Romans and Aliens

"This is about Rome’s image problems among its enemies, its issues with bad PR. It’s a classic, and very entertaining. Balsdon was a British historian from Oxford, he also wrote novels. This is really a great source book on the way of life of the Romans, on their cultural attitudes towards their enemies and subjects, who were from so many different nationalities. He’s got well-documented chapters on every conceivable aspect of Rome’s relations with its neighbours and conquered peoples, from the early republic to the end of the empire, and it’s written in a wonderful narrative style. What I like is that he juxtaposes Rome’s dominant outlook with examples of just how alien the Romans appeared to the rest of the world, which is a unique perspective. Some of the chapter titles and section titles give you a flavour: ‘Snobbery begins at Rome’, ‘Bad Press for Rome’, ‘Good Press for Rome’, ‘Bricks to Throw at the Romans’, ‘Skeletons in the Roman Closet’, ‘Rome’s Offensiveness Abroad’, ‘The Ghastly Bad Taste of the Romans.’ Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . So, Balsdon really combed through the sources to give us a view of Rome and its enemies. It’s just jam-packed with lots of out-of-the-way information, fascinating material that is really hard to find in any other book. Rome considered non-Romans to be aliens, barbarians. It’s an old-fashioned book, very witty, but there might be a few politically incorrect things in there… But he’s presenting both sides of a mirror of cultural prejudice. One of the first chapters is ‘Romans – God’s Own People,’ and there’s also ‘Rome – Capital of the World.’ That’s Rome’s perspective, that they are the centre and everybody else is outside. Yes, and that fits with what I was saying earlier with regard to Winter Quarters , about Rome’s extraordinary ability to absorb and co-opt its enemies."