Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Book Review: Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt
I tread this book through, but I have to admit that I was disappointed with this book on the whole. I picked up this book primarily to learn more about Republican Rome, whose workings have always been somewhat hazy to me. Cicero, along with Cato, was arguably the last great Roman republican, and this title, which came highly recommended, seemed a good place to start.

Thanks to the book, I now have a much better sense as to how the Roman Republic worked. Everitt does a good job of describing how its system of Consuls, Tribunes and other, lesser senatorial positions worked. He also details the politics as to how Rome evolved – or more appropriately, de-volved – in the century prior to Cicero attaining the senate, as the republic came to be dominated by a succession of strongmen: the Dictator Sulla, the first and then second triumvirates. All fascinating stuff, and you'd think it would make for a heck of a story.

The main problem with this book for me was too much describing what happened instead of letting Cicero speak for himself. The vast majority of the extracts used in the book are from his voluminous correspondence to his friend Atticus, rather than his speeches, so you never get a real sense as to why Cicero was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest writers/orators. And the extracts are short, rarely longer than a telling sentence or two, serving as the punchline to a point the author is trying to make. So I never really got much of a sense for the man himself, or his own internal motivations. Far too much "telling" rather than "showing" going on. A good book, but there's little zest to it.

Far better is the series of audio lectures I've been listening to recently about the same period and place in history -- Garrett Fagan's "The History of Ancient Rome". It arguably provides a better overview of the Republican period, and while it doesn't concentrate on Cicero, it brings the while era much more to life than Everitt's book does. Recommended.