If his goal was to produce an “original and readable book” that would be “important for all students and scholars of Roman history and of politics in general”, as the back-cover copy claims, then Henrik Mouritsen has succeeded. In this slim, 172-page entry in the Key Themes in Ancient History series from Cambridge University Press, Mouritsen not only engages with the giants in Roman political history but challenges them, and the status quo of scholarship on the Roman Republic, while lucidly offering a vibrant reading of populism, republicanism, and political legitimacy in the Roman world that will give any readers with an interest in the subject much to ponder
