Thread by @_Dragases_

*Grimaces in Roman historian*

https://twitter.com/mcgillmd921/status/1824195420593197454

1. This caused much more of a ruckus than I'd anticipated. So some thoughts and alternatives. Firstly, there's nothing wrong with giving people interested in Roman history suggestions on where to start! The suggested list, however, is at risk of being two-dimensional at best.

2. What we have here are a collection of some hardcore translations (Loeb, sometimes a century old). Some very old novels/fiction (Yourcenar & Graves) which might give an incredibly skewered view. A tradebook (Holland) + two scholars (Beard and Straus). But that's not everything

3. Combined all of this gives overwhelmingly an old-fashioned Great Men History. If you start reading most of this, you might come away with seeing Roman History as just a bunch of conquests, directed by generals and emperors. Plus that Roman History essentially stops ca. 200 CE.

4. What about the vast majority of ordinary peoples (where are the women in all of this?) AND different civilizations encompassing the Roman World? What about economy, culture and religion? What about the landscape and environment these peoples inhabited? So much to be told.

5. It is laudable to include ancient sources. But why only the writings of a select few elite authors? Furthermore, if you have no background in the field, are you just going to read them and take their word as Alpha and Omega? How about some guidance in navigating their prose?

6. I should point out that I started as a first gen student (later academic) in this field. I am still grateful for wonderful trade books that inspired me so much they convinced to study this field at uni level (especially Steven Runciman's work). But how about some diversity?

7. Also, I study the Empire's political history (especially war and violence). So this is not to slag that part of the list. But there is an entire other world out there. So how about we start with an excellent general survey? Something that covers all eras and various domains?

7. Beard is very good but she stops in the early 3rd century CE. This is why I will always recommend Greg Woolf's Rome. An Empire's story, which takes the reader from Archaic Italy to Late Antiquity. Just like Beard, Woolf is a world class scholar. But his book is more balanced.

8. If you want to read the sources, how about a collection of different kinds (e.g. inscriptions which give you a local view, law that gives you the government's view) _with_ some traditional historiographers in the mix? And sufficient editorial guidance?

9. The first time I taught the Roman Republic, I worked with this source book (Ancient Rome) by Dillon & Garland. It is probably one of the very best of its kind. Even undergrads who had never studied Ancient History before, found it easy enough to navigate.

10. Also, there is nothing wrong with biography as such. When it is done right it can open an entire world from a distinct viewpoint. There are a ton of Imperial biographies out there. But the best ones show you the constraints emperors faced and how they had to navigate these.

11. That's why my favourite is probably Winterling's Caligula. Rather than just another 'Bad Emperor/Psycho' story, it shows how the Roman court work and the amount of pressure it put on a young ruler whose family had been massacred by the previous incumbent of the throne.

12. Now what about the "ordinary people" living under the Empire? There is a wealth of literature. But one of the more recent, original & comprehensible books out there is Kyle Harper's Fate of Rome, who looks at diseases, climate change, the environment, and how people coped.

13. I should note there is lots to disagree with Harper. But he writes really well, and this is one of the things we're looking for to help the uninitiated. Now what about the Roman Empire after the third century? Here is where we "render unto Caesar what is due to Caesar."

14. Peter Brown took the existing "LAte Antiquity" concept and made it his own with this essay. Richly documented with art, to show that this was not a world of only doom and glow. About the mesmerizing social and religious world people inhabited from Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad.

15. Many more examples could be given. But with just these 5 you could see the entire Roman World, from its genesis to its nadir, top-down and bottom-up, from ancient sources to modern analysis, both classic and very recent. All of them well written or helpfully structured.

Fin.