Roman People

Rating:
Summary: A Great Reference Work
Review: After reading Kebric's "Greek People," I thought I'd give "Roman People" a try as well. Both are well-written social histories of ancient Greece and Rome that look at the daily lives of the people through the eyes of those who were there. Kebric makes liberal use of primary-source material to support his narrative, and he keeps the reader engaged with small vignets about the significant contributions of individual Roman people.

I thoroughly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Gem of a Book!
Review: I was dissappointed somewhat when I first got this book, as I was expecting it to cover the social conditions of one particular period of the Roman Empire instead of being a general history. When I finally sat down to read it, though, I was pleasantly surprised by what a gem of a book this is.

Not exactly social history, not exactly general history, this book instead considers the lives of various people throughout the history of the Roman state which are either important in their own right (those of important political figures) or else important as indicators of significant trends (e.g. the rise of Christianity).

Perhaps why I like this book most, though, is the author's crips style and lucid reasoning. Conclusions are always supported with reference to original sources, and when these are either lacking or ambigious then clear-headed deduction is used to try to reconstruct what most likely might have happened. A fine example of this is when Kebric argues that Roman incompetence was probably more responsible for the protracted siege of Syracuse than any fantastic siege inventions on the part of Archimedes.

Given how much ink has been spilled on Roman history, I can perhaps give no greater praise to this book than by saying it showed me things I had never seen or thought of before.