# Sources and Further Reading

*Rome DCCIV AUC, The Edge of the Republic, Rome and the provinces in 50 BC. Source: https://oldwest.exodusnds.com/era-books/rome/sources-and-further-reading*

Start here to check a date or follow a story. The entries point to free translations and explain where each ancient writer helps and where to read with care. Modern scholarship helps weigh their accounts. Use these sources for dates, places and prices. For gear and weapon statistics, use the Exodus NDS sourcebooks named in Gear and Prices.

## How This Book Handles Uncertainty

For much of the late Republic, only one or two accounts survive. Some come a century or more after the event, and their writers disagree. Historical Reference sorts the evidence in its Truth and Legend table. The same labels guide the text here.

- **TRUTH.** A strong source supports the claim. Usually it is a contemporary such as Caesar, Cicero or Sallust, or a later historian whose account agrees with one. The text states the claim as fact.
- **LEGEND.** An ancient writer tells a story we cannot confirm. The famous last words, omens and figures that grow in the telling go in Legend boxes. Use them as rumors at the table.
- **UNRESOLVED.** The evidence is missing or the sources disagree. Look for words like “reported” or “about,” or for both versions where the difference matters. Some claims are left out. The chief dispute is when Caesar's command ends (Powers of the Republic, In 50 BC: When Does Caesar's Command End?).

Years use AD and BC. For the civil dates of 50 BC, see The Era, The Day and the Year. The Roman calendar then ran ahead of the seasons. The Julian calendar came later.

## Ancient Sources

Look here for the writer, work, date and point of view, with a free English translation where available.

- **Julius Caesar, *The Gallic War* and *The Civil War*.** Caesar's own reports of his campaigns, 58 to 48 BC, written in the third person. The eighth book of the Gallic War, covering 51 and 50 BC, is by his officer Aulus Hirtius. Vivid and exact on camps, sieges and Gallic peoples; written to justify Caesar, so his numbers of enemies and his motives need care. Perseus: [Gallic War](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0001), [Civil War](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0076).
- **Cicero, letters and speeches.** Hundreds of letters to his friend Atticus, his brother Quintus and others, many from the years of play, including his year governing Cilicia (51 to 50 BC). The letters were private and are the closest thing to a diary of the period; the speeches are advocacy and argue a case. Translations at [Attalus](https://www.attalus.org/cicero/atticus1.html) and on [Perseus](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/).
- **Sallust, *The War with Catiline* and *The Jugurthine War*.** Written in the 40s BC by a partisan of Caesar who was himself expelled from the Senate in 50 BC. Moralizing about Roman decline, but a contemporary. [LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Sallust/home.html).
- **Varro, *On Agriculture*** (37 BC) **and Cato, *On Agriculture*** (2nd century BC). Farm manuals on estates, slave gangs, rations and costs. [Varro](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Varro/de_Re_Rustica/home.html), [Cato](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cato/De_Agricultura/home.html) at LacusCurtius.
- **Polybius, *Histories*.** A Greek hostage in Rome in the 2nd century BC; book 6 describes the constitution, the army, the camp and soldiers' pay. Older than the period, but the base for much of what came after. [LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/home.html).

- **Diodorus Siculus, *Library of History*.** A Sicilian Greek who visited Egypt about 60 to 56 BC; useful on Egypt and on Gaulish customs. [LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/home.html).
- **Livy, *History of Rome*.** Written under Augustus. The books on this period are lost; only short summaries (the *Periochae*) survive. [Livius](https://www.livius.org/sources/content/livy/).
- **Strabo, *Geography*.** An Augustan Greek geographer; the main source for the layout of Alexandria and for Gaul, Spain and the East. [LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/home.html).
- **Vitruvius, *On Architecture*.** Written in the 30s and 20s BC; houses, basilicas, forums and siege engines. [LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/home.html).
- **Plutarch, *Parallel Lives*.** Greek moral biographies written about AD 100: Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Cato the Younger, Cicero, Antony and more. Rich in anecdote and character, and the source of many legends. [LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/home.html).
- **Appian, *The Civil Wars*.** An Alexandrian Greek of the 2nd century AD; the only continuous narrative of the period from the Gracchi onward, including Spartacus. [LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Appian/home.html).
- **Suetonius, *The Divine Julius*.** An imperial secretary writing about AD 120; strong on habits, rumors and quotations, weak on chronology. [LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/home.html).
- **Cassius Dio, *Roman History*.** A senator writing in the early 3rd century AD; books 36 to 44 give a year-by-year account from 69 to 44 BC. [LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html).
- **Pliny the Elder, *Natural History*.** An encyclopedia of the AD 70s: animals, plants, medicine, metals, prices and buildings, often citing Republican records. Later than the period, so its prices are a guide. [Perseus](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137).
- **Josephus, *Jewish Antiquities* and *Jewish War*.** Written in the AD 70s to 90s; the source for Pompey's capture of Jerusalem (63 BC) and Judaea under Rome. [Lexundria](https://lexundria.com/j_aj/14.1/wst).
- **Horace, *Satires*.** Poems of the 30s BC on Roman streets, slaves and prices; Latin at [The Latin Library](https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/).

