The Rise of Rome

The Making of the World's Greatest Empire

By: Anthony Everitt

Narrated by: Clive Chafer

Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., Rome grew to become the ancient world's preeminent power. Everitt fashions the story of Rome's rise to glory into an erudite book filled with lasting lessons for our time. He chronicles the clash between patricians and plebeians that defined the politics of the Republic. He shows how Rome's shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding the reach of her burgeoning empire. And he outlines the corrosion of constitutional norms that accompanied Rome's imperial expansion, as old habits of political compromise gave way, leading to violence and civil war. In the end, unimaginable wealth and power corrupted the traditional virtues of the Republic, and Rome was left triumphant everywhere except within its own borders.

Everitt paints indelible portraits of the great Romans - and non-Romans - who left their mark on the world out of which the mighty empire grew: Cincinnatus, Rome's George Washington, the very model of the patrician warrior/aristocrat; the brilliant general Scipio Africanus, who turned back a challenge from the Carthaginian legend Hannibal; and Alexander the Great, the invincible Macedonian conqueror who became a role model for generations of would-be Roman rulers. Here also are the intellectual and philosophical leaders whose observations on the art of government and "the good life" have inspired every Western power from antiquity to the present: Cato the Elder, the famously incorruptible statesman who spoke out against the decadence of his times, and Cicero, the consummate orator whose championing of republican institutions put him on a collision course with Julius Caesar and whose writings on justice and liberty continue to inform our political discourse today.

Rome's decline and fall have long fascinated historians, but the story of how the empire was won is every bit as compelling. With The Rise of Rome, one of our most revered chroniclers of the ancient world tells that tale in a way that will galvanize, inform, and enlighten modern listeners.

©2012 Anthony Everitt (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Everitt takes [listeners] on a remarkable journey into the creation of the great civilization's political institutions, cultural traditions, and social hierarchy.... [E]ngaging work that will captivate and inform from beginning to end." ( Booklist)

A Very Informative Intro to History of Rome

Originally, I set out to read Gibbons' "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," however I quickly realized that I didn't have anywhere near the prerequisite knowledge of the RISE of the Roman Empire. Thus, I began this book.

However, I soon realized that I wasn't familiar enough with the 3 most famous epic poems concerning the Greeks and Romans, namely The Iliad, The Odyssey, and the Aeneid. So I went back and reread those 3.

I do feel like reading those epic "myths," if you will, really helped me to understand the first portion of this book which concerns the part of Roman history which is--for all practical purposes--fictional.

The author has done an amazing job of gathering all of this information about Rome's history, and he does a very good job laying it out for the reader. It can be very confusing at times, but I feel like that is almost inevitable. As the author points out in his introductory chapters, there's just no getting around the fact that Roman names make things very confusing. That, and the fact that most of the "nations" or city states discussed in the book are going to be very obscure for the majority of readers (even those who are well versed in history), can make things hard to handle. The listener may feel the need to go back an reread some parts of the book (I certainly did).

There are parts of the book that are dry, specifically the parts detailing Roman laws and government, but there's hardly anything the author can do about that. Furthermore, there are more than enough juicy anecdotes and stories to keep the reader entertained more or less throughout.

I think Clive Chafer does a good job as narrator and is very well suited for this book. One of the things that I always want from a narrator is for him to make me forget that he isn't actually the author. I feel like Chafer accomplishes this.

I gave this book 4 stars rather than 5, but for those who are deciding whether or not to buy this audiobook, you may as well consider my 4 a 5. I finished this book feeling like I didn't get as much as I would have liked out of the last half, but to be honest, that's probably more about me not having any prior knowledge of the subject than anything on the author's part.

Fascinating tale of the sad decay of the Republic

Did Clive Chafer do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

This perhaps could have been done a little more effectively, It may just have been a bit hard for me because they are Latin names that becuase it is an audiobook, you never see written out.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I found they book upsetting. Rome goes from a virtuous outpost city to a domineering power by the Third Punic War, then constitutional order slips away culminating in Caesar and the loss of the Republic.

Any additional comments?

At first I was very turned off by the Narrator but was fine after getting used to his voice.

Rise of Rome

The author presented very interesting detail in an easy to follow chronological narrative. very enjoyable!

Terrific book, absolutely terrible narrator

If you could sum up The Rise of Rome in three words, what would they be?

Epic, Interesting, Unlistenable

Who was your favorite character and why?

None of note. It is an historical work.

Would you be willing to try another one of Clive Chafer’s performances?

No. His British newscaster singsong delivery ending each sentence on exactly the same two-note pitch throughout the entire book was horrible.

User-Friendly Ancient History

A year ago I took this book out of the local library. After a few dozen pages I realized that Anthony Everitt’s style was so easy, his approach so intelligent, that his book would make a perfect listen. Not long after that, Audible had a sale.

In his Introduction Everitt calls the book a “taster” which is, I assume, the British equivalent of our “sampler”. And he’s right. Neither too scholarly nor too simplistic, he has written a sweeping, bird’s-eye-view introduction to how the Roman Empire became the Roman Empire. Everitt says he wrote in hopes of inspiring deeper investigations into the riches of the subject by his readers, and I’m sure that will happen. For this listener the book worked in the opposite way: helping me to string together the chunks of Roman history I already knew into a coherent, seamless narrative.

