This is a short collection of lectures on Roman political history. It zooms from the early republic to 200 AD in the space of 100 short pages. The first half of the book focuses on the functions of various political offices in the republic and the second on how political customs were abandoned in the civil war and how Augustus then built new ones and refashioned old ones around his own person. Although the author makes a few good points along the way, the presentation as a whole is much too superficial to give the reader a good understanding of this topic. I'm sure the audience enjoyed hearing these lectures, but I'm not so sure if they really needed to be published in printed form.

A useful introduction, though dated, to the political ideas of the Romans.

"2012-10-26 12:00:00"