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Review
'This is a useful guide to the men who were elevated to command Rome and rule the Roman Empire' Good Book Guide.―Good Book Guide
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About the Author
David Potter is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Greek and Latin in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Victor's Crown, also published by Quercus.
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Product details
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Quercus Publishing; Updated edition (July 12, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781780877501
ISBN-13: 978-1780877501
ASIN: 1780877501
Product Dimensions:
5 x 1 x 7.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.4 out of 5 stars
12 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#415,953 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
With this book, I have already difficulties to describe what this book is about. Well, of course it is about the Roman emperors from the first one to the last one. But then again, whoever expects a shallow introduction of the Roman emperors and some funny anecdotes of different officeholders will be dearly disappointed: David Potter discusses some the emperors quite deep, and this book is a rather serious treatise on the function of the Roman emperorship, from its establishment in the last century BC until the fall of the western Roman empire, with an elaborated view on how the function did change over the course of its existence. David Potter discusses in some sections even cultural, economic and developmental aspects of the Roman empire, developments that were important for the role of the emperor, but that the current incumbent could only marginally, if at all, influence and thus would therefore not really concern an officeholder. Therefore, I would not recommend this book to a new acolyte of Roman history but would rather recommend that some prior knowledge of Roman history is acquired before somebody reads this book.I especially liked the beginning. In modern times, Augustus is usually considered to be the first Roman emperor. But David Potter shows that this is not a natural law and that another imperator of the first century BC could as easily be considered the first autocrat of Rome, such as Julius Caesar or Sulla. He himself starts the book thus with Marius, who managed to be elected as consul for seven consecutive times. As a consequence, I found the first 10% of the book extremely well written and interesting to read, and I read this part in one day, probably due to the fact that I hadn’t read before much about these figures of the first century BC, as the narration of the Roman empire does indeed usually start with Augustus.Then, as David Potter comes to Augustus and the emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, I found that the book started losing its élan. Maybe that’s because these times are so often discussed, or because David Potter more or less only retells the story of the first two centuries CE, without really adding anything new to the story. I hence started to get bored reading this part.Arriving at the “crisis†of the third century, however, it became clear that David Potter had previously written a book about the third century until 395 CE and one over Constantine. His conclusions became thus more elaborated again and he started to present views that contradict the common opinion. As such, he for example writes that it was already Constantius (Chlorus), and not Constantine, who was not satisfied with the status quo and wanted some change: “The reason was simple: although Constantius was now senior Augustus, he was far from content in his new role.†(Locations 2517-2518). Also, the idea to make Constantine emperor, even though he was officially passed over at Diocletian’s resignation, might already have been an idea of Constantius, and not just of Constantine or the army: “And so, having secured the return of his son by the end of AD 305, Constantius left to campaign in northern England. On 25 July, AD 306, he died at York, and, evidently at his behest, the army declared Constantine emperor.†(Locations 2539-2541).Diocletian and Constantine are always credited for having saved the Roman empire with their reforms for another 200 years in the west, and for another 1000 years in the east. On the one hand, David Potter acknowledges that Diocletian had been crucial to establish that a Roman emperor was not made by the Roman army: "In the course of his 20-year reign, Diocletian had fundamentally changed the landscape of power, driving home the point, time and again, that emperors could be created only by other emperors." (Locations 2711-2712). "The Severans had fatally compromised the old system by courting only one element of the empire – the army – and offering no viable alternative." (Kindle Locations 2718-2719). On the other hand, David Potter makes clear that Diocletian’s role was also crucial in the fall of the Roman west. Even though it is always very difficult to speculate what would have happened to the Roman empire without the reforms, it could for example have fallen much earlier or split into several parts, David Potter demonstrates that Diocletian’s and Constantine’s reforms actually laid the foundation that the one Roman empire would eventually split into two parts. “As time passed, relations between the eastern and western courts grew strained.