham, Edward. 2007. From Asculum to Actium: The municipalization of Italy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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This extensively researched and impressive book provides the fullest and most comprehensive treatment of the municipalization of Italy after the Social War. Bispham's command of the material, linguistic, and, especially, epigraphic evidence make this a rich and indispensable contribution.
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Dench, Emma. 2005. Romulus' asylum: Roman identities from the age of Alexander to the age of Hadrian. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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An important contribution to the growing literature on the formation of Roman and Italian identities. Dench uses Rome's foundation myths as a touchstone for understanding the central paradox of Rome's inclusiveness on the one hand, and sense of ethnic roots and blood descent on the other.
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Keaveney, Arthur. 2005. Rome and the unification of Italy. 2d ed. Bristol: Bristol Phoenix.
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A serviceable narrative of relations between Rome and the Italians from the early 2nd century through the Social War. Keaveney argues that the break between them gradually evolved in the 2nd century with growing Italian disaffection, aggravated by the politics of the Gracchan era, and brought to the surface by Roman exclusiveness and arrogance.
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Mouritsen, Henrik. 1998. Italian unification: A study in ancient and modern historiography. London: Institute of Classical Studies, Univ. of London.
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An acute account of Italian reactions to Roman authority, the background to and the effects of the pivotal Social War. Mouritsen illuminatingly makes use of modern perspectives as well as a thorough scrutiny of the ancient evidence on this tangled and difficult question.
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Salmon, Edward Togo. 1969. Roman colonization under the Republic. London: Thames and Hudson.
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This remains the basic survey of Roman colonization of Italy, from the 4th-century beginnings through the end of the Republic. The changing nature, purpose, and consequences of colonization in Italy and its role in the expansion of the Republic receive a judicious and balanced treatment.
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Salmon, Edward Togo. 1982. The making of Roman Italy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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Salmon draws here on his own more specialized studies and produces a sound narrative of the spread of Roman authority in Italy and the transformation of Italy under Roman hegemony that is both solidly based and accessible to a wider readership. More recent studies have concentrated on regional histories, but Salmon's work retains its value as an overview.
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Regional Studies

Dyson 1985 considers the impact that expansion had upon pushing Roman frontiers to Gaul, Spain, and Sardinia. Regional studies, like Salmon 1967, Harris 1971, Lomas 1993, Dench 1995, Bradley 2007, and Isayev 2007, have deepened our understanding of Roman influence in individual areas of Italy.

Bradley, Guy Jolyn. 2007. Ancient Umbria: State, culture, and identity in central Italy from the Iron Age to the Augustan era. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Bradley endeavors to assemble all known data about Umbria in the 1st millennium BCE. The book discusses indigenous society, Roman colonization, the spread of urbanism, and the integration of Umbria into the Roman system—without the loss of ethnic or local identity.
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Dench, Emma. 1995. From barbarians to new men: Greek, Roman, and modern perceptions of peoples from the central Apennines. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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The central Apennine peoples, alternatively represented as decadent and dangerous barbarians or as personifications of manly wisdom and virtue, were important figures in Greek and Roman ideology. This study considers the ways in which such perceptions developed—reflecting both the shifting needs of Greek and Roman societies and the character of interaction among the various Italian cultures—to illuminate the development of identity formations in central Italy.
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Dyson, Stephen L. 1985. The creation of the Roman frontier. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Dyson shifts the traditional focus of Roman frontier studies from the Empire to the Republic. His examination of the Roman idea of the border as it developed first in the Italian wars, later in Spain, southern France, and Sardinia, puts the topic on a new footing.
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Harris, William V. 1971. Rome in Etruria and Umbria. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Harris's thorough and scrupulous study of the evidence provides a reliable history of Roman expansion, intervention, and intricate association with Etruria and Umbria from the 4th century BCE through the Augustan era. Harris treats, among other things, the treaties and interstate relations, Roman colonization in the area, the spread of Latin in the region, the extension of citizenship, and the effects of the Social War and the Sullan settlement.
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Isayev, Elena. 2007. Inside ancient Lucania. Dialogues in history and archaeology. London: Institute of Classical Studies, Univ. of London.
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Isayev's monograph capably employs archaeological evidence to present an up-to-date, careful, and reliable study of this largely neglected region of Italy.
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Lomas, Kathryn. 1993. Rome and the western Greeks, 350 BC–AD 200: Conquest and acculturation in southern Italy. London: Routledge.
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A sober and valuable synthesis of the absorption of Magna Graecia into the Roman system in the Republic and beyond. Lomas stresses not only the acculturation of south Italian Greeks but also the reciprocal adjustment of the Romans, and the maintenance of a Hellenic identity among the cities of southern Italy.
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Salmon, Edward Togo. 1967. Samnium and the Samnites. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A valuable introduction to the subject, treating not only Roman wars and conquest in the area but the language, culture, society, and economy of the Samnites. Archaeological evidence, however, has mounted substantially since the time of publication.
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Middle Republic (264–133 BCE)

Interpretation of Rome's expansion abroad in the middle Republic has sparked considerable controversy, an ongoing debate on the nature of Roman imperialism. Comparable disputes feature studies of the effects of expansion on Rome's internal history in the period.

The Nature of Roman Imperialism

Nicolet 1977–1978 offers a sound and reliable survey of events. The classic study of Badian 1958, though contested on many matters, remains vital reading. Sharply contrasting views receive expression in the broad treatments by Harris 1979, who stresses aggressive militarism, and by Gruen 1984, who dwells upon interstate dealings. Efforts to strike a balance motivate the discussions of North 1981 and Rich 1993. The seminal article by Derow 1979 illuminates the attitudes of Polybius, our principal source on Roman imperialism. Eckstein 2005 introduces a strikingly novel political science approach into this subject, setting Roman imperialism into the broader framework of Mediterranean conflicts.

Badian, E. 1958. Foreign clientelae (264–70 B.C.). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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The relationship of patron and client was a typically Roman institution: a relationship between the weaker and the stronger based on moral obligation and sanctioned by custom and force. This book attempts to show how it became the pattern of Rome's relations with foreign states, how it developed into the chief instrument of Roman domination, and how this relationship formed a critical part of the fabric that held the Empire together. Although its principal thesis has been questioned, its clarity of thought and presentation, as well as its cogent argument, give it continuing force and impact. Reprinted, 2000.
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Derow, Peter. 1979. Polybius, Rome, and the East. Journal of Roman Studies 69:1–15.
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This significant and influential article casts into doubt the long-dominant view of Holleaux that Roman expansion was a form of “defensive imperialism.” Derow points out, with impressive argumentation, that Polybius's text cannot sustain that interpretation.
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Eckstein, Arthur M. 2005. Mediterranean anarchy, interstate war, and the rise of Rome. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Eckstein brings an arresting and original thesis to bear on Roman imperialism. His application of system-level analysis and realist theory drawn from political science sets Roman expansionism in the broader framework of militarism and aggressiveness in Classical Greece and the Hellenistic world, thus to undermine the notion of Roman exceptionalism.
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Gruen, Erish S. 1984. The Hellenistic world and the coming of Rome. 2 vols. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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In this revisionist study of Roman imperialism in the Greek world, Gruen stresses the Hellenistic context within which Roman expansion took place. In his view, the evidence suggests a preponderance of Greek rather than Roman ideas, a noteworthy readiness on the part of Roman policymakers to adjust to Hellenistic practices rather than to impose a system of their own. The book places greater emphasis on Roman concern for international reputation than on drive for exploitation.
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Harris, William V. 1979. War and imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 B.C. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A powerfully argued and very influential thesis on the military mentality, aggressive impulses, and economic motivations that sustained Roman overseas expansionism in the Republic.
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Nicolet, Claude. 1977–1978. Rome et la conquête du monde méditerranéen. 2 vols. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
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This survey remains the most thorough introduction to the history, economy, social structures, military and political institutions, and geographical regions that marked the great age of Roman conquest in the Mediterranean.
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North, J. A. 1981. The development of Roman imperialism. Journal of Roman Studies 71:1–9.
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This article takes as its starting point Harris's thesis of aggressive Roman expansionism, offering a judicious critique and raising broader questions about underlying structures that governed the decision-making process on matters of war and diplomacy.
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Rich, John. 1993. Fear, greed, and glory: The causes of Roman war-making in the middle Republic. In War and society in the Roman world. Edited by John Rich and Graham Shipley, 38–68. London: Routledge.
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Rich steers a middle course between the theses of Harris and Gruen, giving due weight to the motivating factors of booty and fame, while providing a more complex analysis of decisions to make war.
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Expansion in the West

