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

by A.J. Langguth

Thru civil wars & world conflicts, the Roman Republic had survived 400 years, it stretching from Spain to Syria & beyond. But at the millennium, it seemed about to buckle. An entrenched Senate wouldn't & couldn't respond to the nation's precipitous decline; its leaders, locked in the status quo & fighting for privilege, were talking reform to death. As the Republic careened to the brink of ruin, the battlelines were drawn by three figures, all larger than life: Caesar, the bold, rash general; Cicero, the greatest orator of his time; & Pompey, a brilliantly successful campaigner, were locked in a fierce struggle for Rome's future. The contest began with debate in the Forum but led soon to violent riots, then armed revolt on the battlefield & bloodshed on the Senate steps. In the end, it was Octavian, Caesar's clever nephew & unmerciful political heir, who would claim victory. Rome was poised at the dawn of the Augustan Age. In a rich, scrupulously researched narrative history, Langguth captures this epic drama & brings to life the towering figures of the time. Capitalizing on a wealth of primary materials--from Caesar's war stories to Cicero's most intimate letters--he's gone to the heart of the political intrigues, calculated alliances & mortal rivalries that now seem especially vibrant & contemporary. We see Caesar, the aristocrat who championed the people's causes but was accused of wanting to be king, as he contends with Cicero, a newcomer to Rome with a sharp tongue but also a fatal eagerness to please patricians. Drawn into their struggle were Brutus, Pompey, Cassius, Mark Antony & the eventual victor, Octavian--lobbying causes, brokering deals, leading armies & grabbing at power. A Noise of War goes from Caesar's battlefields in Britannia to Cleopatra's Alexandrian bedroom.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Military Fiction

384 pages, Hardcover

First published April 9, 1994

About the author

A.J. "Jack" Langguth was a Professor at the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California and an American author and journalist. In addition to his non-fiction work, he is the author of several dark, satirical novels. A graduate of Harvard College, Langguth was South East Asian correspondent and Saigon bureau chief for "The New York Times" during the Vietnam war. He was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1975, and received the The Freedom Forum Award, honoring the nation's top journalism educators, in 2001.
A nonfiction study of the Reconstruction Era, is scheduled to be published in 2013.

Reviews

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging history of the end of the Roman Republic.

The narrative itself is more of a brief overview, and should serve nicely as an introduction to the subject. A lot of the book deals with Julius Caesar. He occasionally speculates on his subjects' motives and thoughts but for the most part sticks to what we know or what most likely happened.

Langguth’s style is a little wordy, and the book isn’t as comprehensive as some may like. There is less coverage of Octavian than some readers may expect from the title. Also, Langguth doesn’t always make clear when certain events are happening.

A readable and informative work.

[Arminius · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is absolutely the best book I ever read about Caesar and his contemporaries. As Caesar mounted victory after victory in France and beyond, the Senate feared he had become too powerful and trumped up charges against him to silence him. However Caesar invaded Rome and took it over as sole Emperor. The Senate gave control of the Army to defeat Caesar to Pompey the Great. Pompey had conquered more land than any other General. The Senate had put its faith in Pompey's hand. However Caesar defeated Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus. Pompey fled to Egypt looking for an escape. The Egyptians however killed Pompey when his boat arrived.

Now Caesar ran Rome unmolested. He had instituted a land grant system, he set the calendar to the seasons, he forgave all his enemies. Then the Senate conspired and killed the greatest man in their country. Caesars nephew Octavian vowed to revenge his dead uncles memory and wound up facing off against Caesars most trusted underling, Mark Antony. In what became known as Antony's Civil War Octavian defeated him captured Egypt and Cleopatra who killed herself so she wouldn't be paraded around in Rome as the disgraced Queen.

Octavian ruled Rome for 40 years. It was one of the most peaceful periods in Rome's history.

[Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent book on the fall of the roman republic. Starting with the civil war of Sulla and follows the careers of Caesar, Pompey, and Cicero as their generation gains power in Rome. Only Caesar was a patrician, Pompey and Cicero were “new men” and had to fight for respect. The first triumpant was Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus. Crassus had lead the war against Sparticus and was rich, however he died fighting in the East. In this book, Caesar is much less the great figure as the man who wanted too much and took his army across the Rubicon causing the civil war. Pompey was a retired general who had that opportunity previously and did not. Pompey was sucked in by the patricians to protect Rome. Caesar defeat Pompey and when Pompey went to Egypt to pull together a new army, he was killed by Potinus and the head offered to Caesar. After Caesar is killed by a group of Senators lead by Brutus and Cassius. There is confusion but Mark Anthony brokers a peace with the killers to stop another Civil War. Octavian was Caesar’s Grand nephew and the primary receiptant of the will (much to the annoyance of Mark Anthony). Lepidus, Octavian, and Anthony form the next triumpant.

[SeaShore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just following the map of "The Roman World" 81 B.C. - 30 B.C., the author writes a quote,
" Marius was once rebuked for granting Roman citizenship illegally to 1,000 men of camerinum who had fought for him in a recent battle. Marius answered that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war. from: Plutarch's Life of Gaius Marius.

And so the book starts.
Caesar and Cicero 81 B.C. , where Gaius Julius Caesar (age 19) stood before Sulla and refused to obey Sulla when asked to sue for divorce from Cornelia and take a new bride, who was prescribed by Sulla.

Sulla was offended and he punished Caesar by confiscating his inheritance and Cornelia's dowry. Fearing for his life, Caesar fled south to the mountains of Samnium. While Caesar fled leaving behind his wife and 2 year old daughter, Julia, Marcus Tullius Cicero was entering politics as a new man- not of consul's heritage- he was ambitious and set himself on a course of study for a lawyer by age 16.
He came to know Pompey, who was already marked for military. Cicero chose to endorse Sulla and his programs.

I enjoyed this book; its layout made it a straightforward read listing the 'cast' of characters in Rome as well as abroad for reference.
The chapters are broken down according to a time line with the Roman characters as titles.
So you know where Caesar was for example in 69 B. C. and in that year, what was going on in Egypt. Or the time of Octavian after Caesar's death between 44 B.C. and 30 B.C.

Caesar, Cicero, Pompey, Cato and half-sister Servilia;

44 B.C. Caesar entered upon his fifth consulship, with Antony. Imperator now preceded Caesar's name. In February, he was voted dictator for life. After Cato died, Brutus had turned to Cicero-- patching up lingering awkwardness. Caesar dismissed the notion of Brutus as a conspirator. Cassius together with Brutus challenged the direction that Caesar's ambitions seemed to be heading. Brutus and Cassius did not want Cicero (age 62 then) to dull their spirit so they did not tell Cicero of their plan to assassinate Caesar. Caesar would be leaving on his campaign in four days. They wanted to kill him in a public place--- thus restoring Rome's liberty.

Caesar had said to one of his conspirator's that "A sudden death" is the best type.

Anthony was blocked at the door. Caesar fell over at the statue of Pompey.

The serious politics, the speeches, the court cases, the battles and campaign and the scandals are all taken up in this book; 81 B. C. to 30 B.C.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not exactly what you would call a landmark work on the end of the Roman Republic, but it is an informative, readable volume that did a good job of filling in the gaps of my knowledge about that period of history.
The prose is very direct; Langguth wastes no words here. The narrative voice does a great job of relating the major events from as personal a perspective as you can get based on the primary sources available. The chapters are each titled the name of a major character who is the focus of the chapter, whether it be Caesar, Cicero, Pompey, Cleopatra, Crassus, etc. My only gripe is that the style gets a little boring after a while, but it still managed to keep my attention for most of the book.
I do wish that Langguth would have more clearly delineated what historical events were happening and when; sometimes I had a hard time piecing together "oh, this is the Battle of Pharsalus, and this is the Battle of Actium." If you already have a working knowledge of the Roman Civil Wars, this won't be too much of a problem, but for someone like me who is relatively new to Roman history, it seemed to kind of squeeze together.
All in all, though, a great effort and an enjoyable read. Aside from what I outlined above, I didn't really find much to complain about here.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the one hand, influenced by the high standards of biblical scholarship, this book can be faulted as credulous story telling, the author accepting on face value any documentary 'evidence' which will advance his story, his imaginative reconstruction of the final days of the Roman Republic. On the other hand, as a reader seeking an effortless entertainment with some claim to serious consideration, the reading of this book was a great pleasure, its author indeed being a good enough storyteller to pull me in, present a coherent narrative, a comprehensible picture....Thus, four, not five, stars.

