Book Review:Storm Before the Storm

The end of the Roman Republic is one of the most studied periods of history  Not only was it the end of one era, it seems especially important to the minds of Americans as the Roman Republic had given the Founding Fathers so much inspiration.  However, while Caesar crossing the Rubicon was the moment it ended, the roots of that action stretched back generations in the republic.  Mike Duncan in a very accessible way traces several of these causes in Storm Before the Storm.

Duncan lays out that the Roman Republic was not just its mighty armies and impressive trade prowess, but a set of customs and unwritten rules.  The rules governed how political actors governed and how generals conducted themselves n the field.  However, as different political factions struggled for supremacy they slowly began breaking these rules to get their projects and legislation passed.  The book begins with the Gracchi brothers and their attempts at land reform.  Their attempts broke major rules of decorum, and ended with violence as opposition forces took these breaches as a reason to rise up and end the Gracchi lives.  The book then traces other personalities over several generations, as Rome found huge riches and fought several invasion attempts.  Each crisis brought more suspension of rules and traditions, as actors found it expedient to break tradition and pander to lower classes for votes and further violence.  This culminated itself in the question of Citizenship for non-Roman Italians, and an open civil war.  This crisis gave way for men like Sulla and Gaius Marius to turn loyal troops into personal armies.  This moment of Sulla marching through Italy and seizing power gave the blueprint for Julius Caesar to do so years later.  The main theme throughout the book is the continuous decay of rules to constrain actors that brings about the possibility for the end of the republic.  That each event on its own might not have done it, but that each event allowed the next bending of the rule to be easier, and be done much more quickly.

This book covers a lot of territory, and towards the end starts to hurry things along a bit too much.  Overall though it is a great overview of a pivotal moment in world history.