Goldsworthy 2002 is a fine study of all three Punic wars for the general reader. The origins of the wars are ably discussed by Hoyos 1998. The papers assembled in Cornell, et al. 1996 add important dimensions. Richardson 1986 supplies the best analysis of Rome's extension of authority in Spain.

Cornell, Tim, N. B. Rankov, and Philip A. G. Sabin, eds. 1996. The Second Punic War: A reappraisal. London: Institute of Classical Studies, Univ. of London.
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The six papers in this volume grew out of a conference on the topic. They represent new perspectives on the origins of the Second Punic War, its conduct at sea and on land, the involvement of people other than Rome and Carthage in the conflict, and the consequences of the war for Italy.
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Goldsworthy, Adrian K. 2002. The Punic Wars. London: Cassell.
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The noted military historian Goldsworthy applies his skills as serious researcher and vivid writer to an engrossing, as well as reliable, narrative of the three Punic wars. This serves as an ideal entrance to the subject.
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Hoyos, B. Dexter. 1998. Unplanned wars: The origins of the First and Second Punic Wars. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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Hoyos, a scholar long engaged with Roman-Carthaginian wars, makes the most detailed and compelling case for seeing them as the product of errors and contingencies rather than calculated policy.
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Richardson, J. S. 1986. Hispaniae: Spain and the development of Roman imperialism, 218–82 BC. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A sound and judicious narrative of Roman penetration into Spain and the conversion of subdued territories into imperial provinces. This remains the standard treatment of the subject.
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Politics in the Middle Republic

Internal politics during this period receive discussion, from very different perspectives, in the detailed analyses of Develin 1985, Vishnia 1996, and Dreyer 2006.

Develin, Robert. 1985. The practice of politics at Rome, 366–167 BC. Brussels: Latomus.
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Develin delivers a detailed and sustained critique of the prosopographical approach to Roman politics. His close analysis of institutional structures, political quarrels, and contested elections in the middle Republic shows the fallacy of interpreting politics in terms of factions and family connections.
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Dreyer, Boris. 2006. Die Innenpolitik der römischen Republik, 264–133 v. Chr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
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A brief and lucid overview of the workings of Roman politics in the middle Republic, setting out the consitutional structure, the nature of the elite and its dominance of Roman society, economy, and religion, foreign policy, and the military.
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Vishnia, Rachel Feig. 1996. State, society, and popular leaders in mid-Republican Rome, 241–167 BC. London: Routledge.
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Vishnia offers a fresh and provocative study of the effects of Roman expansion upon the shifting internal politics of the 3rd and early 2nd centuries BCE.
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Rome and Hellenism

Roman engagement with Greek culture has generated a stream of scholarly volumes. Petrochilos 1974 provides much information without depth of analysis. The influence of Hellenism in forming Roman policy and shaping self-perception in the middle Republic is studied by Ferrary 1988, Gruen 1990, and Gruen 1992. Rawson 1985 focuses on the late Republic. Erskine 2001 employs the Trojan legend as a means of illuminating the intellectual connections between Greece and Rome. Wallace-Hadrill 2008 valuably dissects Rome's appropriation of Greek culture in transforming its own self-perception.

Erskine, Andrew. 2001. Troy between Greece and Rome: Local tradition and imperial power. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Erskine argues a novel and provocative thesis: that the Trojan legend as a myth of Rome's foundation (a fundamentally Greek representation) did not fully take hold in Rome until the Augustan age as a feature of redefining Roman identity.
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Ferrary, Jean-Louis. 1988. Philhellénisme et impérialisme: aspects idéologiques de la conquête romaine du monde hellénistique. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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Ferrary supplies an extensive analysis of Roman engagement with and utilization of Greek culture on three major fronts: Greek conceptualization as an arm of Roman expansionism, the impact of Greek philosophy and historiography, and the political implications of Greek art and learning in 2nd-century BCE Rome.
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Gruen, Erich S. 1990. Studies in Greek culture and Roman policy. Leiden: Brill.
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This set of lectures tackles a number of noteworthy encounters that brought Hellenic cultural developments onto the Roman public stage. They include the Bacchanalian affair, the linkage of Pythagoras and Numa, the transfer of the Magna Mater from Asia Minor to Rome, and Plautus's adaptations of Greek comedy to reflect on Roman public policy.
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Gruen, Erich S. 1992. Culture and national identity in Republican Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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The book explores the reactions, reshaping, and appropriation of Greek culture and traditions by Romans to their own ends. It traces, among other things, the evolution of the Trojan legend, the implications of appropriated Greek art on the Roman scene, and the complex and multifaceted attitude of Cato toward Hellenism.
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Petrochilos, Nikos, ed. 1974. Roman attitudes to the Greeks. Athens: National and Capodistrian Univ. of Athens.
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Petrochilos supplies a serviceable compendium of texts illustrating Roman perspectives on Greeks, organized thematically by topics such as characteristics ascribed to the Greeks, emulations of Hellenic culture, and criticism of Hellenic practices and achievements. Not an especially analytical work, but a convenient assemblage of testimony.
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Rawson, Elizabeth. 1985. Intellectual life in the late Roman Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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An extensive and valuable gathering of evidence over the whole range of Roman intellectual activities, including rhetoric, philosophy, science, medicine, art, and architecture, law, historiography, and geography in the late Republic. The book brings to light a surprisingly large number of contributors to the late Republican intellectual scene.
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Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 2008. Rome's cultural revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Wallace-Hadrill transcends traditional debates over “Hellenization” and “Romanization” by exploring the local and regional cultures of Italy. He shows through broad command of the literary and material evidence that “Hellenization”and “Romanization” overlap and intersect, and that different cultures and identities within Italy could exist simultaneously.
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Late Republic (133 to 44 BCE)

The turbulent events leading to the end of the Republic have received considerable attention, with a range of opinions and interpretations expressed to account for the Republic's demise. Numerous provocative studies have stimulated rethinking, and the debate proceeds.

