Rating: 
Summary: An excellent account of the fall of the Roman republic.
Review: This is a book for the Roman history enthusiast, who after
reading Tacitus and Seutonius, craves more detail and analysis that goes beyond the well worn facts so
common to many modern histories.
Rating: 
Summary: excellent
Review: this is one of the best books i have ever read, i am only 15 years old and by far not an expert in roman history (yet). but regardless i can say thet this book is an excelllent one, it describes, in an amazing style, the end of the republic and the rise to power of Augustus one of the greatest and first of the roman emperors. it will not be an exageration to say thet this book has changed my life, and i suggest anyone that has the option to read it!
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: this is one of the best books i have ever read, i am only 15 years old and by far not an expert in roman history (yet). but regardless i can say thet this book is an excelllent one, it describes, in an amazing style, the end of the republic and the rise to power of Augustus one of the greatest and first of the roman emperors. it will not be an exageration to say thet this book has changed my life, and i suggest anyone that has the option to read it!
Rating:
Summary: Syme's Controversial Masterwork
Review: This is without doubt Syme's masterwork. The praise has been lavish. A.J.P. Taylor said it was a "work of brilliant scholarship which can be enjoyed by the expert and the layman alike". Sir Maurice Bowra said "his work is extraordinarily persuasive and interesting, it is the best book on Roman History that has appeared for many years." The Classical Review wrote that is the "one of the most important books on Roman history since Mommsen.Need more reasons to read it? Well, I'll try. I'll start by saying that this is one of the top 25 books I have read - though I by no means agree with everything Syme believes. What Ronald Syme has done is to lay bare the workings of the late Republic and early Empire. To do this required an effort of scholarship and synthesis on a gargantuan scale. And yet Syme manages to render the story in a lucid, straightforward, compelling manner. His arguments are often ineluctable. You find yourself drawn along, at times unwillingly, to conclusions you thought far-fetched. The period under scrutiny is 60 BC to AD 14. Thus he covers the last generation of the Republic and the first two or three of the Empire. In a nutshell his hypothesis is that the Republic simply was not equipped to manage what had become an empire. He believes that Rome was inevitably drawn to the rule of one. He writes of Caesar: "The rule of the nobiles, he [Caesar] could see, was an anachronism in a world-empire; and so was the power of the Roam plebs when all Italy enjoyed the franchise. Caesar in truth was more conservative and Roman that many have fancied; no Roman conceived of government save through an oligarchy." Augustus, however, was a different matter. And it was Augustus, believes Syme, who wrought the revolution that forever changed the Roman way of life. To suggest, as has some have done, that there was no true revolution, almost defies sense and logic. And Syme ably makes the case. But aspects of the Syme's theory remain controversial. He writes: "The nobiles by their ambition and their feuds, had not merely destroyed their spurious republic: they had ruined the Roman People. There is something more important than political liberty; and political rights are a means, not an end in themselves. That end is security of life and property: it could not be guaranteed by the constitution of Republican Rome. Worn and broken by civil war and disorder, The Roman people was ready to surrender the ruinous privilege of freedom and submit to strict government as the beginning of time....So order came to Rome. "Acriora ex eo vincula", as Tacitus observes." Wow. This is breath taking and highly controversial. He might as well have been writing about pre-Nazi Germany (and note that Syme wrote "The Roman Revolution" in 1939). And, frankly, I must tell you I do not agree with his condemnation of the nobiles. Nor do others. The most important voice in opposition remains that of Erich Gruen's. "The Last Generation of the Roman Republic" MUST be read alongside "The Roman Revolution." Gruen believes that the monarchy was in fact neither anticipated nor inevitable. And he strongly believes that the Republic was functioning quite well, thank you very much, and could in fact have coped with empire.
Rating:
Summary: Superb Analysis of the Emergence of Augustus
Review: This work, written on the eve of the Second World War, is still an excellent analysis of the fall of the Roman Republic and the emergence of Augustus. Written in style that deliberately echoes Gibbon, Syme produced a 'prequel' of Gibbon's great work. It is a testimonial to this work that comparison with Gibbon is appropriate.
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