(Part 2) Best ancient rome biographies according to redditors
We found 230 Reddit comments discussing the best ancient rome biographies. We ranked the 41 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging. I'm starting this comment off with this book because it is, far beyond the shadow of a doubt, the most important book that every man should read. It is primarily meant for soldiers in the US military but god damn dude every fucking male on this planet needs to read this fucking book, plus it's less than 200 pages. If someone comes up to you and tells you that you can only read one more book ever again let it be this one. If you buy any book recommended here today, it absolutely needs to be this one. If you're one of those dudes that is in a sort of "melancholy" where you're not "living" life, you're just sort of "existing", this book can really help you sort things out. Fuck, buy this book even if you're one of the women of /r/AskMen.
The book question gets asked from time to time in this subreddit and I actually bought some of the books that people were recommending. Most of them (in my opinion) suck sweaty ass but a few were actually good. Here's a general run down of the books I bought from a thread asking the same question.
From best to worst. Keep in mind that this is just my opinion and shouldn't be treated as the law of the land.
Man's Search for Meaning. Written by a Jewish man who survived Nazi concentration camps. Unlike a lot of concentration camp books it doesn't go over the physical torture aspect of it. He talks about what was going through his mind and the way that other prisoners acted. The talks about his mental state and what got him and others through one of the most devastating crimes against humanity. Craziest part is when they get liberated. The prisoners are allowed to go into the nearby town and most of them think to themselves "this isn't real, this is bullshit" at which point they head back to the concentration camp.
The Tao of Pooh. The author conveys the lessons of Buddhist Taoism through Winnie the Pooh stories he made with commentary in between the stories. Started off good but I skipped the Pooh stories and went straight to the commentary, having to read excerpts that are meant for 3 year olds got old really quick. The book spirals into a steaming pile of shit towards the end. Te author starts inserting personal opinion into the commentary and talking shit on types of people he doesn't like. He talks shit on scientists for studying birds (let the birds be birds), joggers (all that running and they never go anywhere), and people who try to develop cures for diseases (let nature run its course). He tries to back all his opinions up with this totally bullshit story about a Chinese man who lived to be 250 years old. I don't know how sheltered and naive you have to be to think that you can live to 250 by "going for brisk walks" and "eating only vegetables" but the author makes himself look like a complete asshat by putting faith in the story.
The Stranger. The book tries to convey that the universe is indifferent to you and your problems (which it is) but the author presents it in a painfully boring manner.
The Meditations. A Roman emperors diary and notes on stoicism. Super fucking hard to read. "I thank my mother for teaching me motherly things. I thank my father for teaching me fatherly things. I thank my teacher for sharing knowledge. I thank my friends for being there for me." I couldn't make it to page 10. Shit was just too fucking repetitive.
Land redistribution, citizenship for the Gauls living in northern Italy, and a law that made it so provincial governors had to leave balanced books and not take bribes while in office. There were probably others, but those are the ones I can find.
https://www.amazon.com/Caesar-Life-Colossus-Adrian-Goldsworthy-ebook/dp/B0015R3HJS/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=caesar&qid=1562375492&s=gateway&sr=8-4
This is a pretty good Caesar book I read a while back.
It's pretty nuts how much they tried to obstruct him, actually. He had just come off a great term as governor and wanted to hold a Triumph, a military parade that was usually the zenith of a Roman man's career. But his enemies refused to even let him enter the city to stand for election unless he surrendered his right to a Triumph. They thought he'd never give it up, which would let them deny him becoming consul at age 40, the youngest possible age and a huge honor.
When he shocked them by surrendering his Triumph to become consul, his conservative junior consul, Bibulus, tried to veto every piece of legislation Caesar passed. After enough time had passed, Caesar made a power-sharing deal with Marcus Crassus and Gnaeus Pompey, the two biggest political bosses in Rome at the time. That gave him the cover to use gangs of armed men to beat and threaten Bibulus or his cronies away from using their veto. And even THEN, Bibulus tried to nullify every law passed that year by "watching the sky" and declaring that the gods had given omens declaring the legislation unholy!
Caesar was able to play Pompey and Crassus off each other masterfully to get his command in Gaul, where his conquests made him the equal of his two patrons. This lasted about 10 years, but when Crassus died in Syria, Pompey decided Caesar was too strong and allied with the conservatives to crush Caesar. They basically told him that he would surrender his wealth, his social status, and go into exile, or be executed. He said fuck that, and kicked off the REALLY big civil war that only ended decades later when Caesar's nephew Octavian achieved absolute power as Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. Hundreds of thousands of people had died and most of the bloodlines that had opposed Caesar were extinguished. All because the now-slaughtered rich families didn't want to give up even a pittance to the common people!
As to why they feared him so much? There were other populist reformers that the ruling class didn't kill, most notably Pompey himself. Pompey, however, was of a new family and not really seen as a lasting threat. Caesar, however, had some of the most ancient and noble blood in Rome. He could trace his descent to most of the biggest figures in Roman history, and more recently he was the nephew of BOTH the populist reformer Gaius Marius and the aristocratic dictator Lucius Sulla. In Rome, long before the rise of capitalism, a distinguished bloodline could be far stronger than a great fortune. His impoverished upbringing in the poorest ghettos of Rome also gave him a connection to the common people that no other Roman leader could boast of, and they feared this aristocrat with a populist touch.