Internal Politics

Bradley 1989 is the soundest treatment of the slave wars of the 2nd and early 1st centuries. Judicial politics, a persistent theme in the period from the Gracchi to Sulla, is explored by Gruen 1968. A series of articles by Gabba 1976 on the social and political scene in this same period continue to be influential. Hantos 1988 examines the major constitutional changes brought by Sulla. Taylor 1949, a stimulating discussion of late Republican politics, although supplanted by many subsequent studies, still holds value.

Bradley, Keith R. 1989. Slavery and rebellion in the Roman world, 140 BC–70 BC. Bloomington: Univ. of Indiana Press.
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The best available treatment of the subject. Bradley not only dissects the causes and course of Rome's three major slave wars but also illuminates them through a comparison with the Maroon rebellions in the New World.
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Gabba, Emilio. 1976. Republican Rome, the army and the allies. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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This volume collects and translates into English several of Gabba's important studies of the roots of the professional army, the origins of the war between Rome and its allies, and the reforms of Sulla.
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Gruen, Erich S. 1968. Roman politics and the criminal courts, 149–78 BC. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Gruen traces the emergence of established criminal courts, the contests regarding their personnel and jurisdiction, and their use as a prime arena for infighting among the Roman elite.
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Hantos, Theodora. 1988. Res publica constituta: Die Verfassung des Dictators Sulla. Stuttgart: Steiner.
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A careful summary of the evidence for and the significance of Sulla's constitutional reforms and restructuring. Hantos covers the legislation, the governance of provinces, the reordering of the magistracies, and the creation of a new ruling class of senators and equites.
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Taylor, Lily Ross. 1949. Party politics in the age of Caesar. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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This is a classic study of political competition in the late Republic, culminating in the ideological divide of Catonism and Caesarism. The book proved to be a starting point for two generations of researchers on late Republican politics. Reprinted, 1996.
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Foreign Affairs

Badian 1972, trenchant lectures on Roman tax farmers and their impact on the public scene, has not been superseded. Roman overseas expansion in the late Republic receives acute but divergent analyses by Badian 1968, Sherwin-White 1984, and, most importantly, Kallet-Marx 1995.

Badian, E. 1968. Roman imperialism in the late Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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A short but compelling book growing out of a set of lectures that cogently questioned the economic motive in Roman expansion while exposing the economic consequences for men like Pompey and Caesar,
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Badian, E. 1972. Publicans and sinners: Private enterprise in the service of the Roman Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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This is a rich and rewarding study of an essential aspect of Roman imperialism: the role of private tax-farming companies in contracts for public works and services that proved indispensable in facilitating collection of revenues, supporting armies, and influencing public policy at home and abroad.
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Kallet-Marx, Robert Morstein. 1995. Hegemony to empire: The development of the Roman imperium in the East from 148 to 62 B.C. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Kallet-Marx traces Roman expansionism from 146 BCE through Pompey's settlement of the east in the 60s. He argues for the ad hoc and unsystematic character of Rome's overseas behavior, and a reluctance to accept imperial responsibilities.
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Sherwin-White, Adrian N. 1984. Roman foreign policy in the East, 168 B.C. to A.D. 1. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
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By taking this story down to the end of the Republic and beyond and focusing attention primarily upon Asia Minor and the Levant, Sherwin-White shows the piecemeal and contingent character of Rome's eastern expansion rather than a consistent policy of aggression.
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The Fall of the Republic

The question of why the Republic “fell” will attract analysts forever. Syme 1939, although focusing on the immediately subsequent period, set the framework in the opening chapters of his immensely influential book. Raaflaub 1974 examined in detail the immediate background to the civil war that ended the Republic. Meier 1980, a thesis of a “crisis without alternative,” in its dense and complex study stirred substantial controversy. Gruen 1995, by contrast, argued that the fall was not inevitable, a position disputed by many but still in discussion. The lengthy and penetrating essays in Brunt 1988 represent the best presentation of the other side. Violence and disorder in the late Republic are elucidated in Lintott 1999 and Nippel 1995.

Brunt, Peter A. 1988. The fall of the Roman Republic and related essays. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Brunt's series of extended essays on late Republican politics and ideology refuted the conventional idea that political groupings cohered on the basis of kinship ties or familial connection and that they rested on the loyalty of clients to patrons. His emphasis on the role of the army, drawn largely from the peasantry, in the fall of the Republic remains fundamental to all discussions of the subject.
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Gruen, Erich S. 1995. The last generation of the Roman Republic. 2d ed. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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This book, widely cited and argued with, maintains that institutions, practices, conventions, and traditions largely held their force even in the age of Pompey and Caesar, and that the Republic was not teetering on the brink of collapse. The civil wars brought the Republic to an end, not the other way around. 1st edition, 1974; this second edition includes an introduction that reviews and assesses relevant scholarship in the intervening twenty years.
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Lintott, Andrew W. 1999. Violence in Republican Rome. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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This pioneering work explores Republican violence in light of Roman traditions of self-help, popular justice, and aristocratic principle. Lintott argues that the inadequacy of legal restraint meant that the propensity to violence would eventually undo a vulnerable society.
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Meier, Christian. 1980. Res publica amissa: Eine Studie zu Verfassung und Geschichte der späten römischen Republik. 2d ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
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This is a penetrating study whose difficult style and complex conceptualization does not easily allow readers to grasp all its subtleties. Meier finds a deteriorating situation in the Republic not because anyone wished its end but because no one gave thought to an alternative structure or a modified system that might have maintained it.
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Nippel, Wilfried. 1995. Public order in ancient Rome. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Nippel questions the common notion that absence of a police force allowed violence to get out of hand and erode the authority of the state. His discussion of informal policing and riot control shows how the structure could discourage and absorb acts of violence without threatening its foundations.
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Raaflaub, Kurt A. 1974. Dignitatis contentio: Studien zur Motivation und politischen Taktik im Bürgerkrieg zwischen Caesar und Pompeius. Munich: Beck.
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A close and detailed analysis of the pivotal events and critical decisions in the weeks leading up to the civil war between Caesar and Pompey. Raaflaub follows this with an examination of the ideology and rhetoric underlying the split and the political tactics pursued in the conflict.
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Syme, Ronald. 1939. The Roman revolution. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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This monumental work defined a whole generation of scholarship on the end of the Republic and the age of Augustus. The idiosyncratic style was much imitated (or scorned), and the cynical interpretation of the actions of major and minor figures dominated the prosopographical approach of numerous successors. Reprinted, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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Major Figures

Numerous biographies exist of the most conspicuous figures on the Roman Republican stage. They vary widely in extent and significance. A few of the most serviceable deserve notice.

Middle Republican Figures

Scullard 1970 on Scipio Africanus is outdated but not supplanted. Pfeilschifter 2005 supplies an up-to-date study of Flamininus. The biographies of Scipio Aemilianus and Cato the Elder (Astin 1967 and Astin 1978) hold their place as standard works.

