Summary of Rob Goodman & Jimmy Soni's Rome's Last Citizen

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 When Cato was four years old, he was hanging by his feet from a high window. He was being shaken and dangled out the window by a politician named Pompaedius Silo. Despite being shaken and dangled out the window, Cato did not scream or cry for help.
#2 The story of Cato and the window is a prime example of how the Romans projected their adult characteristics onto their children. The story shows Cato being grabbed by an overwhelming force, facing death, and exhibiting utter calm in the face of it.
#3 The Italian question was a major issue in Roman politics, and it was addressed by the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, who proposed to remedy Rome’s wealth gap by distributing public lands to the urban poor. They were ignored by the Senate.
#4 The assassination of Tiberius was a political assassination that was disguised as a religious ceremony. It was the first step towards Tiberius declaring himself tribune-for-life, his enemies said.

Sujets

• Religion
• History
• Ancient
• Rome
• Ancient history
• Roma (serie de televisión)
• Histoire
• Politique

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 30 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669395072
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Rob Goodman & Jimmy Soni's Romes Last Citizen
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14 Insights from Chapter 15 Insights from Chapter 16 Insights from Chapter 17 Insights from Chapter 18 Insights from Chapter 19
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

When Cato was four years old, he was hanging by his feet from a high window. He was being shaken and dangled out the window by a politician named Pompaedius Silo. Despite being shaken and dangled out the window, Cato did not scream or cry for help.

#2

The story of Cato and the window is a prime example of how the Romans projected their adult characteristics onto their children. The story shows Cato being grabbed by an overwhelming force, facing death, and exhibiting utter calm in the face of it.

#3

The Italian question was a major issue in Roman politics, and it was addressed by the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, who proposed to remedy Rome’s wealth gap by distributing public lands to the urban poor. They were ignored by the Senate.

#4

The assassination of Tiberius was a political assassination that was disguised as a religious ceremony. It was the first step towards Tiberius declaring himself tribune-for-life, his enemies said.

#5

Gaius Gracchus was a Roman politician who helped build the Roman Republic. He was elected tribune ten years after Tiberius, and brought more than anger and grief to the work of coalition building. He invited Italians into his coalition, which caused a conservative backlash that led to his death.

#6

The story of the Gracchi brothers and the Roman Republic was a tale of two factions that defined the last century of the Republic. The populares were inspired by the brothers’ martyrdom, and they wanted to give power back to the people. The optimates were loyal to the traditional power of the Senate, and they wanted to preserve the Republic.

#7

By 91, three decades after the death of Gaius Gracchus, the Italians’ cause had gone nowhere. Yet the Italian elite continued to press for its say in the government and its share of the loot.

#8

The Roman Republic was also hated outside of Rome, by the people of Asia Minor, for its rapacious taxes, its colonists, and its occupying troops. In 88, King Mithridates of Pontus ordered the execution of every Roman and Italian person in his territory.

#9

The Troy Game was a public game for youths on horseback, and it was quite new in Cato’s time. The object of the game was to be the best rider, not to compete. The game was religious in nature, and its origins were traced to the ancient games that sanctified Trojan funerals.

#10

The Roman army was on a dangerously dwindling course. The Gracchi had tried to solve this problem by expanding the base of property owners, but Marius had found a much more successful solution: simply erasing the property qualification altogether. The desperate legions that resulted from this change ended Rome’s manpower worries for good.

#11

Sulla was elected Dictator for the Purpose of Making Laws and Stabilizing the Republic. He was able to dole out spoils like a king, and kill with a word. He chose his wife’s son and a boy named Sextus, nephew of his lieutenant Pompey, to lead the boys into mock battle.

#12

Sulla’s purge of the Roman Senate was privatized justice. He posted the names of those he intended to punish on a white tablet in the Forum, and any Roman who had anything to do with a marked man was marked for death.

#13

Sulla’s reforms were meant to eliminate the tribunes, the people’s representatives, and to pack the Senate with his supporters. He also fixed the cursus honorum, or honors race, which was the orderly progression of a political career.

#14

Sulla’s constitution was the first to be based on old Roman traditions, and it was prophetic in nature. It was the end of an era in which Rome was ruled by an elite collective. Sulla himself would be the last.

#15

Sulla’s reforms were very popular in Rome, but they also required a lot of bloodshed. The young Cato was shocked by this, and he wanted to kill Sulla and free his country from slavery.

#16

The Roman education was bilingual from the start. The boy Cato was trained in oratory, and his lessons focused on relevant topics such as public speaking and jury verdicts.

#17

The Roman ideal of tyranny was that of a hero who turned against his class and killed the tyrant, but in reality, this was rarely the case. Every side of every argument cast itself as the friend of liberty, and there was no training to apply these ideals to a politics in which every side was a tyrant.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Cato was a young man who spoke out against the tribunes who were trying to move the Basilica Porcia, an old public meeting hall that had been his family's Basilica Porcia. He spoke out against the old ways being brought into conflict with modern comfort seeking.

#2

Cato the Elder was a Roman who embodied the old ways. He was well-off enough to own his own land, but not above working shirtless in the field alongside his slaves. When he went to war, he returned with a chest full of scars and a veteran’s record.

#3

As the wealth of Rome concentrated itself in a single city, the old, rough equality among the elite was dying. The new elite began to affect Greek learning, and they were decadent, cosmopolitan, and un-Roman.

#4

The rivalry between Cato and Scipio was at the heart of Rome’s culture war. Scipio was accused of receiving a stupendous bribe from a foreign king, and Cato was the prosecutor. When the charges were dropped, Scipio wept.

#5

Cato was a politician who was very strict with Rome’s morals. He was the only candidate for censor who shared his punishing platform, and he won convincingly. He was a man of his word, and he enforced his code of public morals through the example of demotions.

#6

Cato was a fan of the war against Carthage, and he was constantly urging the Senate to destroy the city. He even went so far as to say that whoever prepared everything against him should be considered his enemy, even if they weren’t yet using weapons.

#7

The Rome of Cato’s old age was dramatically different from the Rome of his childhood. The Rome of his children would be even more open to the world than the one he had known.

#8

The myth of universal decline was as ingrained in the ancient mind as the myth of progress is in ours. It permeated politics and religion. It was a powerful figure for poets.

#9

Twelve times weaker than the Romans of Cato’s day, the ancients were, almost by definition, purer, wiser, and braver. The Romans of Cato’s day felt themselves in a similar relation to their ancestors.

#10

Rome was a city that was heavily influenced by Greek culture, and the Stoic philosophy was very popular there. But eventually, the corrupt tide of philosophy could not be stemmed.

#11

The Stoics were as hard as Cato the Younger aspired to be. They taught that all virtues were the same virtue, and all vices were the same vice. The trained Stoic was skilled at holding back. What was promised in return was no less than freedom from passion.

#12

Cato the Younger was a fan of Stoicism, and he practiced it until it became his life. He learned how to subsist on a poor man’s food or no food at all, how to go barefoot and bareheaded in rain and heat, and how to endure sickness in silence.
Insights from Chapter 3