As an introduction to late Republican history (ca. 81-30 BCE) this book will serve despite its almost exclusive attention to the upper classes and their political mechanations. The general picture at least sets the frame for more detailed and critical study. For me, although I've read such studies before, I need a lot of repetition to get the names, places and dates down, and this author managed to make an old, old story seem fresh.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically this is an overview of the last 50 years of the Roman Republic - 81 B.C. to 30 B.C. - very great descriptions of the central; character during that time period. I was fairly familiar with the story before I started the book and did pick up a few more bits of information I hadn't known before.

Just a couple of little knocks at the book - well - the book cover itself.
If this is a story of "Caeser, Pompey, Octavian and the Struggle for Rome", why is the cover art of Alexander the Great? Oh, I understand each man in his own way way trying to his generation's Alexander, but this is a story of Rome.

Also, that title - "Caeser, Pompey, Octavian and the Struggle for Rome" - that should have read "Caeser, Pompey, Cicero and the Struggle for Rome".
Octavian came into the picture toward the end of the story. Cicero was a major figure in the book right from the beginning.

All in all I thought it was very well written and was a very enjoyable read.

[Richard Gazala · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A Noise of War" is historian A.J. Langguth's largely successful and consistently engaging chronicle of the last half-century of the Roman Republic, after which the word "Caesar" changed from mere familial name to a title adopted by a long succession of Roman (and other) emperors. The book covers the tumultuous period in the vast Roman Empire between Sulla's dictatorship and Octavian's ascendency in the wake of Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE. More than 2,000 years have passed since this story's principal players (Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, Marc Antony, Brutus, and Cleopatra) shaped their world, and yet today their notoriety remains sufficient that their names populate the databases of every modern spellchecker. Reading this book provides a good sense of why that's so, for as Caesar said, "Experience is the teacher of all things."

[Giacomo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful read. It is NOT the best book if you want a detailed account of the history of Rome during this time, but it does give a great overview of Caesar's life and several key events of the time. The best thing about the book is the way it is written, with a nice easy style that does not bore you. A serious student of history would likely want something more detailed, but for the casual reader, or, for someone who wants a refresher on this time period it is great. I highly recommend it.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

"An attempt to understand the character of the major players and how that affected their actions in the public arena. Very well written, as are all books by this author. Despite the title, Octavian is a minor player in the time frame of the book, which is primarily focused on the period from the retirement of Sulla to the assassination of Caesar. More words are spent on Marcus Tullius Cicero than any other Roman of the period."

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

AJ Langguth is an excellent teller of history. I had always found history of any kind dull and dry as dust, until I read "Patriots" and then "A Noise of War"...Langguth brought history to life then gave it a personality that demands your attention. I would highly recommend all of Langguth's historical efforts.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fair rehash of the last fifty years of the Roman republic, compiled from the ancient historians, Cicero's letters, and a few modern historians. No particular historical argument--just a retelling of stories that can easily be found elsewhere. Covers the same material, but not as vividly, as Robert Harris's historical novels about Cicero.

[Alexander Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a very well written history of some of Rome's most famous men. It delves into the societal standards of the time in intricate detail. Langgth makes excellent use of personal letters and the personality of each of the figures.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surprisingly lackluster.

[Cara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I used this book to help write a paper for my college history class. It didn't provide the information I was looking for.

[Gene De Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable to read.