Astin, A. E. 1967. Scipio Aemilianus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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This judicious, reliable, and comprehensive biography sets Aemilianus firmly against the backdrop of political and intellectual developments of the 2nd century, which helped to shape his career and which he shaped in turn. It remains the standard treatment of its subject. Reprinted, 2002.
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Astin, A. E. 1978. Cato the Censor. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Astin's thorough, intelligent exploration of Cato's career, writings, and policies represents a major contribution. It is marked by a careful weighing of the sources and a balanced assessment that has not been superseded
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Pfeilschifter, Rene. 2005. Titus Quinctius Flamininus: Untersuchungen zur römischen Griechenlandpolitik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.
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More than a biography of Flamininus, this monograph constitutes a detailed examination of Roman diplomacy in the East during the pivotal decade of the 190s, with Flamininus as its central figure. Pfeilschifter supplies the most thorough scrutiny of this topic, arguing cogently for the influence of contingent circumstances upon diplomatic decisions, rather than the workings of a “foreign policy.”
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Scullard, H. H. 1970. Scipio Africanus: Soldier and politician. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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This remains the only full-scale treatment of Scipio's military and political career. A readable, if not penetrating, discussion that still awaits supersession.
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Gracchi to Sulla

Badian's seminal article (Badian 1972) is a must-read on the swirl of issues surrounding Tiberius Gracchus's pivotal tribunate. Bernstein 1978 gives a thorough treatment of Tiberius Gracchus but contains some dubious interpretations. Stockton 1979 provides a judicious survey of the Gracchan era, Perelli 1993 a more ideological one. The most recent biography of Marius, Evans 1994, lacks depth. The analysis of Sulla found in Badian 1970 is brief but incisive, Keaveney 2005 is fuller but too laudatory.

Badian, E. 1970. Lucius Sulla: The deadly reformer. Sydney: Sydney Univ. Press.
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A powerful indictment of Sulla. Although no more than a brief sketch of his career, this essay stresses the darker side: Sulla's unprecedented march on Rome, the proscriptions and massacres, the confiscation of property and repression of opponents, and the reforms that turned the government over to self-serving and incompetent successors.
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Badian, E. 1972. Tiberius Gracchus and the beginning of the Roman revolution. In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 1.1. Edited by Hildegarde Temporini, 668–731. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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Badian applies his typically penetrating analysis to the whole spectrum of problems involved in Ti. Gracchus's tribunate: the agrarian situation, the political motivations, the constitutional obstacles, and the implicatios for Roman-Italian relations.
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Bernstein, A. H. 1978. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus: Tradition and apostasy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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Bernstein investigates the political, social, and economic circumstances that led to Ti. Gracchus's land law. The book outlines both the conservative ideology and the popular movement that he sought to negotiate and the constitutional issues that helped to bring about his demise.
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Evans, Richard J. 1994. Gaius Marius: A political biography. Pretoria: Univ. of South Africa.
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Evans focuses on the political connections that nourished Marius's career, especially a network of alliances and municipal supporters from his home region around Arpinum. This adds a different dimension to our understanding of the basis for Marius's success and authority.
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Keaveney, Arthur. 2005. Sulla: The last republican. 2d ed. London: Routledge.
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This readable biography is conversant with the important scholarship but also accessible to the general reader. Keaveney's portrait of Sulla is a generally positive one, arguing for the legitimacy and justifiability of his actions and religious convictions in terms of contemporary perceptions.
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Perelli, Luciano. 1993. I Gracchi. Rome: Salerno Editrice.
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Perelli's book sees the Gracchi as head of a popular movement, asserting the claims of the plebs on political power and economic equality.
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Stockton, David L. 1979. The Gracchi. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Stockton's clearly written and well-argued book continues to be a valuable resource for students and scholars. His fair-minded but critical use of the sources allows him to reach defensible conclusions on all the thorny problems related to the Gracchi.
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Age of Cicero

The best of countless Cicero biographies in English are Mitchell 1979 and Mitchell 1991. Marshall 1976 and Ward 1977 on Crassus both overlap and supplement one another. Fehrle 1983 provides a reliable, if undistinguished, study of Cato the Younger. Tatum 1999 has a more penetrating and nuanced portrait of Clodius.

Fehrle, Rudolf. 1983. Cato Uticensis. Darmstadt: Wissenschafliche Buchgesellschaft.
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A workmanlike biography, the book discusses Cato's image in the literature, then tracks his career in a straight chronological presentation. Fehrle's is a solid study that addresses the problems and issues of Cato's political life but engages little with other scholarly interpretations,
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Marshall, Bruce A. 1976. Crassus: A political biography. Amsterdam: Hakkert.
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Marshall's considerably briefer monograph covers much the same ground as Ward but does so without full discussion of the many problems that dogged Crassus' career. Like Ward, he delivers a positive verdict, at odds with the generally negative scholarly opinion.
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Mitchell, Thomas N. 1979. Cicero: The ascending years. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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The vast corpus of Cicero's writings presents a challenge to any biographer who seeks to take a detached yet analytical approach. Mitchell succeeds admirably in presenting a reliable, readable, and thoughtful narrative of Cicero's rise to prominence through the year of his consulship.
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Mitchell, Thomas N. 1991. Cicero: The senior statesman. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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Mitchell's second volume completes the tale with a similarly reasonable, thorough, and intelligent account. He acknowledges Cicero's limitations but delivers a firmly favorable assessment.
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Tatum, W. Jeffrey. 1999. The patrician tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
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Although Clodius appears regularly as a troublesome and marginal figure in studies of the late Republic, Tatum accords him a substantial volume and places him intelligently in the political circumstances of his time as a more complicated and more thoughtful player than most have acknowledged.
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Ward, Allen Mason. 1977. Marcus Crassus and the late Roman Republic. Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press.
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Crassus receives his due in this extensive and detailed analysis of a key, yet enigmatic, figure in late Republican politics. Ward recognizes Crassus' failings but presents a generally favorable portrait. He inexplicably, however, omits the fatal Parthian campaign.
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Pompey and Caesar

The pointed biography of Pompey in Seager 2002 is preferable to the lengthy two volumes of Greenhalgh 1980 and Greenhalgh 1981. Studies of Caesar proliferate annually. Gelzer 1968 remains a superior classic work. Weinstock 1971 is a deeply learned book that examines the religious elements of Caesar's position. Goldsworthy 2006 makes for a sound and judicious biography. The briefer study Billows 2009 is a useful introduction. The volume of essays on Caesar, Griffin 2009, collects the most up-to-date scholarship on all matters associated with Caesar.