Everitt’s intelligence and clarity begin with the way he organizes his material, breaking it into three main sections: Legend, Story and History. Legend recounts the tales that, true or not, are important because they’re what the Romans believed about themselves and their city, and helped inspire their decisions as that city grew. Story recounts the strange netherworld between prehistory and history, while history takes up the story at the point where actual, documented facts begin to undergird the narrative.

Complex political situations are explained lucidly. I’m not saying didn’t have to rewind to catch all the nuances, but the fault lay with the Romans and their allies or enemies, not with the writer. Everitt obviously loves his subject and it shows. Another touch I appreciated was his wise forbearance from drawing parallels between ancient and recent history. Those can be made, as he points out, by individual readers. And no matter where you are on the political spectrum, there is enough material here to buttress your particular point of view. Everitt gives us an engaging narrative, unburdened by any tendentious political message, tongue clucking, moralizing or the sound of axes being ground. Bless him.

Finally, a word about Clive Chafer as narrator. At first his delivery can sound somewhat dreary. He seems tired and uninspired. Then after a few minutes you realize he’s the perfect choice for a book like this. For all of Everitt’s skill as a story teller, the story he tells can get complex. Chafer’s measured delivery makes it much easier to follow.

In sum: I enjoyed this book from start to finish, learned many new things and was able to put the few things I already knew into a clearer, more coherent context. And I was able to do all that because, unlike many other writers on classical history, Everitt told the story without getting tangled in the second-growth forest of academic fashions or scholarly disagreements.

A Messy Graveyard for A. Everitt's Rome detritus.

There is no doubt Anthony Everitt knows his Classical stuff. His previous books: 'Cicero' and 'Augustus' were amazing. 'Hadrian' aimed high, but didn't quite hold up to the first two. The Rise of Rome signals a severe decline in Everitt's popular Roman history, IMHO. The book is messy. His narrative begins with Section I (Legend) a review of the legends and foundation myths surrounding the rise of Rome. He then jumps into a review of 'big themes' as Rome's politics, warfare, and society develop.

IN this second section, He isn't interested in the history, rather he attempts to construct the narrative STORY of history. He tries (and fails) to draw a distinction between Section II (Story) and Section III (History), but the last two thirds of the book are really one, story-driven, narrative slog through 1000 years of Roman history and personalities.

The problem is Everitt tries to present 1000 years of Rome's rise in less than 500 pages and fills almost 67 of these pages with foundation myths, etc. The best parts of this book are those pages when he is talking about Rome's great enemy Hannibal, the problem is those pages are 50 pages less spent on the actual direct topic of his book.

Fundamentally, Everitt's biggest failure is the standard high school and college freshman failure. He starts with far too big a topic and devotes to it too little space. He tries for a sweeping history of Rome and only delivers a shoddy, uneven narrative. IN the end, the book feels like a graveyard for Everitt's unpublished background material for previous books or aborted histories.

The founding of Rome laid out in detail. This includea a great deal of Roman history far more than just the founding.

The beginning lays out how Rome was founded and does so in an interesting manner. Rome built beautiful roads, strong military might, and balanced government due to despots at the beginning. Near the middle of the book the narrative starts to wear out it's welcome, Rome fought so many wars that it became to much for me to listen to; they also had many disagreements about the government and a great deal of this book is taken up with how Romes political system was created. Its a decent narrative and I found the beginning very interesting but at the point when it starting talking about Rome vs the Samnites I just lost interest.

Amazing comparative of fact, fiction and myth

An intersecting perspective of how fact and fiction have blended to create the Roman mystique that still fascinates us.

The main downfall is the narrator; despite the fascinating content, it is rolled out in a pedantic drone that is uninspiring at best.

The seeds of Rome's fall were in its rise

Romans may have loved the ancient Greek culture and teachings of the great philosophers, but their own culture and leaders appeared corrupt and devoid of any lasting virtues. I got the impression Rome really did not have much to offer the world. I'm not sure this is a fair assessment.

For Some Who Know Little of the Period

I enjoyed Everitt's books but this was a bit of a let down. I have read extensively in the period so for me there was nothing new. I think he should have had much more material on the actual historical period and spent less time on the mythical period.

For someone who has little familiartiy it was probably good to hear the tales of Decius Mus, Lucius Scaevola and Coriolanus but I was not must interested in this period as I had already heard all the stories and read Livy.

Nevertheless he does put together for those will little background a good summary of the Rise of Rome and what made it such a great power in the region - the fact that it could lose so many battles and keep fighting where other would have givern up. It is the sheer determination of the Romans that made possible its domination of the Ancient World. This book more than adequate conveys the Roman determination in the face of overwhelming odd.

After all this is what Everitt wishes to convery -- the ability to dominate the ancient world through sheer determination and the ability to return to the battle inspite of great losses. Everitt hints at but does not go into detail the development of the Roman Military Machine which made possible these later triumphas. He briefly discusses Marius and Sulla, two towering personalities on whom he spends too little time, and who modernized the army from citizen-soldiers to professional miliary.

Clive Chafer is an excellent reader and does a great job in the book. Now if only they would bring out an audio version of Everitt's Cicero.