⭐⭐⭐
I’m not someone
who knows much about Rome and the Romans, and that definitely showed itself as
a negative when I started reading this book. I needed to listen to a podcast, ‘The
History of Rome’ if you’re interested, to catch me up to speed on what on earth
was happening. Podcast listened to up to the point at which this book starts, I
tried to persevere again, but again, I found it difficult. People seemed to
crop up out of nowhere and although their names were familiar to me, I didn’t
really know who they were. So, I would say if you want to read this book, you need
a fair bit of background knowledge about what happens before you pick this book
up, which is a shame. It’s a shame because this is a narrative history book,
which instantly makes it more accessible than a lot of other history books; it’s
meant to keep you interested and engaged. For that reason, it should be easier
for someone like me to pick up this book and become interested in Roman
history, though instead it left me confused.
A lot of time
within this book was spent on what I’m going to call the ‘mid-section’ from
Sulla to the start of the end for Caesar. Coming into the book, despite the
confusion it leads to, this makes sense as it’s the basis of what the book is
about, but towards the end of this ‘mid-section’ things start to get confusing
again. Out of nowhere Caesar is assassinated and then suddenly we’re skipping
off to when Octavian ruled and before you know it, he’s dead. It’s a shame
because I feel like if this section of the book hadn’t rushed, the book would
have been rounded off a bit more nicely.
There is no
doubt that I’m still interested in learning about the Romans and the Roman
Republic, but this was not the ideal starting place. Being honest, I’m not sure
at which place reading this book should come. I imagine, because of its
narrative style, if you already know about these events then this book may feel
a little repetitive, but it is definitely not for the beginner.
