Lawless Republic

<p><b>'A vivid, visceral and crucial read for our times' BETTANY HUGHES</b><br><br><b>'Wonderful and insightful' ADRIAN GOLDSWORTHY</b><br><b><br>The collapse of law and order in the last years of the Roman Republic told through the rise and fall of its most famous lawyer, Cicero.<br></b><br>In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by crime. Cases of extortion, murder and insurrection gave an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero high-profile opportunities to litigate and forge a reputation as a master debater with a bright political future. In Lawless Republic, leading Roman historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator's ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic's lurch toward autocracy. <br><br>Cicero's first appearance in the courts came shortly after the end of a brutal civil war. After leveraging his fame as a lawyer to become a consul, he ruthlessly crushed a coup by suppressing the liberties of Roman citizens. The premiere legal mind of Rome came to argue that the pursuit of a higher justice could sometimes justify sweeping the law aside, laying the groundwork for Roman history's most famous act of political violence - the assassination of Julius Caesar. <br><br><i>Lawless Republic</i> vividly resurrects the spectacle of the courts in the time of Cicero and Caesar, showing how politics trumped the rule of law and sealed the fate of Rome.</p>