Billows, Richard A. 2009. Julius Caesar: The colossus of Rome. London: Routledge.
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Billows takes a fresh and cold-eyed look at Caesar. His powerfully argued monograph investigates Caesar's personality, motives, aspirations, and principles. And he places Caesar quite properly in the context of contending political groups and ideologies in the late Republic. No mere politician or military man, Caesar had a vision of how the Republic should be transformed.
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Gelzer, Matthias. 1968. Caesar: Politician and statesman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Gelzer's masterly, thorough, and fully documented work stands out as the most valuable treatment of Caesar's life, career, aspirations, successes, and failures. An admiring but cold-eyed assessment. Reprinted, Oxford: Blackwell, 1985.
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Goldsworthy, Adrian K. 2006. Caesar: Life of a colossus. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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This book appeals to a wider audience than Gelzer's biography. Goldsworthy aims successfully at an educated, non-specialist readership with an engaging and accessible text. But he has done his homework, and the documentation is adequate for the more advanced reader.
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Greenhalgh, Peter A. 1980. Pompey, the Roman Alexander. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
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Greenhalgh 1980 and 1984 are clear and engaging presentations of Pompey's career, designed primarily for non-specialists but providing essential documentation and bibliography for the more advanced. The volumes proceed chronologically and divide Pompey's career into two more or less equal parts. This book focuses on his meteoric rise to prominence through military achievements that emulated Alexander. The division is somewhat schematic, but it provides a useful frame for those new to the subject.
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Greenhalgh, Peter A. 1981. Pompey, the republican prince. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
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This book focuses on the vicissitudes of his political life and rivalries in the turbulent last years of the Republic.
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Griffin, Miriam, ed. 2009. A companion to Julius Caesar. Oxford: Blackwell.
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This new, up-to-date, broad-ranging collection of thirty articles by leading international scholars marks a major event in Caesar studies. The essays offer analyses of personal, political, intellectual, military, and religious aspects of the man. Several chapters explore his subsequent reputation from the time of Augustus to the present day. A most comprehensive publication.
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Seager, Robin. 2002. Pompey the great: A political biography. 2d ed. London: Blackwell.
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Seager's no-nonsense, succinct, and eminently readable biography still holds the field. He persuasively presents Pompey as a complex and ambiguous character victimized by biased sources who turned him into a caricature.
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Weinstock, Stefan. 1971. Divus Julius. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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This is a fundamental study of Caesar and Roman religion. Weinstock's monumental work subtly and acutely, often ingeniously, explores Caesar's association with, manipulation of, and reconfiguration of Roman religious traditions, converting them in novel ways to buttress a creative conception.
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Civic, Constitutional, and Administrative Structures

The overviews of Lintott 1999 and Lintott 1993 on internal institutions and external administration during the Republic, respectively, give successful entrances into their subjects. Bonneford-Coudry 1989 provides the fullest study of the Republican senate. Electoral procedures receive close analysis by Taylor 1966. Sherwin-White 1973 on citizenship remains a classic work, but needs to be supplemented by Gardner 1993 and, especially, Nicolet 1980. On legislation, Bleicken 1975 is thorough but too legalistic, Williamson 2005 imaginative but more controversial.

Bleicken, Jochen. 1975. Lex publica: Gesetz und Recht in der römischen Republik. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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A meticulous but somewhat schematic analysis of Roman legislation, arranged typologicially. Bleicken treats form and content, procedures, modes of implementation, and the interpenetration of law and custom.
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Bonnefond-Coudry, Marianne. 1989. Le Sénat de la République romaine: De la guerre d'Hannibal à Auguste. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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This massive tome exhaustively and authoritatively covers every aspect of senatorial powers, procedures, and responsibilities. It is clearly designed to be consulted rather than read.
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Gardner, Jane F. 1993. Being a Roman citizen. London: Routledge.
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Unlike Sherwin-White and Nicolet, Gardner stresses the private, rather than public, rights and limitations of citizens. She moves into areas often ignored by scholars: the restrictions placed upon freedmen, women, the handicapped, and all those under patria potestas.
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Lintott, Andrew W. 1993. Imperium romanum. Politics and administration. London: Routledge.
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Lintott brings a comparably clear presentation to the institutions that allowed Rome to govern a far-flung empire. He ranges over topics from appointments of governors to provincial taxation, to the spread of Roman citizenship, and the exercise of patronage.
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Lintott, Andrew W. 1999. The constitution of the Roman Republic. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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An accessible, lucid, soundly organized survey of the institutional mechanisms that underpinned the Republican system. This account does not profess to provide any novel breakthroughs, but it can be most profitably consulted on the assemblies, senate, magistrates, and courts, as well as the ideology on which it all rested.
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Nicolet, Claude. 1980. The world of the citizen in Republican Rome. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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A wide-ranging study, organized thematically rather than chronologically. Nicolet sets forth in systematic and lucid fashion the citizen's civic and military responsibilities in areas such as taxation, the levy, the census, voting in assemblies, and participation in pubic events.
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Sherwin-White, Adrian N. 1973. The Roman citizenship. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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This careful overview traces the ad hoc and shifting notions of Roman citizenship as it spread in various forms first to Latium, then to Italy, then abroad. More recent discussions have added much to the details, but Sherwin-White's study still constitutes a valuable starting point.
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Taylor, Lily Ross. 1966. Roman voting assemblies from the Hannibalic War to the dictatorship of Caesar. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Taylor's closely reasoned and careful presentation is not easy reading, but as a repository of information and plausible reconstruction of the location, operations, and mechanisms of the popular assemblies, the study remains fundamental. Reprinted, 2000.
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Williamson, Callie. 2005. The laws of the Roman people: Public law in the expansion and decline of the Roman Republic. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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This ambitious book goes well beyond its valuable collection of all laws passed by the Roman people during the Republic. Williamson seeks to relate legislative activity to the wider issues of the absorption of Italy, the extension of citizenship, and the interplay of Roman leadership and plebs.
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The Character of Politics

This topic has spawned spirited debate in recent years. Much of it concentrates on the role of the populace in political decisions of the middle and late Republic

Political Culture

The work of Millar 1984, Millar 1986, and Millar 1998, arguing for popular participation on a larger scale than previous scholars had presumed, holds central place in the debate. North 1990 provides some qualifications. Hölkeskamp 2004 offers a wider summary of recent work on Republican political culture, a most valuable contribution.

Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim. 2004. Rekonstruktionen einer Republik: Die politische Kultur des antiken Rom und die Forschung der letzten Jahrzehnte. Munich: Oldenbourg.
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Hölkeskamp successfully transcends the dichotomy between a legalistic and a prosopographical approach to Roman politics. He looks not so much at politics as at political culture. He emphasizes conventions and shared practices, religious pageantry, public ceremonies, monuments, and temples that maintained solidarity within the ascendant orders and secured allegiance from the populace. The book also contains a valuable summary of recent debates and scholarship on Republican politics.
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Millar, Fergus. 1984. The political character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C. Journal of Roman Studies 74:1–19.
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This constitutes the opening salvo in the ongoing debate about the role of the populace in Roman politics. Millar makes the case that Polybius's tripartite division of the Republican constitution into monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic elements needs to be taken seriously, and that the democratic aspect as vehicle for the popular will had an indispensable part in the process.
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Millar, Fergus. 1986. Politics, persuasion, and the people before the Social War (150–90 B.C. Journal of Roman Studies 76:1–11.
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Millar pursued his argument about the “democratic” character of the political system down to the period of the Social War. He places greatest stress on oratory and its acknowledged importance, a crucial sign that popular opinion needed to be solicited and cultivated in order to move the political process.
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Millar, Fergus. 1998. The crowd in Rome in the late Republic. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Millar presents his thesis here in a fuller form, lucidly and cogently. Although his claim that the Republic was a form of democracy has been challenged, his emphasis upon the open character of public events carries real significance. He shows that the close-knit circumstances of the Forum, where trials, contiones, and legislative gatherings took place, gave immediacy and intimacy to the public activities in which the Roman people engaged and exercised influence.
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North, John. 1990. Democratic politics in Republican Rome. Past and Present 126:3–21.
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A good summary of the scholarly debate on the relative weight of aristocratic authority and popular activity in determining the decisions of state. North himself, pointing out the weaknesses of both positions, opts for a view that the popular will found expression only in the context of divisions within the oligarchy.
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Role of the Plebs

The influence of the plebs is stressed by Vanderbroek 1987. Mouritsen 2001 offers a skeptical view. Studies of Roman rhetoric and oratory on the political scene by Pina Polo 1996 and, most cogently, by Morstein-Marx 2004 have significantly added to our understanding. The essays in Jehne 1995 offer a range of opinions.

