How long would it take to get a comprehensive knowledge of ancient Rome? the kingdom, republic and empire all the emperors etc. I've never really read up on it before.
>>18114573Skip the primary texts. Avoid those at all costs. Read Beard.
You’re talking about over 1000 years of history fren. It’s gonna take a while. Maybe pick one era to focus on for starters.
start with the greeks
>>18114880Why would he start with the later half of the empire?
I would say between two fortnights and a midyear
I will hijack ops thread to ask what books I should read about the republic
>>18114573Start with the Sumerians
>>18114880>not starting with the phoenicians to understand the origins of the latin alphabet
>>18114609Please OP do yourself a favor and don't read this Reddit historian's pop history of Rome. In fact, I recommend two series that were published prior to the 20th century and it's revisionist movement.Read Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome. Then read Gibbon - Decline and FallThere's a slight gap between the two works and unfortunately we have to skip to modern scholars such as Barry Strauss and his Augustus to Constantine would fill that gap.From there I suggest just reading Adrian Goldsworthy for more specific topics.
>>18116893>Gibbon - Decline and FallExtremely dated.
>>18114573How deep are you trying to go?At some point future historians will need to select what to overlook and how to accept brief overviewsLate to current history is so finely detailed, you would need to live it to fully understand itAs an exampleWhat did Obama eat on Monday morning on the 55th day in office?That’s recorded somewhere and is a part of American history Future historians WILL need to eventually accept brief overviews, or risk being dragged down into minutiae Y led to X led to Z is about as good as you can getMajor events are trackedMinor events maybe discussedWhat the emperors favorite color was, does not
>>18116893>Gibbon - Decline and Fallit's nice to read but most of its conclusions were refuted long time ago, not exactly a good source of learning
>>18116893>"Mommsen was imbued with the sense of need for a strong man to clean up the mess left by the failure of the German people [the 1848–1849 Revolution] to realize its political aspirations; and we shall never appreciate its history at its true value until we realize that his well-known idealization of Caesar is the product of this yearning for the strong man to save Germany from ruin, and that the lawyer-politician Cicero, that ineffective chatterbox and slippery procrastinator, has walked straight out of the debates of the Paulikirche in Frankfurt in 1848" -Edward Hallett Carrthey're good pieces of literature but not realiable sources, not only dated like others point out, but also biased by the political context of their time
>>18114573>How long would it takeI've been trying to up my knowledge for 20+ years now and I'm still learning new shit all the time
what's a non-dated non-revisionist source
>>18117705Wikipedia
>>18117705good luck with that, the problem is not finding non dated or revisionist sources, the problem is not being able to identify these subjects. Read established authors if you want, but learn to identify the political or social context of their era and their own prejudice. Tacitus is still being read today but he's extremely biased against the emperors and their wives for moral reasons, while being a staunch supporter of the oligarchy and the senate
>>18114573>comprehensiveConsidering there are whole faculties devoted to roman history alone, more time than you have to live.Which makes me think you actually meant to write cursory, or at least that what you'd consider comprehensive would look cursory in anyone ele's mind.
>>18117671>its conclusions were refutedWho cares? It's a dense knowledge base of several hundred years, and OP wants a comprehensive knowledge.
>>18116162>Start with the SumeriansOr Adam & Eve
>>18116947The style is pretty good despite being anti-Catholic in some places
>>18116026If you want a short-ish and quick-ish introduction to mid and late Republican shenanigans I would suggest "The storm before the storm"
>>18117864>the style is pretty goodNo it isn’t. He just rambles on about unprovable bullshit and stretches into stupid conclusions all the time. He writes like a sophist, 80% of what he writes has no value on the paper itself and isn’t useful to learning anything
>>18116026I recently read "lawless republic" by Josiah Osgood and greatly enjoyed it. It's a new biography of Cicero, a very prominent lawyer and statesman who was a central figure in the late republic. The book looks at some of his famous court cases and orations and uses them as a jumping off point to explain what they tell us about what was happening in the republic and why it was failing. I think it would make a nice introduction.
>>18116893Have you ever actually read Gibbon? I have. He is exactly the kind of historian Lucian of Samosata complained about in the 2nd century CE when he said too many poets were writing history. Gibbon's prose is very fun to read, but his scholarship is often questionable. He makes absurdly sweeping generalizations about ethnic and religious groups constantly, and while his curmedgeonliness towards seemingly every ideology, nation, and creed can be amusing it does ultimately get tiresome. He also has a tendency to get bogged down just listing events without making it thematic, which makes you ask why these details matter. Then he strangely will leave out important events at random that would have been known in his age, despite the absurd length of the series.Its to be enjoyed as an important work of literature, not as good historical scholarship.
>>18118234>t. filtered by big scary words Holy cope batmanHe writes more elegantly than 99% of the goyslop being printed today and that's an objective fact
>>18118310>He writes more elegantlyOh, well, as long as he writes nice I guess it's ok he's a shitty source. Carry on.
So where the fuck does someone start with this.
>>18118331History of Rome podcast.
>>18118322>criticizing humpty dumpty for being inaccurate on details he had no knowledge ofok but he is still important, not just historiographically but historically as well. Gibbon tells us about his cultural milieu indirectly. To me and others that is important. Moreover, his approach to the subject and methodology are impeccable. It's easy to criticize a 250 yo text in this day and age especially. It is much harder to actually understand it
>>18116947>>18117671>>18117694>>18116893Dated by modern standards due to revisionist movement of the 20th century. Their narratives are accurate based on the primary sources. It's perfectly fine to dispute or disagree with their arguments or call them inaccurate with stuff like troop size. But these works serve OP's purpose of learning the basic narrative history. And yes I have read both authors and believe any amateur historian should read them.
>>18118310>He writes more elegantly than 99% of the goyslop being printed todayYour average office worker could write with more clarity and brevity than Gibbon. For somebody who admired the Greek and Roman writers so much he is somehow incapable of actually emulating them and instead does the exact opposite of what 'good style' was to people in antiquity. His entire work reads like a panegyric. You could seriously remove a majority of what he wrote and still arrive at the same conclusions and arguments he made (usually because he just fucking makes it up). That is not a sign of a good writer, but rather one who is wasting your time. Read Gibbon for the sake of reading Gibbon, not because you think you're going to get something out of it.
>>18118395Your average office worker can't write without spell check And I doubt any of them writes above high school levelGibbon was not a Spartan. He was a man of his time and wrote in a style his contemporaries and future generations would understand and appreciate. He is not overly verbose or writing just for the sake of writing. It is true the book is quite long, but enjoyable nonetheless, and his conclusions are not far off the mark.
>>18118421I don’t think we read the same Gibbon then. He is far more than verbose, it really just becomes a test in patience for when he actually gets to the point of what he is trying to say. Such a style is not enjoyable in the slightest because it is simply wasting the readers time, it removes clarity and meaning from the work which could have been there had be been bothered to edit and cut down on the many pointless parts of his work. This is why I call him a sophist, he is not interested in writing a clear history, he is interested in showing off. Much like a sophist he needlessly talks more than he should. It is not being ‘Spartan’ to not be a sophist, it’s the a basic part of good style which Gibbon utterly fails at.
