A Noise of War: Caesar, Pompey, Octavian and the Struggle for Rome

Through civil wars and world conflicts, the Roman Republic had survived 400 years, its empire stretching from Spain to Syria and beyond. But at the millennium, it seemed about to buckle. An entrenched Senate would not and could not respond to the nation's precipitous decline; its leaders, locked in the status quo and fighting for privilege, were talking reform to death. As the Republic careened to the brink of ruin, the battle lines were drawn by three figures, all larger than life. Caesar, the bold, rash general;…