Jehne, Martin, ed. 1995. Demokratie in Rom? Die Rolle des Volkes in der Politik der römischen Republik. Stuttgart: Steiner.
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A short but fine assemblage of essays on the impact of the populus upon the decision-making process in the Republic. The contributors are all leading German scholars on this subject. They treat speeches to the people, communication between elite and commons, and the influence of bribery in swaying the voting populace.
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Morstein-Marx, Robert. 2004. Mass oratory and political power in the late Roman Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Morstein-Marx offers an incisive study of the informal popular gathering, the contio, which demonstrates, on the one hand, that the interchange between elite leaders and the commons was an essential ingredient in Roman politics, but, on the other, that these gatherings were usually orchestrated to further the agenda of the elite. This undermines a fundamental prop for the “democratic” element in Roman decision making.
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Mouritsen, Henrik. 2001. Plebs and politics in the late Roman Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Mouritsen presents a cogent and sustained challenge to Millar's thesis (see Political Culture). He argues, with some force, that space for the assemblies was simply inadequate to allow participation by substantial numbers and that more practical demands would reduce further the actual attendance at assemblies, thereby rendering any real democratic character illusory.
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Pina Polo, Francisco. 1996. Contra arma verbis: Der Redner vor dem Volk in der späten römischen Republik. Stuttgart: Steiner.
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Pina Polo puts political oratory in center stage of the public scene in late Republican Rome. He argues that speeches before the people, especially in contiones, demonstrate the importance of soliciting popular good will. At the same time, he points out that the structures and conventions of the institution actually strengthened the hold of the aristocracy on public opinion and reinforced the social hierarchy.
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Vanderbroeck, Paul J. J. 1987. Popular leadership and collective behavior in the late Roman Republic (ca. 80–50 B.C.). Amsterdam: Gieben.
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Vanderbroeck intelligently applies modern sociology toward an understanding of group behavior by the plebs in the late Republic. He examines systematically the structures, occasions, means, and vehicles whereby leaders were able to mobilize collective action by the commons and exercise effective popular influence on the public scene.
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Elections and Their Interpretation

The question of continuity or change at the top through the electoral process is probed by Hopkins and Burton 1983 and by Badian 1990, with different conclusions. Yakobson 1999 sheds new and surprising light on the subject.

Badian, E. 1990. The consuls, 179–49 BC. Chiron 20:371–413.
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Badian reexamined the whole question of consular lineage and significantly refined the conclusions of Hopkins and Burton, establishing that in a 130-year period more than 70 percent of the consuls came from families that had held that office. This applies an important qualification to the notion of social mobility among the elite.
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Hopkins, Keith, and G. Burton. 1983. Political succession in the late Republic (249–50 B.C.) In Death and renewal. Edited by Keith Hopkins, 31–120. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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In this influential study, the authors employ statistical analysis to ascertain the proportion of elected consuls who were themselves descendants of consuls, thus to determine the impact of genealogy upon the choice of leaders. Their researches indicate that lineage gave no automatic access to high office, and that a number of consular families were unable to repeat their successes in subsequent generations.
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Yakobson, Alexander. 1999. Elections and electioneering in Rome: A study in the political system of the late Republic. Stuttgart: Steiner.
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Yakobson makes a potent and original case for a viable popular element even in the centuriate assembly, which was structured to give preponderant weight to the wealthy. He argues shrewdly that men of moderate wealth or less could play a pivotal role in elections to the highest offices. This small book has properly stirred considerable rethinking.
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Society

Alföldy 1984 provides a convenient introduction. The role of patronage as a social glue is examined at length by Rouland 1979 and Deniaux 1993 and through several essays in Wallace-Hadrill 1989. Important studies of the Roman family appear in Bradley 1991 and Dixon 1992. Various strata of society gain attention in different works. Nicolet 1966–1974 on the equestrian class remains unsurpassed, as does Treggiari 1969 on freedmen.

Alföldy, Géza. 1984. The social history of Rome. London: Croom Helm.
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This provides a brief and readable entrance into the subject. Alföldy sketches the structure of Roman society, its shifting contours during the Republic, and the conflicts between upper and lower strata.
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Bradley, Keith R. 1991. Discovering the Roman family: Studies in Roman social history. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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This book brings together a number of individual pieces by Bradley, some of them previously published, on a variety of matters, both detailed and general, with regard to the Roman family. Bradley, a leading Roman social historian, grapples with issues such as child care, the role of the nurse, family dislocation, and child labor.
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Deniaux, Élizabeth. 1993. Clientèles et pouvoir à l'époque de Ciceron. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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Deniaux takes the topic of clientage beyond and in greater depth than Rouland by focusing upon the rich material in Cicero. She explores his personal ties of patronage through his numerous letters of recommendation that reveal the patronage networks extending into several levels of society.
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Dixon, Suzanne. 1992. The Roman family. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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Dixon provides a most helpful synthesis of scholarly work (much of it her own) on Roman family relations. The book covers legal regulations governing the family, marriage practices, the role of children, and family rituals through the life cycle.
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Nicolet, Claude. 1966–1974. L'ordre équestre à l'époque républicaine. 2 vols. Paris: Boccard.
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Nicolet's masterful work holds its place as the indispensable treatment of the equestrian class in the history of the Republic. The author discusses every aspect of the equites' public role: in the military, the financial world, the tax-farming companies, and the judiciary. His second volume provides a full-scale prosopography of all known equites, with a summary of everything that is known about each. An invaluable resource.
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Rouland, Norbert. 1979. Pouvoir politique et dépendance personnelle dans l'antiquité romaine. Brussels: Latomus.
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Rouland's impressively comprehensive book offers the fullest examination of the institution of clientage that we possess. It encompasses the origin of the institution, the modes of establishing the relationship, the responsibilities and expectations of clients, and the loosening of the bonds in the late Republic.
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Treggiari, Susan. 1969. Roman freedmen during the late Republic. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Treggiari produced what is still the most comprehensive analysis of the status and experience of freedmen in the Republic. Her extensive use of the legal sources and inscriptions, as well as the literary testimony, provides a rounded portrait of freedmen's family life, political and religious participation, and role in the workplace and the professions.
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Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, ed. 1989. Patronage in ancient society. London: Routledge.
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This collection of essays approaches the workings of patronage from several angles of vision. The various contributions address not only individual, personal, and social connections, but also the extension of patronage to international relations and the governance of the provinces.
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Economics

The high quality of the essays assembled in Scheidel, et al. 2007 makes it likely that this collection will rapidly become the standard work on the topic in general.