†(Locations 2480-2481) and “On 24 February, AD 303, Diocletian introduced a further strain into the relationship between east and west.†(Locations 2483-2484). Under Diocletian however, any kind of partition had at most been informal. “Although the Tetrarchic system established four separate imperial courts, under Diocletian the empire was not formally divided into administrative districts. The likely reason for this was that an informal arrangement was deemed perfectly adequate in a situation where no one challenged Diocletian’s authority over the empire as a whole. Now, as a result of the tensions surrounding the succession, the empire was split into four praetorian prefectures, with each prefect controlling three dioceses.†(Locations 2519-2523). Thus, after Diocletian, the separation of east and west started to become more formalized. Egypt, which since the time of Augustus had been a personal possession of the emperor and had sent its grain to Rome, had as one consequence of the reforms been administratively linked to the east. Even though geographically this had made sense, it laid the roots that it could be split from Rome: “The administrative joining of Egypt to the east reflects the fact that the natural economic and cultural divisions of the empire were beginning to shape the formal administrative structure in ways that would, in the long run, contribute to the downfall of the empire in the west.†(Locations 2531-2533).The same can be said of the army. Was it already difficult before to talk of The Roman army, as it had always been divided geographically into different regions, Diocletian had made this partition more formal: “It also testified to the fact that Diocletian’s reforms had only reinforced the tendency for the Roman army to divide along regional lines. This had occurred once before, in AD 193 – in the power struggle following the death of Commodus – and now it was patently obvious that the four main armies were essentially separate entities. The paradox of Diocletian’s reforms was that, while he sought to concentrate all power in the college of emperors, he actually succeeded in creating a number of separate governments that could operate independently of one another.†And only “Diocletian’s dominant personality had held the system together…†(Kindle Locations 2552-2556). Thus, Diocletian’s and Constantine’s reform had clearly encouraged the notion that each Roman army would fight for its own. The same can be said of the administrative structures: “As the central government asserted more control over local affairs – an inevitable consequence of Diocletian’s policy of smaller, more numerous provinces – each region found that it had increasingly less freedom to define its own relationship to the centre. Conversely, the more extensive governing structures generated regional bureaucracies that were perfectly capable of functioning on their own. (Locations 2675-2678). The division was so well established that also Constantine, having ruled the Roman empire for 13 years as sole ruler, did not see the possibility to bequeath the empire only to one son. “Although much of his adult life had been spent eliminating rivals, Constantine felt that there was no intrinsic reason why the empire should have only one emperor. Indeed, the fact that a man who had ruled the entire empire on his own for 13 years should feel that collegial government would work best when he passed on speaks volumes about how deeply divided along regional lines the empire now was.†(Locations 2690-2692) and “Towards the end of a life spent unifying the empire, Constantine clearly concluded that it should be carved up into four prefectures and run by a college of emperors.†(Locations 2735-2736). Even though during his lifetime, he seems to have been less willing to share power.Concerning the persecution of Christians, David Potter states that “it was he (Valerian) who, in AD 257, issued the first empire-wide edict ordering active persecution of the Christian Church, the seizure of Christians’ property and the execution of Christians who did not recant their beliefs.†(Locations 2258-2260). He also sees the driver behind Diocletian’s persecution of Christians “as a matter of politics more than of faith, and that the bigotry which was the driving force behind the measure was a particular hallmark of Galerius. (Locations 2494-2495). At least, “the measure served to highlight sharply differences between the eastern and western rulers on the very eve of an important journey that Diocletian planned to make to Rome in AD 304 to celebrate his and Maximian’s 20 years of shared power.†(Locations 2496-2498).According to David Potter, Constantine was Christian, but he never intended to make the Roman empire a Christian one. Rather the opposite, he wanted to make sure that all religious faiths could be practiced freely. This, however, was quickly forgotten, as Eusebius pictured him as most devout Christian, and his sons as well took interest in depicting their father as a fervent Christian: “His body was taken to Constantinople, where it was interred in the great mausoleum he had built for himself in his new city. Although he died a Christian, he intended to be buried as a Roman emperor in the tradition of Diocletian or Galerius. It was only later that his son, Constantius, transformed the mausoleum into the Church of the Twelve Apostles. This was just one of many indications that Constantius failed to appreciate the importance of Constantine’s conviction that a person could be both a Roman emperor and a Christian concurrently, rather than simply a Christian emperor.