Category: Republican Rome

The Cleopatra most of us know is a fictional creation. The story we know comes mainly from the early first century Roman writers Plutarch and Dio. According to author Stacy Schiff, that’s like reading a history of twentieth-century America written by Chairman Mao. In short, our image of Cleopatra is “the joint creation of Roman…

According to the author, Harriet Flower, professor of classics at Princeton, “Roman Republics” (2010) is “based on the fundamental idea that periodization is essential to historical thinking and writing.” No one thinks of American history since 1776 as one monolithic bloc and, Flower argues, you shouldn’t think of Republican Rome’s 450-year history that way either.…

The triumph is perhaps the best known – and misunderstood – event in ancient Roman history. There were relatively lots of them, perhaps over three hundred distinct triumphs in the millennium between the founding of the city in 753 BC and the collapse of the Empire in 476 AD, although in some periods, such as…

Only a handful of enemy generals gave the Roman legions fits over multiple campaign seasons: Hannibal Barca (d. 183 BC), Vercingetorix (d. 46 BC), and Mithridates IV of Pontus (d. 63 BC). Mithridates is the least well known of this triumvirate today, but he resisted Rome the longest, almost thirty years, challenging imperial authority in…

Mike Duncan has an unusual background for a New York Times Bestselling author of ancient Roman history. Possessing nothing more than a political science degree from Western Washington University and a few years experience as a fishmonger, he burst onto the scene in 2007 with his wildly popular podcast “The History of Rome.” I have…