Caesar and Christ

Rating:
Summary: De nobis fabula narratur
Review: "Tradition is the voice of time, and time is the medium of selection; a cautious mind will respect their verdict, for only youth knows better than twenty centuries." - Will Durant.

Subtitled "A History of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D. 325", *Caesar and Christ* is the third volume in Will Durant's monumental *Story of Civilization*, published in 1944. According to the editor, this single tome was "the result of twenty-five years' preparation and five years' writing".

After a short introduction on Rome's Etruscan origins, about which even less was known more than fifty years ago, the book surveys "all aspects of Roman life -politics, economics, literature, art, morals", philosophy and the sciences in five chronologically overlapping books: The Republic 508-30 B.C.; The Revolution 145-30 BC; The Principate 30 B.C. - A.D. 192; The Empire 146 B.C. - A.D. 192 (a hundred pages on the provinces, with Chapter XXV on "Rome and Judea 132 B.C. - A.D. 135" framing the last book); and The Youth of Christianity 4 B.C. - A.D. 325, dealing with the life of Jesus, the Apostles, the growth of the Church and its gradual conquest of the Roman State.

For anyone not familiar with 19th century scholarship, to which Durant was the proud heir, it is difficult to imagine the scope, depth and outright majesty of this *Story of Civilization*. It was written at a time when historians still dared to produce what Durant calls "synthetic history, which studies all the major phases of a people's life, work and culture in their simultaneous operation". (For an overview of academic history today, and vague pointers to the authors who are trying to revive it, I recommend Keith Winschuttle's 1996 book, *The Killing of History*.)

Of course, you will not find here references to the latest hot PhD paper on the construction of gender among the labouring classes in the late Principate A.D. 189-192; nor will you be treated to stunning colour photographies of the latest pieces of mosaic dug up at Zeugma or similar places. But Durant more than compensates for the latter by his intimacy with the writings of the period and the literarily great historians who preceded him, such as Mommsen, the author of a five-volume history of Rome, or Edward Gibbon, whom he considered "the greatest of historians".

As in all the first five volumes of the series (but, unfortunately, not the last six), about two dozen books are singled out with asterisks in the eight-page bibliography, as recommendations for further study. Quite tellingly, most of them are included in such collections as Britannica's *Great Books of the Western World* - such as Aristotle's *Politics*, Herodotus's *History*or Virgil's *Poems*. Strangely though, a few of the works on which Durant lavishes the most praise in the body of the book fail to get the accolade: Caesar's *De Bello Gallico*, which deserves "a high place in Latin literature"; Livy's *History of Rome*, "a masterpiece in prose"; Plutarch's *Lives*, of which he says that "Greece has not left us a more precious work"; or even Gibbon's *Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire* itself.

I am not too fond of Roman history: what really matters to me the Romans had very little of, with their stagnating or degenerating science, their distrust of freedom and their monumental, state-sponsored and state-glorifying art. Large portions of the book feel too much like the eight-o'clock news in togas, with their stories of corruption, vice, murder, political intrigue, demagoguery, warfare, bread and circuses. The Romans were the ultimate welfare statists, creating classes of dependents with their distributions of free corn and destroying the productive basis of their civilization with the taxes needed to pay for them.

But Durant has much more to offer than such sad adumbrations of our own times, as he acquaints us with the great figures that managed to emerge in this implacable, statist civilization, many of them Stoic philosophers, like Cicero, Seneca and Epictetus; and others historians, jurists, dramatists, and even Emperors.

As for Jesus, to whom a masterfully concise twenty-page chapter is devoted, he is treated with a Jeffersonian reverence, but as a man who worked miracles that "were in most cases the result of suggestion", who "could forgive any fault but unbelief", "cursed the men and cities that would not receive his gospel" and taught Jews (and Jews only) a way that provided "none but the vaguest warrants" for the theology that Paul built around it.