Scheidel, Walter, Ian Morris, and Richard P. Saller, eds. 2007. The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521780537Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This massive volume assembles an impressive set of essays by specialists that cover a vast chronological span. They seek to apply theoretical models of economic behavior to a comparative study of the ancient Mediterranean. They give due attention to a variety of factors affecting ancient economics, such as ecology, demography, and technology. The reflection of current thinking on a wide front makes this an indispensable tool.
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Labor

Joshel 1992, on the epigraphic evidence for labor and for workers' attitudes toward it, was groundbreaking. The most incisive work on slaves and the Roman mentality is Bradley 1994.

Bradley, Keith R. 1994. Slavery and society at Rome. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Bradley's extensive work in Roman slavery issues here in one of the most important syntheses of the subject. The author not only discusses the nature of the institution, the sources of supply, and changes over time; he also delves into the mentality of the slave, the conditions of labor, and the quality of life.
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Joshel, Sandra R. 1992. Work, identity, and legal status at Rome: A study of the occupational inscriptions. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
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Joshel offers an excellent study of the Latin inscriptions that record the occupations of slaves, freedmen, and those of free birth. The book sheds valuable light upon the importance attached by ordinary Romans to their labor as a means of announcing legal status, claiming pride in work, and establishing identity as members of professional groups and communal associations.
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Agriculture

One of the most intensely studied aspects of the economy has been that of the changing nature of agriculture and its impact on the social and political history of the later Republic. The monumental analysis given by Toynbee 1965 of the negative consequences of the Hannibalic War has had great influence. The effects on the land, on Italian economy generally, and on the structure of Roman society were developed further by Hopkins 1978, De Neeve 1984, and Flach 1990. The acute analysis by Morley 1996 of the relationship between city and countryside in the Italian economy has importantly advanced the subject. The new article by Rosenstein 2008 provides an original and arresting reassessment of standard opinion on Italian agriculture in the Republic.

De Neeve, P. W. 1984. Colonus: Private farm-tenancy in Roman Italy during the Republic and the early Principate. Amsterdam: Gieben.
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The development of tenant farming in Italy during the Republic is an essential part of agrarian history. De Neeve's book closely analyzes the meanings that ancient authors ascribed to the term colonus, and explores with care the legal evidence for this institution and its evolution.
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Flach, Dieter. 1990. Römische Agrargeschichte. Munich: Beck.
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Flach examines the testimony of the agricultural writers and the historical sources to build a picture of land tenure, various forms of agriculture, and pasturage that characterized the rural economy of Italy.
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Hopkins, M. K. 1978. Conquerors and slaves. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Hopkins's stimulating essays, drawing on his training as both historian and sociologist, have had a substantial impact. His discussion of the relationship between overseas conquest, the agrarian crisis in Italy, and the spread of slavery on the land constitutes a classic statement on the subject.
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Morley, Neville. 1996. Metropolis and hinterland: The city of Rome and the Italian economy, 200 B.C.–A.D. 200. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Morley employs demography and comparative studies to show the intimate relationship between Italian agriculture and the expanding city of Rome, a reciprocal connection that fueled both agricultural change and the growth of an urban market.
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Rosenstein, Nathan S. 2008. Aristocrats and agriculture in the middle and late Republic. Journal of Roman Studies 98:1–26.
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Rosenstein brings serious doubts to the conventional line on the growth of commercial agriculture in middle and late Republican Rome. His analysis of supply and demand, with perspectives from the consumer side, puts the whole issue in a new light.
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Toynbee, Arnold J. 1965. Hannibal's legacy: The Hannibalic War's effects on Roman life. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Although Toynbee may have exaggerated the baneful effects of the Hannibalic war on the rural economy of Italy, his wide-ranging discussion of the interrelationship of military demands, the peasant economy, and the growth of ranches and animal husbandry remains a powerful and influential portrait.
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Population Studies

Demographic studies have taken an increasingly central role in recent years. Parkin 1992 was a pioneer. Lo Cascio 1994 and Morley 2001 applied them usefully to their important examination of the ancient numbers. Scheidel 1996, Scheidel 2001, Scheidel 2004, and Scheidel 2005, which combine detailed analysis with salutary skepticism, have helped to make demography a topic of the first importance.

Lo Cascio, Elio. 1994. The size of the Roman population: Beloch and the meaning of the Augustan census figures. Journal of Roman Studies 84:22–40.
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Lo Cascio subjects Beloch's classic reconstruction of Roman population figures to detailed scrutiny, showing the shakiness of the Augustan census numbers on which the construct rested. He makes use of the model life tables to support alternative conclusions, but tempers his skepticism with the claim that rough estimates remain legitimate.
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Morley, Neville. 2001. The transformation of Italy, 225–28 B.C. Journal of Roman Studies 91:50–62.
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The standard view of the decline of the free population in Italy in the middle and late Republic, with a corresponding rise of slavery and ill effects for the Roman military, as expressed by Toynbee, Brunt, Hopkins, and others, still retains extensive influence. Morley's article demonstrates the flimsy and inadequate basis for this consensus.
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Parkin, Tim G. 1992. Demography and Roman society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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Parkin's synthesis of this subject helped to bring it into the mainstream of Roman studies. His use of modern historical demography and comparative material markedly enhanced the traditional approach to population studies through inscriptions, papyri, and literary sources.
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Scheidel, Walter. 1996. Measuring sex, age, and death in the Roman Empire: Explorations in ancient demography. Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
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Scheidel applies his command of demographic approach and techniques to illuminate certain troublesome issues in Roman history, such as brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt, the demography of the Roman army, and the seasonal impact on mortality in the city of Rome.
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Scheidel, Walter, ed. 2001. Debating Roman demography. Leiden: Brill.
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Scheidel provides an incisive overview of his own, and essays by four other contributors supply case studies. The book employs comparative models and quantitative methods to compensate for the absence of adequate or reliable evidence from antiquity for population studies.
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Scheidel, Walter. 2004. Human mobility in Roman Italy, I: The free population. Journal of Roman Studies 94:1–26.
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This article presents a quantitative model of population transfers within, to, and from Italy from the late 4th century BCE to the 1st century CE. Scheidel's use of model life tables and his analysis of the demographic context, scale, and distribution of the migration of free persons leads him to posit high population figures and high levels of human mobility as a direct function of Roman empire building.
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Scheidel, Walter. 2005. Human mobility in Roman Italy, II: The slave population. Journal of Roman Studies 95:64–96.
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Scheidel extends his population studies here to slaves. The numbers, if accurate, deepen our understanding of migratory flows in Italy, a conclusion of wide significance for Roman social and economic history.
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Military

Military history has gained increasing popularity in recent years. Several illuminating studies treat the army as an institution, including Keppie 1984, Goldsworthy 1996 and Goldsworthy 2000, and Erdkamp 2007. The more important work examines the part played by the military in Roman politics, society and ideology. The magisterial volume of Brunt 1971 has exercised extensive influence. The army's wider role has been the object also of recent contributions by De Blois 2000, Keaveney 2007, and Phang 2008, and, most significantly, the incisive analysis of Rosenstein 2004.

