The essays in Fighting for Rome confront the traumatic disjunction between the militarist culture of classical Rome, with its heavy investment in valour, conquest and triumph, and the domination of its history by civil war, where Roman soldiers killed so many Romans for control of Rome. The essays gathered and rewritten here range across the literary forms (history, satire, lyric and epic) and work closely with the ancient texts (Appian and Julius Caesar; Horace; Lucan and Statius; Tacitus and Livy). Close reading and powerful translation communicate the ancient writers' efforts to grasp and respond to the Roman civil wars, and to their product, Roman terror under the Caesars. The book aims to bring to life strong reactions to a world order run by civil war.
- ISBN13 9780521028660
- Publish Date 2 November 2006 (first published 12 March 1998)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Cambridge University Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 360
- Language English