In addition to being a wonderful reading experience, *Caesar and Rome* has given me much more respect for the civilization that offered the world the Pax Romana, latin, Stoic rulers and a fund of political and legal experience that would form an important part of the intellectual equipment of the Founding Fathers.

(Note: I do not know whether the maps in the latest edition are any better, but those in mine - the sixteenth printing from the 1960s - are a disgrace. For instance, the map of Italy shows the Arno, but not the Po, probably because the valley already had too many names in it. A good historical atlas is a recommended companion for the series.)

Rating:
Summary: De nobis fabula narratur
Review: "Tradition is the voice of time, and time is the medium of selection; a cautious mind will respect their verdict, for only youth knows better than twenty centuries." - Will Durant.

Subtitled "A History of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D. 325", *Caesar and Christ* is the third volume in Will Durant's monumental *Story of Civilization*, published in 1944. According to the editor, this single tome was "the result of twenty-five years' preparation and five years' writing".

After a short introduction on Rome's Etruscan origins, about which even less was known more than fifty years ago, the book surveys "all aspects of Roman life -politics, economics, literature, art, morals", philosophy and the sciences in five chronologically overlapping books: The Republic 508-30 B.C.; The Revolution 145-30 BC; The Principate 30 B.C. - A.D. 192; The Empire 146 B.C. - A.D. 192 (a hundred pages on the provinces, with Chapter XXV on "Rome and Judea 132 B.C. - A.D. 135" framing the last book); and The Youth of Christianity 4 B.C. - A.D. 325, dealing with the life of Jesus, the Apostles, the growth of the Church and its gradual conquest of the Roman State.

For anyone not familiar with 19th century scholarship, to which Durant was the proud heir, it is difficult to imagine the scope, depth and outright majesty of this *Story of Civilization*. It was written at a time when historians still dared to produce what Durant calls "synthetic history, which studies all the major phases of a people's life, work and culture in their simultaneous operation". (For an overview of academic history today, and vague pointers to the authors who are trying to revive it, I recommend Keith Windschuttle's 1996 book, *The Killing of History*.)

Of course, you will not find here references to the latest hot PhD paper on the construction of gender among the labouring classes in the late Principate A.D. 189-192; nor will you be treated to stunning colour photographies of the latest pieces of mosaic dug up at Zeugma or similar places. But Durant more than compensates for the latter by his intimacy with the writings of the period and the literarily great historians who preceded him, such as Mommsen, the author of a five-volume history of Rome, or Edward Gibbon, whom he considered "the greatest of historians".

As in all the first five volumes of the series (but, unfortunately, not the last six), about two dozen books are singled out with asterisks in the eight-page bibliography, as recommendations for further study. Quite tellingly, most of them are included in Britannica's *Great Books of the Western World* - such as Aristotle's *Politics*, Herodotus's *History*or Virgil's *Poems*. Strangely though, a few of the works on which Durant lavishes the most praise in the body of the book fail to get the accolade: Caesar's *De Bello Gallico*, which deserves "a high place in Latin literature"; Livy's *History of Rome*, "a masterpiece in prose"; Plutarch's *Lives*, of which he says that "Greece has not left us a more precious work"; or even Gibbon's *Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire* itself.

I am not too fond of Roman history: what really matters to me the Romans had very little of, with their stagnating or degenerating science, their distrust of freedom and their monumental, state-sponsored and state-glorifying art. Large portions of the book feel too much like the eight-o'clock news in togas, with their stories of corruption, vice, murder, political intrigue, demagoguery, warfare, bread and circuses. The Romans were the ultimate welfare statists, creating classes of dependents with their distributions of free corn and destroying the productive basis of their civilization with the taxes needed to pay for them.

But Durant has much more to offer than such sad adumbrations of our own times, as he acquaints us with the great figures that managed to emerge in this implacable, statist civilization, many of them Stoic philosophers, like Cicero, Seneca and Epictetus; and others historians, jurists, dramatists, and even Emperors.

