Rome and the Mediterranean: Books XXXI-XLV of The History of Rome From Its Foundation (Ab Urbe Condita) Book

I've given this book 4 stars, so in the interest of full disclosure, I should probably concede that I originally began reading it around July 1988. Back in those days, I tended to read a handful of books at once, so things could progress slowly. By early 1990, I was at about page 245 -- and then I put it down, not to pick it up again until February of this year.

I probably had trouble getting through this book originally because I took it up right after finishing Livy's The War with Hannibal in its Penguin edition (676 pp.), and this was just too much Livy in too short a time. When I came back to it again this winter, I was able to bring a fresh perspective to my reading of him.

Livy has a reputation as a vivid writer of popular history, but he isn't considered as serious a historian as his predecessor Polybius, who wrote about some of the same periods. But I think this sells Livy short. Yes, it's true that he produced a historical account of Rome's early years that, while full of cracking good tales, credulously assumes that it is possible to write history about events 400-700 years ago in the absence of any remotely contemporary accounts. And he can't quite bring himself not to record various portents or prodigies that were reported at key points in his narrative (Book 43, Ch. 13). But his history of Rome's first centuries has preserved for us how the citizens of the early Empire themselves understood their past. Likewise, his accounts of various improbable prodigies serve to underline just how superstitious and credulous many Romans of this period were.

Also, you have to respect his discipline and diligence. It is simply amazing to think that anyone toiling in an age without typewriters or word processors, and with no photocopiers, could have researched and written a history in 142 books, of which the mere 35 that survive total 1800 pages in the somewhat abridged Penguin editions. Livy brought an informed critical judgment to his sources; he cites them with some frequency, and when his judgment of them is skeptical -- as it is at Book 39, ch. 52 -- he tells you what his sources say and sets out his reasons for disagreement in careful and scrupulous detail.

You can (and should) read Rome and the Mediterranean on two different levels. First, there is the volume's macro theme: Livy's account of the three wars between 200 and 167 BCE by which Rome came to dominate the entire eastern Mediterranean. These are: the Second Macedonian War against the kingdom of Macedon and Philip V (201-197 BCE) (pp. 23-129); the First Syrian War against the Seleucid Empire and Antiochus III (190-187 BCE) (pp. 203-334); and finally the Third Macedonian War against Philip's son Perseus (171-167 BCE) (pp. 415-648).

In addition to this, however, there are accounts of other Roman struggles in Spain, Gaul, and Liguria (I was constantly surprised by just how much other fighting the Romans did even aside from their most famous wars); of the complex politics and rivalries of the squabbling Greek states such as Sparta and the Aetolian and Achaean confederacies; of the domestic tragedy of Philip V's younger son Demetrius, outmaneuvered and ultimately murdered by his elder brother Perseus; and of various domestic events at Rome itself.

Perhaps my favorite of the latter were Livy's description (Book 34) of the campaign of Roman women in 195 BCE to secure repeal of the Lex Oppia, the anti-sumptuary law enacted during the darkest days of the Second Punic War following the battle of Cannae that prohibited women from wearing multi-colored dresses or more than the tiniest bit of gold jewelry, or riding in horse-drawn carriages. This resulted in a mass feminine protest that might be called "Occupy the Forum," until finally Rome's embattled and beset menfolk (perhaps somewhat reluctantly) overrode the protests of conservatives and repealed the statute.

There are other pleasures like his two-page description of the lengthy career of an obscure centurion who petitioned the Senate to be excused from further military duty (pp. 517-18), or of a remarkable archaeological find below the Janiculum Hill in 181 BCE of two huge stone chests with inscriptions dating to the sixth century, BCE reign of Numa Pompilius, one of Rome's Etruscan kings (pp. 464-65).

In short, Rome and the Mediterranean is much more than just an account of Rome's wars against the Hellenistic monarchs of Macedon and Syria, vivid and important though its account of those conflicts is. It presents a panoramic and detailed portrait of the entire Mediterranean basin from Spain to Asia Minor during the years when Roman domination of that world became an inevitability. And it is an account filled with figures unforgettably sketched out by Livy's pen: Philip V, Antiochus III, Hannibal, Quinctus Flaminius, Nabis of Sparta, Philipoemen, Publius Scipio (Africanus), Lucius Aemilius Paulus, Perseus and Demetrius.