A good comparison would probably be if, say, one of the big billionaires in our system suddenly did a heel-face turn and dedicated his fortune to empowering socialist politics in America. There would be absolute pants-shitting terror in the ruling class. Firebrands like Bernie and AOC have to struggle with few resources against multi-billion dollar machines, but if you could wed that to a Koch-style influence complex? You'd be unstoppable.
To answer your question rather bluntly: no. At least not during the Republic/early Empire.
Rather than immortalising their families through crests/coats of arms one so regularly sees in medieval history, Romans carried on their legacy through their names. The tria nomina is important in understanding this (relevant during the Republic, begins to fade with the development of Emperors). We'll take Gaius Julius Caesar as an example:
To the senatorial class of Rome, your name (therefore lineage) was massively important in being able to identify yourself - like a coat of arms would be to medieval families. Roman names trace where your family came from and their accomplishments. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (Africanus was the agnomen, a nickname in other words) is a perfect example of this. His defeat of Hannibal at Zama earned him the final addition to his name, which relatives could also add to show proud military conquests. Again, Scipio can trace his lineage through the nomen gentilicium of Cornelius (the gens Cornelia dynasty). Sorry if I'm rambling, it's just to establish the importance of name.
The importance of coins:
Thousands of coins have survived from Ancient Rome, and they really add to our understanding of Roman society as a whole. There are countless examples of Romans putting their names on coins in conjunction with an image of some sort to represent a certain military or social triumph. Howgego (source below) goes on to talk about how coins began to become a political weapon within the Republic. One can really see the importance of names within this period. Rather than identifying with a coat of arms, one could identify their conquests/importance with a name instead.
Military Context:
In the late Roman Republic, a legion would identify with two things. The first being their standard, which was often an aquila (trans.: eagle). The Roman eagle is a popularly depicted icon, and it was massively important for the legion to keep its standard. Losing a standard could be seen as massively shaming, and Romans would often go to great lengths to get it back. Crassus, for example, is known to have lost the standard at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC - it was eventually recovered. Another way in which a legion identified itself was by its name. Names ranged from Legio I Italica to Legio VI Victrix. Some of these names were also depicted on coins in conjunction with the aquila for the relevant legion (see source below for examples). My point with this is that even the military did not identify with a variety of coats of arms, but a unified standard which represented Rome.
Relevant sources:
Complete novice? Extra Credits.
Seconding the Podcasts from Carlin, "Punic Nightmares" and Duncan's History of Rome and Born Yesterday. Seriously, Duncan is amazing. Major history hard-on.
Also, the History Channel has a pretty fun website, and there aren't any pawnshop aliens American Trucker-Pickers.
And if you want to read something that was written a tad earlier, Appian's histories cover the Second Punic War in several sections: The Spanish Wars, The Hannibalic War in Europe, and The Punic War and Numidian Affairs about Scipio in Africa (he also writes about the First Punic War), Livy deals with the Second Punic War in chapters 21-25 and 26-30, Polybius uses the Punic Wars to extol (and for us, explain) Roman virtues and institutions, and Plutarch gives two Generals treatment in his Parallel Lives, Fabius and Flaminius.
Modern books, I liked Adrian Goldsworthy's [The Punic Wars] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Punic-Wars-Adrian-Goldsworthy/dp/0304352845), and had WAY too much fun reading this book about Scipio and this book about Hannibal in tandem.
Oh... after you're done with all/any of that you might want to go buy Rome Total War and play as the Scipii. Extra points if you download Europa Barbarorum. Rome 2 is out and presumably awesome (and EB2)
Adrian Goldsworthy's Life of a Colossus
You can sort-of compromise by reading the Landmark edition
This includes maps etc. which might help you follow the action.
They also published a bunch of appendices/annexes/essays online (previous books just included these in the print version, but by making them online a side-effect is they're free)
If you go with the secondary source option, I'd consider Caesar, by Adrian Goldsworthy (haven't actually read it, but have read lots of others by him and they're great, and reviews of it draw attention to the Gallic Wars analysis being great as the writer is a military historian
Book 4 by Aleister Crowley
The Book of the Law by Aleister Crowley
The Vision and the Voice by Aleister Crowley
Liber 777 by Aleister Crowley
The Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley
Gems From the Equinox by Aleister Crowley and Israel Regardie
The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order by Israel Regardie
The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic by Israel Regardie
The Goat Foot God by Dion Fortune
The Sea Priestess by Dion Fortune
The Winged Bull by Dion Fortune
Moon Magic by Dion Fortune
Zanoni by Edward Bulwer Lytton
The Golden Ass by Apuleius
The Dream of Scipio by Cicero
Pistis Sophia by G.R.S. Mead
Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th Centuries by "a Brother of the Fraternity"
The Golden Bough by Sir George Frazer
The Voice of the Silence by H.P. Blavatsky
The Kybalion by "Three Initiates"
The Corpus Hermeticum by Hermes Trismegistus
The Book of Abramelin
The Three Magical Books of Solomon
Read this book. Seriously.
http://www.amazon.com/Julius-Caesar-Philip-Freeman/dp/0743289544/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393953759&sr=1-7&keywords=julius+caesar
It reads so unbelievably well. It's not historical fiction, it's essentially a biography of Caeser focusing on his earlier life that's written in such a fantastic prose style that it reads like fiction. I couldn't put it down. It's one of the best history books I've ever read from an actual writing standpoint (so many of them are interesting but very dry).
