Fergus Millar (1935–2019)

This is a research book that I found useful, but not as much as I had hoped. The author is a historian and this book is based on a series of lectures he gave as a Sather guest lecturer at Berkeley. He draws on a wealth of documents from the Theodosian Code and Church records of key ecumenical councils to make his case for how power was wielded during the long reign of Theodosius II. A key point is indicated in his title "A Greek Roman Empire"--how the eastern portion of the Roman Empire was essentially Greek in nature, language and culture and how that influenced the imposed Roman government. I found the writing academic and dense, but in some ways limited. In spite of the huge amount of material the author had available to use as quotes and examples, he consistently went back to the same four or five. I suppose that is the nature of lectures. He wanted to build on examples already given and could use those "go to" examples as shorthand rather than introducing new examples with the accompanying background information. He did introduce me to a number of primary sources, I otherwise would not have known about. I would recommend this book as a reference to anyone studying this time period, but not for the casual reader of history.… (mere)

This is a first-rate history book but it's a tough read unless you're a professional historian. It contains 600+ pages of quite detailed discussions of the historical evidence relating to the daily work of Roman emperors ("the emperor was what the emperor did", p.6). There are no attempts to draw general conclusions. There are not even chapter-ending summaries. This doesn't detract from the value of this book as a great work of scholarship, but a general reader hoping to read about the workings of Roman government will not find this work particularly useful.… (mere)

An interesting survey of how the Roman Republic has inspired western political thought from antiquity to the Renaissance and the American revolution. As an accomplished historian of Rome, the author competently reviews perceptions and misperceptions of the Republic in the classic works of western political theory. He's understandably not equally well acquainted with the historical and political context of the works themselves, so the book becomes a bit repetitive at times. However, I did like his informative analysis of the American constitutional debate in particular. The one thing that the author emphasizes and that stuck to my mind was that Livy's semihistorical narrative of the early Republic has been by far the most influential Roman source for political thought. More historically accurate perspectives did not prevail until the 20th century.… (mere)