Giusto Traina The Roman World War review and information of the content of the book by the Italian historian. Princeton University Press will publish the Giusto Traina history book on the Roman World War, From the Ides of March to Cleopatra’s Suicide, on April 7, 2026. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.
Giusto Traina The Roman World War reviews
- “If you think you know how the Roman Republic came to an end, think again: Traina’s masterful page-turner brings the readers through a riveting, and shockingly timely, odyssey among the many peoples, places, and ideas whose violent collidings reverberate all the way to the present.” (Katherine Blouin, University of Toronto)
- “Distinguished Sicilian historian Giusto Traina has done it again. Focusing his laser-like intellect on a relatively restricted time range yields insight on a global scale. He has totally persuaded me that the lethal combination of civil war and foreign war that afflicted the Greco-Roman world during the fourteen-year interregnum between the assassination of one Caesar and the triumph of another was indeed a world war.” (Paul Cartledge, author of Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece)
The Roman World War
From the Ides of March to Cleopatra’s Suicide
- Author: Giusto Traina (Italy)
- Book type: Roman history
- English translation: Malcolm DeBevoise
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- To be released: April 7, 2026
- Length: 248 pages
- Format: hardback / ebook
- Prize: $ 35.00
- Order book from: Amazon / Bol
Blurb of the history book on the Roman World War
The succession of civil wars that plagued the last years of the Roman Republic has often been portrayed as a settling of scores between Roman factions—Sulla against Marius, Caesar against Pompey, Octavian against Mark Antony—with foreign campaigns serving as a backdrop to the tragic spectacle. The Roman World War recasts the struggle for Rome as a global conflict that engulfed millions of non-Romans across Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa.
Shedding new light on the pivotal years spanning Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE and the suicides of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 30 BCE, Giusto Traina introduces readers to lesser-known figures such as the Cilician dynast Tarcondimotus, the king of the Moors Bogud, and the Armenian king Artawazd, men who influenced Rome’s politics and who played consequential roles in battles waged far beyond the borders of the Imperium Romanum. Traina demonstrates how the violence unleashed by Caesar’s death was a direct consequence of his expansionist plans. From Spain to Mesopotamia, peoples such as Berbers, Hispanics, Gauls, Greeks, Thracians, and Armenians were drawn into a global war in which the fate of Rome was tied to their own.
A global, “connected” history that transforms our understanding of the Republic’s final years, The Roman World War demonstrates how foreign nations and peoples were not merely pawns in the Roman civil wars but active protagonists in a great power struggle that shook the ancient world for fourteen intense years.
Giusto Traina was born in 1959 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He is Emeritus Professor of Roman History at Sorbonne University in Paris and Professor of Roman History at the University of Salento in Lecce. He is the author of several books on ancient history, including 428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire.
