The Roman Revolution

"The Roman Revolution" is a book by Sir Ronald Syme, a noted Tacitean scholar, recounting the final years of the ancient Roman Republic and the creation of the Roman Empire by Caesar Augustus. Published by Oxford University Press in the summer of the momentous year of 1939, it was immediately controversial. Its main conclusion was that the structure of the Republic and its Senate were inadequate to the needs of Roman rule, and that Augustus was merely doing what was necessary to restore order in public life. This was a situation and reasoning uncomfortably reminiscent of contemporary events in Nazi Germany and the other fascist regimes of the time.

Syme relies on prosopography, especially the work of Friedrich Münzer, to show the extent to which Augustus achieved his unofficial but undisputed power by the development of personal relationships into a "Caesarian" party, then used it to defeat and diminish the opposition one by one. The process was slow, with the young Octavian initially just using his position as a relative of Julius Caesar to pursue Caesar's assassins, then over a period of years gradually accumulating personal power while nominally restoring the Republic. In addition, the portrait he paints of Augustus as a somewhat sinister autocratic figure is immensely influential among subsequent generations of classicists.

His conclusion of inevitability is less strongly supported than his elucidation of the takeover process, since at each point we see that Augustus is exercising his free choice, albeit for what he sees as the good of his country. In "The Last Generation of the Roman Republic", Erich Gruen offered an effective opposing point of view, arguing that the traditional view of the Republic's decay is not actually supported by the objective evidence.

"The Roman Revolution" has been reprinted regularly by OUP since its first appearance, most recently in 2002 (ISBN 0-19-280320-4). A revised German translation was published by Klett-Cotta in 2003 ("Die römische Revolution"). A new English edition, with an introduction by G. W. Bowersock, will be published by the Folio Society in June, 2009."Folio Prospectus 2009" (Folio Society, August 2008) p. 24]

Maurice Bowra said in 1939 of Syme's "The Roman Revolution" "His work is extraordinarily persuasive and interesting... the best book on Roman history that has appeared for many years".

References

* Arnaldo Momigliano, "Introduction to R. Syme, "The Roman Revolution", translated and reprinted in "A. D. Momigliano: Studies on Modern Scholarship" (University of California Press, 1994; ISBN 0-520-07001-1)