Theodor Mommsen's History of Rome, Book II traces Rome's ascent from monarchy to republic with sweeping force, linking constitutional change to class conflict, legal reform, and the widening struggle for power across Italy. At its heart lies a sharp argument: Roman reform was not meant to weaken the state, but to restrain the magistrates who embodied it. From the fall of Tarquinius Superbus to the rise of annual consuls, the book shows how Rome preserved the substance of kingship while stripping away its permanence, splendor, and unchecked authority. Mommsen follows this transformation through the right of appeal, limits on civil and military power, the creation of subordinate offices, and the development of dictatorship as a temporary remedy for crisis. He also charts the political reorganization that brought plebeians into the burgess-body and reduced the old curiate assembly to a shadow of its former role. Alongside these constitutional changes, he reconstructs the growth of the Latin league, the status of allied towns and colonies, and the first Samnite-Latin War, blending critical analysis with vivid accounts of Rome's early heroic age. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

À propos de l'auteur

Mommsen, Theodor

Theodor Mommsen was a towering German scholar, historian, jurist, and public intellectual whose life stretched across the turbulent nineteenth century, from the aftermath of the Napoleonic era to the dawn of modern Europe. Born in 1817 and trained in law and classical studies, he built a career that combined rigorous scholarship with civic engagement, teaching at several universities and taking part in political life as a liberal voice in Prussia. His greatest achievement was his monumental reconstruction of the ancient Roman world, especially his sweeping multi-volume history of Rome, which transformed the study of antiquity through its vivid narrative energy, command of sources, and insistence that history should be both exacting and alive. Mommsen also made lasting contributions to Roman law, inscriptions, and the methods of historical research, helping establish standards of precision that still shape classical scholarship today. At the heart of his work lies a fascination with power, citizenship, law, empire, and the fragile institutions that hold societies together—questions that remain strikingly current in an age still wrestling with democracy, authoritarianism, and the uses of national memory. His legacy endures not only in the academy but in the broader imagination, where he remains a model of the scholar as interpreter of civilization. Readers who enjoy grand historical vision, classical antiquity, political history, and intellectually serious prose will find him especially rewarding.