Erik Hildinger

It is a bit unfortunate for Erik Hildinger that I am reviewing his book, Swords Against the Senate: the Rise of the Roman Army and the Fall of the Republic, shortly after reading and reviewing Tom Holland’s masterful Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic, which covers a lot of the same ground but in a far more engaging narrative style. Of course, the subject of this assignment is to review Hildinger, not compare and contrast his work with a similar effort, so while conceding that Holland is the better writer of a far more compelling account of the events leading up to the fall of the Roman Republic, I will do my best to put him aside in order to focus upon Swords Against the Senate.
My major issue with Hildinger’s work is not the material or how it is presented as much as my confusion as to what exactly his thesis is and whether or not he argues his case appropriately. The title of the work, of course, implies a military theme and the sub-title underscores that with vehemence: “The Rise of the Roman Army and the Fall of the Republic.” The dust jacket adds a political dimension, arguing that this volume “ . . . shows just how the Roman Republic came apart in throes of military and political turmoil . . .” According to Hildinger’s own “Introduction,” he opens the narrative with the following thesis statement:
This book treats three distinct but interrelated aspects of Roman life and tells how they worked for the dissolution of the Roman Republic . . . It does so by showing the personalities involved, by showing in action one of their most powerful tools, the army, and by showing the gradual chipping away of the constitution that led to the swingeing [sic] conflicts and collapse …

This balance seems supported in the very first chapter, which opens with the tale of the Gracchi – plebeian brothers who each served as tribunes some years apart and attempted revolutionary reforms that were to result in their respective assassinations. In fact, the entire first quarter of the book – with the exception of a chapter devoted to the structure and organization of the Roman army -- is devoted to the political dimensions associated with the Gracchi. While the failed reforms and premature violent ends of the Gracchi make a great launching point for the century long struggle that was to lead to the fall of the Republic, the death of the younger Gracchi brother and the conclusion of “Chapter 4” seem to bookmark a shift in the direction of the narrative: Hildinger invests little time in subsequent chapters on the Roman political culture and the elements that lead to its breakdown over this period. Instead, the account swings to a military history and the focus on the political spectrum becomes not only blurred but neglected. At the same time, the lens is narrowed upon very specific personalities and events.
It is here that another question begs to be asked and answered: is this a book intended for the general reader who has little more than passing familiarity with the events and cast of characters who populate the drama of the late Republic? Again, chapter one is deceiving, for it seems very much as if the author makes little assumption upon the background of the reader. Later, however, as the book progresses, it seems as if only one comfortable with the historical milieu could follow all of the twists and turns of the plot, the intrigues of the main players, the essential elements of life in Rome in this period. Such it is that I will now break my earlier promise to set Holland aside, albeit briefly, because in contrast in Rubicon he succeeds superlatively in illustrating the greater drama of the day in broad brushstrokes (with apologies for the mixed metaphor) that permits a novice to enter this world and fully comprehend it. If this is Hildinger’s intention, as well, then he falls far short of the goal. The complaint may not be justified and the audience he writes for may indeed be one with a greater expertise in this historical period, but the issue, to my mind, is that his target audience is simply not well defined, so it is difficult to evaluate his intention. For my part, had I not read Rubicon I would indeed have found myself somewhat lost and confused by the greater political events that dominated the era under discussion.
With that digression aside, I will return to the narrative structure of Hildinger’s work. The real main character of the book, Gaius Marius, is introduced in the opening lines of “Chapter 5” and it is Marius who will dominate much of the rest of the narrative until the concluding chapters shift once again. Also launched within this chapter is a lengthy, meticulous account of the Jugurthine War. Clearly, it is here that Hildinger is in his element – as a military historian comfortable with recounting the tactical particulars of the battlefield. But is this level of detail required to argue his thesis? Hildinger perhaps anticipates this complaint and addresses it in the “Introduction,” explaining that because of its prominent role “. . . the book deals in rather more detail with the Roman army than might be expected, both as an organization and as a fighting force; we will see it in the camp, in the field and in the forum.” Even so, does the Jugurthine War itself merit the lengthy attention it receives here, especially when Hildinger concedes after the conclusion of the conflict that: “In itself it had been a rather pointless affair . . .” Yet, he underscores -- perhaps by way of explanation for his lengthy discourse upon it -- that “. . . it had made Marius’s reputation and begun Sulla’s career. More than that it had accelerated the Senate’s eclipse at the hands of the mob and the powerful men who could turn it to their advantage.” But does Hildinger present convincing evidence to support this latter assertion? Unfortunately, not a great deal. So much of the second quarter of the book has been devoted to the Jugurthine War that the greater politics in Rome are mostly dealt with somewhat superficially. As a reader I felt, not for the first time, as if I was holding a book that claimed to be about the mid-point of the American Civil War yet in fact devoted the greater part of its narrative to the single battle at Gettysburg.
This is an excellent time in this review to bring up another subject, Hildinger’s loose and repeated use of the term “mob” to characterize the undefined, largely economically disenfranchised plebeian population that demagogues play to in the declining years of the Republic. The term not only sounds old-fashioned but certainly is old-fashioned, in my estimation, for a historian writing in the twenty-first century. It has that reek of old-style elitism that made me wince every time Hildinger employed it in the narrative -- which was frequently: I pictured some elderly British curmudgeon in the late Victorian period garbed in a smoking jacket, dismissively tarring the great unwashed elements that are so inconvenient for upper-class notions of democracy. The repeated use of this anachronism also pointed to the author’s failure to fully flesh out this “mob” – who were these people and why were they so easily swayed by populist figures who clearly didn’t really have their best interests in mind? All of this is woefully subsumed by blow-by-blow accounts of military encounters in the Jugurthine War and on other battlefields.
The remaining half of the book has much to fit into those few pages in order to achieve all that Hildinger promises earlier, and it simply does not hit all of these targets adequately. Again, a huge amount of space is devoted to the various wars in great detail, and once more the political landscape remains largely blurred. But this is not to disparage Hildinger’s many skills as a military historian: had Swords Against the Senate been billed as such -- as a military history of the late Roman Republic with no other pretensions -- Hildinger could be said to have succeeded masterfully. His narrative often puts the reader right into the thick of the battle, in a way few other historians of the ancient world have achieved, and the time devoted earlier to an in depth description of the structure of the Roman army adds a level of comprehension to the field encounters that otherwise would be far more difficult to grasp. Here also, as throughout the book, Hildinger impresses with an exhaustive use of sources that carefully notes where accounts differ and evaluates with pronounced erudition which of these versions were more likely to be accurate. These are his strengths and in this regard there is much to admire.
Still, the attempt to argue his thesis is uneven, often lost to the domination of the military perspective and the somewhat cursory way political events are treated. Prominent personalities step on and off the stage as called for by the occasions at hand, but most of these are little more than cardboard cutouts rather than fully fleshed out figures. Even Marius, who comes to be the central character, notably drifts from focus at some point and when his death comes it is barely alluded to in the text. At the end of the day, I enjoyed reading Hildinger’s book for what it was rather than what it purported to be, but again that points to its weaknesses as well, for it was actually several books all sewn together under a larger cover; expanded versions of those separate books within individual volumes would have been more successful, in my estimation.… (mais)