Lawless Republic: The Rise of Cicero and the Decline of Rome
Josiah Osgood
Jan 2025 · Basic Books · Narrated by David Holt
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Audiobook
11 hr 11 min
Unabridged
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infoThis book will become available on January 30, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this audiobook
The collapse of law and order in the last years of the Roman Republic told through the rise and fall of its most famous lawyer, Cicero.
In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by crime. Cases of extortion, murder and insurrection gave an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero high-profile opportunities to litigate and forge a reputation as a master debater with a bright political future. In Lawless Republic, leading Roman historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator's ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic's lurch toward autocracy.
Cicero's first appearance in the courts came shortly after the end of a brutal civil war. After leveraging his fame as a lawyer to become a consul, he ruthlessly crushed a coup by suppressing the liberties of Roman citizens. The premiere legal mind of Rome came to argue that the pursuit of a higher justice could sometimes justify sweeping the law aside, laying the groundwork for Roman history's most famous act of political violence - the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Lawless Republic vividly resurrects the spectacle of the courts in the time of Cicero and Caesar, showing how politics trumped the rule of law and sealed the fate of Rome.
In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by crime. Cases of extortion, murder and insurrection gave an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero high-profile opportunities to litigate and forge a reputation as a master debater with a bright political future. In Lawless Republic, leading Roman historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator's ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic's lurch toward autocracy.
Cicero's first appearance in the courts came shortly after the end of a brutal civil war. After leveraging his fame as a lawyer to become a consul, he ruthlessly crushed a coup by suppressing the liberties of Roman citizens. The premiere legal mind of Rome came to argue that the pursuit of a higher justice could sometimes justify sweeping the law aside, laying the groundwork for Roman history's most famous act of political violence - the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Lawless Republic vividly resurrects the spectacle of the courts in the time of Cicero and Caesar, showing how politics trumped the rule of law and sealed the fate of Rome.
About the author
Josiah Osgood is professor of classics at Georgetown University and holds a PhD from Yale University. A winner of the Rome Prize, he is the author of six books on Roman history including Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic. He lives in Washington, DC.
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