Book Review: Taken at the Flood

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Keeping Up with the RomansTaken at the Flood: The Roman Conquest of Greecetaken at the flood coverBy Robin WaterfieldOxford University Press, 2014 Historian and indefatigable translator Robin Waterfield’s new book purports to be a study of Roman territorial conquest during roughly the same years covered by the renowned Greek historian Polybius, the half-century stretching from the start of the Second Punic War in 219 BC to the final conquest of Macedon in 167 BC, give or take a prelude or postscript, but in reality the reader gets much more than such a description might imply. Taken at the Flood is indeed a military history of Rome’s various wars of empire during those pivotal decades, but in every chapter, Waterfield also takes broader views.One of his overriding interests is in how such a rapid series of territorial expansions changed the Romans perceptions of themselves, how the shock of sudden hegemony affected the Roman power structure, which, Waterfield reminds us, was fundamentally very small:

Rome was governed, then, by an elite, with a relatively small number of families repeatedly holding a proportionately large number of senior offices. They even kept all the most important priesthoods to themselves, to prevent the emergence of a powerful priestly estate. They fought together, dined together, shared cultural interests, intermarried, adopted one another’s sons, and loaned one another money.

Using very much the same dramatic structure as his two great ancient sources, Polybius and Livy, Waterfield gives his readers sharp, intensely readable accounts of such battles as the Sack of Antipatrea, or the crucial Battle of Cynoscephalae between King Philip V of Macedon and the Roman general Titus Flaminius, which effectively ended the Second Macedonian War. But he consistently brings his narrative back to the deeper question of what such conquests meant, on social levels, to the conquerors:

One of the main effects of the conquest of the east was that it provoked a period of soul-searching in Rome – searching for the true heart of Roman-ness. And this links us back to the quest for Roman identity that we have already noted as a result of contact with Greek culture. The famous aphorism of Horace about captive Greece capturing its savage captor belongs precisely in this context, with its contrast of sophisticated Greece and primitive Rome.

Waterfield himself has given us a very good translation of Polybius’s book on this same period, and of course he’s classicist enough to know how joyously wonderful Livy’s relevant books are on Rome’s rise to power in the greater Mediterranean world. His own book is tighter and more aphoristic than either of his classical models, with a sprinkling of jabs at modern relevance and dozens of good illustrations (including, delightfully, almost a dozen beautiful black-and-white photos of key locations taken by his wife). At less than 300 pages it’s a bit deceptive: an enormous amount of wit and eudition is packed into this comparatively slim volume. Students of Roman history shouldn’t miss it.