†(Locations 2699-2703).Constantius II. in contrast seems to have taken his faith to extremes: “Constantius was far less quiescent on the matter of his subjects’ faith. The point at issue was not that he had been raised as a Christian; the same was true of Constans, yet he turned out to be far less dogmatic in his attitudes than his elder brother.†(Locations 2783-2784). Thus, maybe the question that has to be asked is not what could have happened had Julien ruled longer, but what would have happened had Constantius II. been a little bit more moderate.Concerning the question of the fall of the western empire; whether it was external or internal factors that led to the downfall, David Potter is clearly on the side of the internal reasons. According to him, however, it was not the emperors themselves, incompetent and ineffective as they might have been, but the bureaucratic systems that evolved after Diocletian's and Constantine's reforms, where senators played no role anymore and where everything that counted was access to the emperor. Accordingly, these bureaucracies and its members would only look for themselves, and not for the benefit of the Roman empire as a whole. As such, they always worked towards the maintenance of more than one court, and made sure that at least a second emperor was chosen. Already Crispus might have had problems with the self-willed nature of his bureaucracy. David Potter thinks that the execution of Crispus might have come about as his actions might have been perceived by Constantine as too independent and too far away from Constantine’s own wishes: “Constantine seems to have interpreted Crispus’ disagreement as potentially treasonous and acted precipitately.†(Locations 2667-2668).The independent bureaucracies always tried to take advantage of each other, rather can cooperating. Constantinus II. then had to deal with the bureaucracies of his brothers that would not help him but rather try to sabotage him. Once his brothers been killed, the bureaucracy made sure that there was another emperor in the west. Consequently, Constantius II. had to fight one civil war and was on his way to fight a second one when he died.Valentinian was directly asked to nominate an imperial colleague, so he made his brother Valens, co-emperor. And Gratian seems to have made Theodosius only senior military commander in the Balkan. The bureaucracy then made sure that Theodosius was declared emperor, to which Gratian could not reply too much. “Certainly, Gratian’s choice of the younger Theodosius – now in his 30s and with no experience of such a senior command – was more a message to the regime of Merobaudes than it was a threat to the Goths. Even at moments of extreme crisis, it seemed, internal bureaucratic politics were of prime importance. Perhaps Theodosius’ chief quality was that he was a fast learner. After defeating Sarmatian raiders, he promptly allowed himself to be proclaimed emperor in January, AD 379. This may all have been part of Gratian’s plan; certainly the outcome was not unwelcome to Gratian’s retinue of officials, who lent Theodosius vital support over the next couple of years, and the young Gratian recognized Theodosius’ claim to the throne without demur. Perhaps he and his advisers felt that anyone who wanted to be Augustus in the east under the circumstances that obtained in AD 379 was welcome to the job.†(Locations 3064-3070).After Theodosius’s death in 395, the two courts of Arcadius and Honorius started to plainly work against each other, and even a civil war of east against west seemed possible at this point. The Goths that had entered the Roman empire in 376 ended in a such circumstances as pawns between the two halves, used to the disadvantage of the other: “But this treaty was fundamentally different, inasmuch as there was now no apparatus for interaction between Rome’s confederates and the central government that was not dictated (and tainted) by the vested interests of the bureaucratic élite. In other words, instead of becoming staunch and valued allies of the Roman people or the Roman empire, the Goths were to be mere pawns in the endless internal power struggle between different parts of the Roman bureaucracy.