Mortal Republic
How Rome Fell into Tyranny
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- ¥2,200
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The gripping, definitive account of how the Romans lost their Republic
“An incisive history… The parallels to the present day are striking.” —New Yorker
In Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy.
For centuries, even as Rome grew into the Mediterranean's premier military and political power, its governing institutions, parliamentary rules, and political customs successfully fostered negotiation and compromise. By the 130s BC, however, Rome's leaders increasingly used these same tools to cynically pursue individual gain and obstruct their opponents. As the center decayed and dysfunction grew, arguments between politicians gave way to political violence in the streets. The stage was set for destructive civil wars—and ultimately the imperial reign of Augustus.
The death of Rome's Republic was not inevitable. In Mortal Republic, Watts shows it died because it was allowed to, from thousands of small wounds inflicted by Romans who assumed that it would last forever.
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Watts (The Final Pagan Generation) outlines the end of the Roman republic to show "how republics built on Rome's model might respond to particular stresses," in this quick and clear, if at times dry, primer. Watts begins by depicting Rome's journey to the status equivalent of a modern world power, by defeating Greek king Pyrrhus in 280 BCE, taking on Carthage in the Punic Wars, and achieving a final victory over Hannibal's Carthage in 202 BCE. The book moves briskly through the evolution of the republic's democracy in subsequent decades, including an early example of demagogic populism in the election and reign of Tiberius. The book ends with a deep analysis of Caesar's ascent to autocratic power, his murder, and the rise of Emperor Augustus in 27 BCE. Readers will find many parallels to today's fraught political environment: the powerful influence of money in politics, a "delegitimized establishment," and "the emergence of a personality-driven, populist politicking." Watts ably and accessibly if in a somewhat formal, scholarly style covers a lot of ground in a manner accessible to all readers, including those with little knowledge of Roman history. This well-crafted analysis makes clear the subject matter's relevance to contemporary political conversations.