Someone else mentioned I, Claudius. I listened to the audiobook, it was okay. I'd recommend it if you really want something on Ancient Rome specifically but as a book I find it didn't age terribly well. They come across a bit heavy. That's not necessarily a bad thing but I find you have to be in the right mood to read a book like that.
Massimo Pigliucci, who runs a blog about Stoicism, recently did a 5 part review of a new book about Cato the Younger called Rome's Last Citizen. You might want to check those out.
He also recently did a post listing out quotes from Seneca, where Seneca talks about Cato the Younger. Seneca considered Cato to be an essential Stoic role model and talked about him a lot in this Letters and Essays.
As far as I am aware, Cato the Younger did not write anything himself (that we still have copies of), unlike Seneca and Marcus.
Syme's The Roman Revolution is in my opinion still the orthodox text almost 100 years after it was written (1939 I think). There's several biographies of Caesar that come to mind, most powerfully Meier's and Goldsworthy's. Of these two I prefer Meier's, but I think Badian had a fairly scathing review of it published somewhere. The most recent thing I'm aware of (although I haven't read it) is Goodman's Rome's Last Citizen.
And of course there's always Plutarch, Appian, Cicero's letters (which contain some written by and to Cato). I don't think there's any substitute for starting with the ancient sources.
I think I already have an audio book of the Gallic Commentaries.
EDIT: Yup. Here we go:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Commentaries/dp/B002DQL3XW
Couple of my favorites:
Scipio Africanus by B.H. Liddell Hart Link
Augustus Link
These books helped me get into my love for the total war series, enjoy.
It is true that the only way to win is genocide. If you want to pacify and reform a violent, proud nation of warriors, you will have to kill a LOT of them. You will have to treat them with a brutality that goes way beyond killing a few households, women and children included.
IMO, the best book on the topic is "The Gallic Wars" by G. Julius Caesar. Every Gaul is a cutthroat animal. The only way to win is to kill a quarter of them as brutally as possible until you beat the pride and resistance out of the culture. Americans do not have the nerve to follow the advice of the master of conquest and Empire.
So a few crazed soldiers commit pathetic and tragic little massacres that convince the thoroughly decent people at home that its time to end this little foreign adventure.
JB Bury's History of the Later Roman Empire tends to be fairly widely available, vol 1 and 2 and is a good primer for the period. I believe there are several free versions available online. Just do a quick google search.
Despite being written in the 1920s, it still holds up rather well as a reference (and I love it for his conclusions and straightforward writing style), as he focuses on the political history of the period. He also incorporates many choice selections and citations from Procopius himself, so that might save you some trouble.
BTW, JB Bury was the editor for the previous incarnations of the Cambridge Medieval History, which is also available for free. So you can use the older book series as well.
However, remember that the more recent scholarly books on that era tend to focus on the non-political history aspects of that period, so like the social, the cultural, the economic, and so forth. Bury's historiography will be a bit out of date, but the areas most likely to hold up will be in the realm of the essential political narrative.
But if you're willing to pay for amazon money on Justinian, I see this relatively recent book, The Age of Justinian most often as a standard but accessible reference.
The most recent book on Lepidus is Lepidus: The Tarnished Triumvir
His memoirs, The Gallic Wars and The Civil Wars are great places to start, and they are rather short. And its all written by Caesar, so who better to tell you about how great Caesar is!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Conquest-Gaul-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140444335/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374613113&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Gallic+Wars+Penguin+Classics
http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Caesar-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140441875/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374613143&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Civil+War+Julius+Caesar
Caligula: Divine Carnage
Roman Smithing: Iron for the Eagles
Roman Armor Production and Construction: Roman Imperial Armor by Sim and Kaminski
Military Clothing: Roman Military Dress
Romano-Byzantine Court Dress: By the Emperor's Hand
General Roman Dress: Roman Clothing and Fasion
Why/how Ancient Battles were fought: Soldiers and Ghosts by J.E. Lendon
On Roman soldiers themselves: Rome and the Sword by Simon James
The Year of the Four Emperors: The Long Year: AD 69
Late Roman Generals: Aetius: Attila's Nemesis, Belisarius: The Last Roman General + The Gothic War, and Stilicho: The Vandal Who Saved Rome.
Ian Hughes also has a complementary book to his Aetius on Attila the Hun coming out in late 2018/early 2019. I have one on the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields coming out in April 2019 as well, more or less alongside it, but I don't have links for either of them.
>If you were to live your life diametrically opposed to outrage culture, how would you do it?
Shameless book plug(s), Meditations and The Art of Stoic Joy
Edit: Links