†(Locations 3081-3084).Here again, it becomes clear that David Potter previously had written a book about a Roman empress, in his case, Theodora. Because here, he insists that the persons that ruled the Roman imperial halves for the next generation where two empresses, Galla Placidia in the west and Pulcheria in the east. One reason for him that the west collapsed less than a century later and the east didn’t was then also that Pulcheria could already rule together with her brother, whereas Galla Placidia could not; she became more and more estranged from her brother and had first to escape to Constantinople, and only once her brother had died and the west had been reconquered could she act as regent for her son. This notion looks convincing but I really hated was how bad Flavius Constantius came away in his treatment. I have read more favorable biographies of Flavius Constantius, but in this work, David Potter believes in all the bad things that have ever ascribed to him. As such, Flavius Constantius bluntly used Galla Placidia as a pawn, subdued her, made her marry him and went as far as raping her. I think, Flavius Constantius deserves a better treatment than he got in this book.Another reason David Potter thinks the east survived while the west did not is that in Pulcheria’s time, the east introduced a justification of the emperor as spiritual leader who protected the truly faithful. As such, people were more willing to follow their emperor than in the west, where the powerful were still perceived as fighting only for their own advantage. Nevertheless, the one most important reason why the west eventually fell remains the creation of the bureaucracies, whose members would care foremost about themselves, and whose power not even Diocletian and Constantine could break: "One key question remained: now that the emperor controlled an imperial rather than a Roman bureaucracy, could the empire survive with just one emperor? The bureaucracy naturally divided along the major economic lines of the empire, suggesting that multiple emperors would provide a better focus for regional administrations. Diocletian had believed as much, and at the end of his life it appears that Constantine thought so too." (Locations 2726-2729).
I enjoyed this book, which is a concise and largely easy read that is also highly informative. Author David Potter manages to alternate biographies of the all the Caesars with asides on Roman history, politics, economics, and culture, much of which I was unfamiliar with. I particularly appreciated his view of history not merely as battles and coronations, but as an ebb and flow of political ideas and economic systems -- he explains at the end of the book that the Roman Empire died not so much from outward attack but from an increasing belief among the Roman people that they had no stake in the government or the Empire, which led to a corresponding unwillingness to put themselves out for it (by the time of Rome's collapse, only five percent of legionaries were actually from Italy; the rest were foreign-born citizens or mercenaries). He also explains how, as imperial power expanded, the old Republican institutions crumbled, leading to a situation -- in the 4th and 5th Centuries -- where Rome, once connected by its roads and ships, became increasingly a collection of parochial city-states with only dubious interest in remaining subservient to a succession of weak, short-lived emperors who lived far away. This set the stage for the fragmented Europe of the Middle Ages, and to some extent, even the Europe of today.I don't want to repeat myself, but again, this book is at its most valuable in explaining cultural concepts like "domus" (which translates literally to "home" but in reality meant, roughly speaking, the ability of a man to rule his household in an intelligent, moral manner), the influence of various religions on Roman rulers, the systems of mail, coinage and patronage, and in discussing how Rome changed over time from a centralized empire ruled by "divine" emperors to one essentially ruled by a far-flung bureaucracy where the emperors were like as not half-powerless figureheads. In this manner,Potter gave me a perspective on Rome I'd never seen before.Now, on my Goodreads review of this book, I gave it only three stars, partially because the sheer size of the subject necessitates that many periods and people get short shrift on the page; also because, especially after about the second century A.D., the cast of characters becomes utterly bewildering. Emperors are constantly getting deposed, poisoned, assassinated, stabbed or (occasionally) just dying of old age, and with all the usurpers and pretenders, plus the fact that after Diocletian, multiple emperors served at the same time, things get very confusing. It is worth noting that Potter does not continue his history past the destruction of the Western Roman Empire in the late fifth century A.D., even though the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) lasted an additional thousand years. I found this understandable (for starters, it would have tripled the length of what was clearly meant to be a short book) but a little disappointing, since I would have greatly appreciated his insights on Byzantium.Nevertheless, I can recommend this book as a good source on a list of the men who not only ruled the Western world during its formative period, but also largely created it.
This book was a pleasure to read. It is well-written and gives a thoughtful overview of centuries of history. As a graduate student in classics, I found it a valuable way to review topics I had read about in other books.
Interesting review of the emperors of Rome. Unfortunately you can see some of the same traits in the leaders we have today.
The book was in good condition. It is a handy reference, but, you really need to know more that what is in this book.
A GOOD BOOK ON HISTORY AND BIBLE.
great
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