- **Other writers named in the text.** Asconius (commentaries on Cicero's speeches, 1st century AD), Velleius Paterculus (AD 30), Valerius Maximus (under Tiberius), Seneca, Lucan, Juvenal, Aulus Gellius, Tertullian and Ausonius (1st to 4th centuries AD), and Ovid's *Fasti* for the festivals. Most are later than the period; the text names the writer wherever one of them is the only source.

## Modern Scholarship

- **Andrew Lintott, *The Constitution of the Roman Republic* (Oxford University Press, 1999).** Offices, assemblies, Senate and courts.
- **Erich S. Gruen, *The Last Generation of the Roman Republic* (University of California Press, 1974).** The politics of 78 to 49 BC, arguing that the Republic's institutions held until the civil war.
- **Ronald Syme, *The Roman Revolution* (Clarendon Press, 1939).** The classic opposing view: families, factions and the road to Augustus.
- **Adrian Goldsworthy, *Caesar: Life of a Colossus* (Yale University Press, 2006).** A readable full biography.
- **P. A. Brunt, *Italian Manpower 225 BC to AD 14* (Clarendon Press, 1971).** Population, census and the size of the slave population.
- **Walter Scheidel, "Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population," *Journal of Roman Studies* 95 (2005).** A lower estimate of slave numbers than Brunt's; the book gives both.
- **Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, *Religions of Rome*, vol. 1 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).** Roman religion in its history.
- **John Scheid, *An Introduction to Roman Religion* (Edinburgh University Press, 2003).** Sacrifice, priests, the calendar and sacred space.
- **Lawrence Richardson Jr., *A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome* (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992)** and **Amanda Claridge, *Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide* (2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2010).** Buildings and places in the city, and when each was built.
- **P. M. Fraser, *Ptolemaic Alexandria* (Clarendon Press, 1972).** The city, its people and its gods.
- **Duane W. Roller, *Cleopatra: A Biography* (Oxford University Press, 2010).** The queen from the contemporary evidence.
- **J. F. Drinkwater, *Roman Gaul* (Croom Helm, 1983).** Gaul from Caesar's conquest onward.
- **Lawrence Keppie, *The Making of the Roman Army* (Batsford, 1984)**, **Adrian Goldsworthy, *The Roman Army at War 100 BC to AD 200* (Clarendon Press, 1996)** and **M. C. Bishop and J. C. N. Coulston, *Roman Military Equipment* (2nd ed., Oxbow, 2006).** The legion of Caesar's day, how it fought and what it carried.
- **Alison Futrell, *Blood in the Arena* (University of Texas Press, 1997)**, **Donald G. Kyle, *Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome* (Routledge, 1998)** and **Katherine E. Welch, *The Roman Amphitheatre* (Cambridge University Press, 2007).** The games, and why Rome has no stone amphitheater in 50 BC.
- **Brent D. Shaw, *Spartacus and the Slave Wars* (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001).** The ancient texts on the slave revolts, translated in one volume.
- **Martin M. Winkler, *The Roman Salute: Cinema, History, Ideology* (Ohio State University Press, 2009).** Why the straight-arm salute is modern: from David's painting of 1784 to the stage and the cinema.

## Free Online Resources

- **[LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html)** (Bill Thayer, University of Chicago): public-domain Loeb translations of most of the authors above.
- **[Perseus Digital Library](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/)** (Tufts University): Greek and Latin texts with translations and a dictionary.
- **[Livius](https://www.livius.org/)** and **[Attalus](https://www.attalus.org/)**: translations, year-by-year source lists and articles on battles and people.
- **[Encyclopaedia Romana](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/encyclopaedia_romana/)** (James Grout): short illustrated essays on the calendar, gladiators and daily life, each citing the ancient passages.
- **[Pleiades](https://pleiades.stoa.org/)**: a gazetteer of ancient places with their modern locations.

The *Oxford Classical Dictionary* is the standard single-volume reference. Online access requires a library subscription.

## On Screen

The television series *Rome* and *Spartacus* inform the look and drama. Use the works above as evidence.

- ***Rome* (HBO and BBC, 2005 to 2007).** Its crowded, painted streets, its Senate and its patronage are close to the record. Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo are real centurions named once by Caesar; the rest of their story is invented, and so is most of Atia.
- ***Spartacus* (Starz, 2010 to 2013).** Right in the outline of the revolt of 73 to 71 BC and its leaders' names; Batiatus's story is invention, and its gladiator types, net-fighters among them, belong to later centuries (The Arena and the Games).

## Map Credits

The four maps in this book were drawn for it. Coastlines, land and rivers come from **[Natural Earth](https://www.naturalearthdata.com/)**, free vector map data in the public domain. Positions of several ancient sites in Egypt and Gaul follow the **Pleiades** gazetteer, © Ancient World Mapping Center and Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. The plan of Alexandria follows Strabo's description (*Geography* 17.1.6 to 10); the plan of Rome is drawn on the modern positions of the ancient sites. Province and kingdom borders, peoples' lands and many positions are approximate, and each map says so in its key.