A History Of Rome

“When the tribune Gabinius after the introduction of his proposals appeared in the senate-house, the fathers of the city were almost on the point of strangling him with their own hands, without considering in their zeal how extremely disadvantageous to them this method of arguing must ultimately have proved.”

- Theodor Mommsen, A History Of Rome

I last learned the history of the Republic in school, under a genial but halitotic master called Wilson. We were the last or else the second-last class in the school to be prepared for Leaving Cert Latin. In my sixth year Latin was no longer even included on the timetable so that the class became itinerant, reduced to wandering the school in search of a vacant classroom. Perhaps this had something to do with the empty gin bottle we found buried among the chess boards in Wilson’s desk, perhaps not. Since then what little I remember has been distorted and refracted through playing the monumentally messy but peculiarly satisfying Avalon Hill boardgame, and otherwise reduced to a dim haze by passage of time. In any case the idealised, programmatic version we were given in school matched Mommsen only in outline. The model form of government we were given was traduced and corrupted almost as soon as it became tradition. Mommsen practically shakes with disgust at the venality and incompetence of the republican administration, perhaps the more so to contrast with his veneration of Julius Caesar and to a lesser extent Sulla. It’s hard to conceive of a modern historian employing his vocabulary of honour, or indeed evincing his respect for the warrior, but perhaps that only illustrates how pitifully our expectations of politicians have diminished.

NB This Folio Society edition is considerably abridged, although you’ll find no mention of this on their website. At 700 pages, it was enough to satisfy me but a serious student might want to seek out a complete edition.