Volume 14, Number 1 & 2 · January 29, 1970
A Profitable Empire
By M.I. Finley
Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic
by E. Badian
Cornell University Press, 117 pp., $4.95
The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours
by Fergus Millar
Delacorte, 362 pp., $9.95
The Climax of Rome
by Michael Grant
Little, Brown, 299 pp., $8.95
The Decline of Rome
by Joseph Vogt, translated by Janet Sondheimer
New American Library, 340 pp., $12.50
'No administration in history has ever devoted itself so whole-heartedly to fleecing its subjects for the private benefit of its ruling class as Rome of the last age of the Republic.' That sentence, from the final chapter of Professor Ernst Badian's exciting little book on Roman imperialism (originally a set of lectures delivered at the University of South Africa in 1965), will even today shock some Roman historians and some readers. Half a century ago it would have been unthinkable, at least outside Marxist circles. One didn't write about the world of Cicero, Pompey, the younger Cato, Caesar, and Brutus in such terms. Yet the statement is true beyond any possibility of argument. 'What a fine thing it is to rule over foreign nations,' said Cicero, and the banner of 'liberty' under which Brutus stabbed Caesar (and was cheered by Cicero) had nothing to do with the case. When still a young man, Brutus had lent the city of Salamis in Cyprus money at 48 percent interest, and then got the Roman army to squeeze the payments out of the Salaminians for him.
Review, 3297 words
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