Summary of Anthony Everitt's The Rise of Rome

Get the Summary of Anthony Everitt's The Rise of Rome in 20 minutes.

Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., Rome grew to become the ancient world's preeminent power.

Everitt fashions the story of Rome's rise to glory into an erudite page-turner filled with lasting lessons for our time.

He chronicles the clash between patricians and plebeians that defined the politics of the Republic.

He shows how Rome's shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding the reach of her burgeoning empire. And he outlines the corrosion of constitutional norms that accompanied Rome's imperial expansion, as old habits of political compromise gave way, leading to violence and civil war.

In the end, unimaginable wealth and power corrupted the traditional virtues of the Republic, and Rome was left triumphant everywhere except within its own borders.