'more epic that any toga-clad celluloid epic to date... [a] brilliant book...a story that is never cluttered and always stimulating'

'witty, ferociously learned, enormously well read'

'an ambitious and exhilirating volume...so replete with insight that I would love to see it in every school library'

The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome dominated the world for centuries and continue to intrigue and enlighten us with their inventions, whether philosophy, politics, theatre, athletics, celebrity, science or the pleasures of horse racing. Robin Lane Fox's spellbinding history spans almost a thousand years of change, from the foundation of the world's first democracy in Athens to the Roman Republic and the Empire under Hadrian. Bringing great figures such as Homer, Socrates, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Augustus and the first Christian martyrs to life, exploring freedom, justice and luxury, this wonderfully exciting tour brings the turbulent histories of Greece and Rome together in a masterly study.

The early history of Rome remains a vivid arena of dispute, scepticism and scholarly ingenuity. The Latin sources have obviously been elaborated, or invented, many centuries later and so modern scholars rely heavily on local archaeology. On questions of political change and ethnic variety, its evidence is often ambiguous or irrelevant. What we need to stress here is that from the eighth century BC, the age of Homer onwards, Rome was not an odd community, isolated from surrounding fashions. Archaeological finds do show that Levantine ?Phoenicians? and Greeks (probably Euboeans) had visited the site up the river Tiber. For the Romans were not sufficiently supplied to remain quietly inland: it has been brilliantly observed that Rome had no nearby source of that animal and human necessity, salt. Salt-fields, the only ones in west Italy, lay at the river Tiber?s mouth on the north bank. In due course a ?salt road? (the Via Salaria) ran down from Rome and Ostia was founded at the river-mouth, traditionally in the mid-seventh century BC, no doubt with an eye on the salt-assets. Up at Rome, meanwhile, the local huts were being replaced by houses; there was a public space, or ?Forum?, which was paved; by c. 620 BC archaeologists detect an ?urban transformation?, in which the cultural influence of Etruscans was extremely important, accompanied by migrants from Etruscan towns. Then (as strong tradition said) it was followed by the rule of a sequence of Etruscan kings, the Tarquins (traditionally, 616-509 BC).

Western Greek visitors to the Roman community in this period would have found a society which was not wholly unfamiliar. Until the late sixth century BC it was being ruled by kings, although their line was not hereditary. Clans (or gentes) and ?tribes? helped to organize society. There was an array of male priesthoods, although they had unusually specialized functions by Greek standards. During the sixth and early fifth centuries the social organization also changed in ways which are broadly familiar from Greek communities. The number of Rome?s tribes was increased and the army was reorganized. At the end of the sixth century kingship was overthrown (like tyrannies in the Greek world) and annual magistrates assumed the leadership of the resulting state. Within decades there was to be popular agitation over indebtedness and access to land; concessions had to be made to what Greeks would call the dçmos, or ?people?. In the 450s there was even the publication of a body of laws !
(Rome?s famous Twelve Tables), just as laws were sometimes published in early Greek city-states. The Roman laws included a ban on intermarriage between the noble patricians and non-patricians (many Greek aristocrats would have applauded). They addressed the problems of debt and adoption, marriage and inheritance which were important in Greek communities too. According to these laws, badly deformed children should be rapidly killed (Spartans would have agreed), but what was unique (as Greeks later observed) was the exceptional power granted to the male head of a Roman household over all its members, including children. So long as a Roman father lived, his sons had no right to own anything: they could simply be killed by their father, the paterfamilias. This extreme power for the father was evaded in practice, but it remained an important element in later Roman respect for tradition.

2008-07-08 Ambitious sweeping view of many different periods

Broad strokes indeed from the historical brush of Robin Lane Fox as he describes the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans. If you know nothing about this kind of history then this is a good a place as any to start. The book begins with the world of Homer and the Dark Ages before Classical Greece began and moves swiftly forward until the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian some eight hundred odd years later.

Hadrian might seem a strange place to stop telling the story seeing as there are still many more things to be said about the Roman Empire after him. In another way however this is a natural place to stop. Quite apart from the fact that any more to this book would make it longer than its almost seven hundred pages, Hadrian was a huge philhellene and so he neatly brings the two worlds together. Many of the pages refer to Hadrian and what his opinion must also have been looking back on this history.

This is truly an ambitious undertaking by Lane Fox. I dread to think how he must have agonised over what to leave out. He does indeed omit some things that I really wanted to know more about such as the Theban Epaminondas and his place in the overall scheme of the Greek world. Having said this the author manages to cover all the major points very well while also finding time to address important areas such as politics, culture, art and society. One of the best achievements of the book is that it is not simply a list of big historical events as it could so easily have been. Instead we feel that we have some real insight into people in some ways similar to ourselves and in other ways vastly different.

If you know anything about any of the periods presented here you may find that part of the book very brief and unrewarding. Even so there were a few surprising facts that I had not previously known. This is a good book for beginning a journey into the ancient world and then continuing once you have finished it with more detailed reading on the points that interest you the most.