As for Jesus, to whom a masterfully concise twenty-page chapter is devoted, he is treated with a Jeffersonian reverence, but as a man who worked miracles that "were in most cases the result of suggestion", who "could forgive any fault but unbelief", "cursed the men and cities that would not receive his gospel" and taught Jews (and Jews only) a way that provided "none but the vaguest warrants" for the theology that Paul built around it.

In addition to being a wonderful reading experience, *Caesar and Rome* has given me much more respect for the civilization that offered the world the Pax Romana, latin, Stoic rulers and a fund of political and legal experience that would form an important part of the intellectual equipment of the Founding Fathers.

(Note: I do not know whether the maps in the latest edition are any better, but those in mine - the sixteenth printing from the 1960s - are a disgrace. For instance, the map of Italy shows the Arno, but not the Po, probably because the valley already had too many names in it. A good historical atlas is a recommended companion for the series.)

Rating:
Summary: The Third Volume in The Story of Civilization!
Review: Dr. Will & Ariel Durant have compiled an epic survey of over a thousand years of Roman history in the third volume of The Story of Civilization, "Caesar and Christ."

At >670 pages, the reader is guided through detailed explanation and narrative about: The birth of the world's first republic. The world-conquering Roman army. The African general, Hannibal. Julius Caesar, who brought Western Europe under Roman rule. The Roman Emperors. The specifics concerning Roman occupied Judea and the rise of Jesus of Nazareth. Economic and social change in the mother city of Rome herself. The attempts at survival by the Eastern Empire. The struggles of the rising Christian Church and its eventual conquest of the empire from within. Plus much more including plates and maps.

As with all volumes of The Story of Civilization, this text was written to "stand alone," and most likely will be read by the more serious students of history, however, the Durants have created an authoritative book that can be easily understood by the layperson as well. In short, this book is for everyone. I rate it as five stars as the Durant's published Magnum Opus!



Rating:
Summary: One of the finest works of narrative history ever written
Review: From the point of view of most academic historians, the title of this review would seem backhanded praise, given that narrative history is greatly out of favor in academia. (Instead, we now have pedants writing more and more about less and less.) To be sure, there are plenty of works in the genre that are treacly with sentimentality, dull with didacticism, or inaccurate with facts (sometimes all three). This book is none of these, and while it is certainly not the last word, I can think of no better starting point for those wishing to explore Roman history.

By taking some of the focus off political and military matters and including everything from descriptions of the everyday life of subjects and citizens, to beautiful and illuminating excerpts from Roman literature, Durant brings to life a vanished world and makes the reader eager to learn more. For my own part, I doubt I would have come across the poetry of Horace (I am now but the latest member of his 2000 year-old fan club.) had I not read this book.

One of the charms of the book is the astuteness of so many of Durant's judgments. For example, he is perhaps the first English-language historian to write of the Emperor Tiberius as something other than a monster of vice and cruelty. Interestingly, most modern historians of the subject would probably agree with Durant that the picture of Tiberius painted by gossip-mongers such as Suetonius and novelists such as Robert Graves is an enduring libel. Instead, the author writes movingly of then-Emperor Augustus commanding his chosen successor Tiberius to divorce the beloved Vipsania Aggripina and marry the loathsome Julia, to further Augustus' plans for a dynasty. You start to get a better idea of what is meant by the phrase, "the tragic sense of life" when you read of such things here.

Durant's discussion of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity tracks well with recent detailed studies of the historical Jesus by such investigators as Geza Vermes, E.P. Sanders, and Paula Fredrikson. Readers may well disagree with his opinion of the provenance of the miracles recorded in the New Testament, but they will agree that it is at least informed speculation.

I have to agree with H.L. Mencken (who had dismissed Durant as a "mere popularizer"), when Mencken recorded in his diary that to his surprise, "Caesar and Christ" was "a thing of extraordinary merit... full of sound sense and sound learning, [and] wholly free of sentimentality. The best conspectus of Roman history I have seen."