On Ancient Rome

This was a decent summary of the Roman Empire from the formation of Rome on the Tiber to the loss of Alexandria to Arab armies in the 7th century. The first half was far more difficult to read than the second half, in large part because the source material is thin and the text seemed bogged down on laws and specific individuals (in large part because that’s all we have to work off of, this is not the fault of the author by any means). The height of the book was Potter’s writing on the age of it Sulla to the age of Constantine. The last chapter on “fall” seemed inadequate because, although Potter probes the idea of “fall,” he ultimately argues that the Western Roman Empire fell no later than the loss of the North African provinces to the Vandals (although he admits it may have “fallen” earlier) and the Eastern Roman Empire fell with the advance of the Islam in Alexandria. Although it is true that the Eastern Roman Empire no longer functioned as a global power, it maintained its position as a regional power far more influential than the early Roman Republic (which Potter gives a sizeable amount of space).

I would have liked him to discuss continuities a bit more, as well as the extent to which the Eastern Empire morphed into what we now call the “Byzantine” Empire. Did the Eastern Roman Empire continue the same methods of statecraft and legitimacy as during the first four centuries of the common era or did it transform itself into something new? To what extent did the Western Roman Empire merge into the later “medieval” European world during Late Antiquity? These are questions that I am curious about, but Potter unfortunately does not try to grapple with.

Although I am overly critical here, this shouldn’t be a reason not to thumb through this book. There are a lot of important insights here, and it’s worth reading for the rest of the material.