Brunt, P. A. 1971. Italian manpower, 225 B.C.–A.D. 14. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Brunt's powerful, sweeping, and densely argued work remains, despite recent criticism, fundamental to debates on the subject. In addition to his lengthy discussions of population figures in Italy and abroad, Brunt ties the findings to the connections between military service and land holdings. By weaving the threads together, this work is at once a demographic, military, and agrarian study.
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De Blois, Lukas. 2000. Army and society in the late Roman Republic: Professionalism and the role of the military middle class. In Kaiser, Heer und Gesellschaft in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Edited by Géza Alföldy, 11–31. Stuttgart: Steiner.
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De Blois offers a nuanced understanding of what constituted “professionalism” in the armies of the late Republic. Roman soldiers were technically citizens in arms, rather than a professional soldiery. But, as De Blois argues, strong ties developed between officers and men, which were subject to manipulation by leaders who could appeal to the interests of the soldiery.
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Erdkamp, Paul, ed. 2007. A companion to the Roman army. Oxford: Blackwell.
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This collection of articles by a wide array of specialists provides an up-to-date introduction to subjects such as the wars of the Republic, recruitment, manpower, land distribution to veterans, and the relation between army and general.
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Goldsworthy, Arthur. 1996. The Roman army at war 100 BC–200 AD. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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This well-organized and lucidly presented study brings to life the Roman army's organization, methods of operation, communal structures, tactics, and, perhaps most important, morale and ideology.
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Goldsworthy, Arthur. 2000. Roman warfare. London: Cassell.
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A succinct and convenient introduction for the general reader to the Roman military and the reasons for its success, by an authoritative scholar on this subject. Among other things, the book treats Roman ingenuity, inventiveness, and flexibility that allowed the forces to adjust to changing times and circumstances. It includes attractive illustrations, photographs, maps, charts, tables, and source references.
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Keaveney, Arthur. 2007. The army in the Roman revolution. London: Routledge.
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Keaveney clearly and interestingly addresses all the major issues, already much discussed, about the role of the army in bringing about the end of the Republic. He treats the changing relationship between commander and troops (quite different from patron-client links), the degree to which generals depended on their soldiers for political advancement, the economic aims of the rank and file, and the strains on military discipline in the civil wars. The book takes these matters from the time of Marius to that of Actium.
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Keppie, Lawrence J. 1984. The making of the Roman army: From Republic to Empire. London: Batsford.
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This book serves nicely to educate non-specialists in various aspects of Roman military history. Keppie presents not so much a survey as a helpful look at certain military topics and conflicts, such as Marius's reforms, the conquest of Gaul, civil war, and the shaping of a new army in the early Principate.
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Phang, Sara Elise. 2008. Roman military service: Ideologies of discipline in the late Republic and early Principate. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Phang explores the ideological considerations that allowed commanders and officers to maintain control of their armies. A commitment to discipline that was rationalized, not merely imposed, she argues, was fundamental to the military mentality.
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Rosenstein, Nathan S. 2004. Rome at war: Farms, families, and death in the middle Republic. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
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Rosenstein's important book takes a fresh look at the interconnections among war, mortality, and Italian agriculture, His detailed analysis challenges conventional wisdom on the effects of overseas wars on small landholders in rural Italy. The book makes a strong argument that the effects have been overstated and the picture distorted.
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Values

Roman thinkers held many values dear, but both their conceptualization and their implementation led to complexity, inconsistency, and reassessment. These have been subjected to scrutiny by a number of scholars from a variety of angles. Earl 1967 offers the widest scope but a relatively unsophisticated perspective. Moatti 1997 brings a nuanced analysis of late Republican intellectual history as applying rational categories to Roman traditions and discourse. The ambiguous notion of political liberty is investigated in the classic work of Wirszubski 1968. Flower 1996 explores some central modes of expressing aristocratic values, through the celebration or eradication of memory. The concept of Roman virtus as imbedded in martial prowess forms the subject of McDonnell 2006. And the most conspicuous method of celebrating martial accomplishment, the Roman triumph, is subjected to withering analysis by Beard 2007. The underside of Roman commitment to honor and morality and the often tortuous character of Roman inner life prompted the penetrating studies of Edwards 1993, Barton 1993, and Barton 2001.

Barton, Carlin A. 1993. The sorrows of the ancient Romans: The gladiator and the monster. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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A bold, provocative, and original study that excavates the darker corners of Roman emotions. The multiplication of examples is sometimes excessive, but it adds a rich vividness and concreteness. The book is informed by the insights of psychology and anthropology, as well as classical scholarship.
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Barton, Carlin A. 2001. Roman honor: The fire in the bones. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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One of the world's leading scholars of Roman emotional life presents a sensitive and penetrating study of how Romans understood and clung to their idea of honor as a critical element of their inner being. Barton not only roams widely in Latin literature and history but also enhances the work with an anthropological perspective, comparative studies, and a host of modern parallels.
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Beard, Mary. 2007. The Roman triumph. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Beard offers a wide-ranging, witty, and engaging study accessible to non-specialists but also of high interest to scholars. She exposes the fragility of evidence on which most reconstructions of the triumph rest, demonstrates that no rigid or consistent rules governed the institution, and makes the striking observation that the triumph could serve as a critique as well an advertisement of Roman imperialism.
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Earl, Donald C. 1967. The moral and political tradition of Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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Earl's overview sketches certain aristocratic values and ideals expressed in a range of works from Plautus and Cato to the Augustan poets and beyond. Although too brief to do the job properly, it serves as a useful introduction to the subject. Reprinted, 1984.
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Edwards, Catherine. 1993. The politics of immorality in ancient Rome. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Edwards addresses the question not of how immoral the ancient Romans were but why the literature they produced is so preoccupied with immorality. Her exploration of the interplay of moralizing rhetoric and elite self-perception makes the book particularly stimulating. Individual chapters focus on adultery, effeminacy, the immorality of the Roman theater, luxurious buildings, and the dangers of pleasure.
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Flower, Harriet I. 1996. Ancestor masks and aristocratic power in Roman culture. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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The importance to the political ideology of the Republican aristocracy of allusions to and representations of one's ancestors cannot be overestimated. Flower supplies the best treatment of this institution in her sensitive association of ancestral portraits in funerals, in the home, and in public rhetoric with the expression of elite authority.
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McDonnell, Myles Anthony. 2006. Roman manliness: Virtus and the Roman Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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McDonnell traces the concept of virtus, a vital ingredient in the Roman self-image, through both written and visual representations from the early Republic to its end. Although he limits virtus too exclusively to military qualities, the study marks an important advance in understanding the Roman sense of this concept.
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Moatti, Claude. 1997. La raison de Rome: Naissance de l'esprit critique à la fin de la République. Paris: Seuil.
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This is a rich, ambitious, and complex book, seen through the lens of a fiercely analytical thinker. Moatti argues in subtle and nuanced fashion that the application of rational categories of thinking to diverse areas of intellectual discourse, whether law, philosophy, rhetoric, religion, art, or ethnography, represented a successful effort both to preserve Roman traditions and to reformulate them in a dialectical context.
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Wirszubski, Chaim. 1968. Libertas as a political idea at Rome during the late Republic and early Principate. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Wirszubski's acute deconstruction of the term libertas goes to the core of this central notion in Roman ideology. His wide-ranging analysis shows the diverse usage of the term as a political slogan that allowed its manipulation by aristocrat and popular spokesman alike. Reprinted, 2007.
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