‘It is not clear that the Romans who think constructively about politics … believe that politics can yield much to systematic analysis’ (203). With this comment towards the end of The Life of Roman Republicanism, Joy Connolly begins to sum up this study of the way in which Roman thinkers engaged with some critical political questions. These issues include inequality, justice, individual identity and relationships, and how to deal with dissent and conflict in a society, and are examined by C. — and by the authors examined in this book — through the lens of citizenship and the question of how to be a good citizen. The ultimate goal is to encourage reflection on how their perspectives can illuminate problems faced by contemporary democracies — in particular the United States of America.

C. begins by looking at Cicero's De republica to explore the conceptualization of dissent. In Book 2's history, she sees the Republic presented as a community in which dissent is expressed, debated, decided upon and absorbed within a system that both enables and resolves dissent in a way that largely avoids violence but in which each ‘win’ is always temporary. C. turns to Sallust to explore the importance of justice within this process — to preserve the common good and to guard the ‘losers’ against abuse from the ‘winners’. For C., Sallust's story of Jugurtha is one in which justice is withheld, deferred or incompletely executed, as a result of chance and corruption — greed, self-interest and the inability of the most impoverished to speak and be represented fully within the system — and it is symptomatic of the problems of the late Republic.

Ch. 3 continues with the question of judgement and the way people live with one another, but on a personal level, as C. examines Horace's Satires for what he has to say about how to be a citizen among citizens, an individual within a community. C. argues that Horace shows us that our judgement of others is about aesthetics, sentiment and taste, and our perceptions of the ways in which others are judging us — as well as reason — all of which have an impact upon our behaviour in political situations. For C., Horace's unstable voices remind us that judging others is uncomfortable because revealing one's judgement of others necessarily reveals oneself — and yet he also acknowledges that passing judgement on others is seductive, because it allows us a moment in which we know ourselves and possess power over those we judge. It is a satisfaction that is to be distrusted, because it alienates others.

Horace is not alone in this assessment of interactions between individuals and the individual and the community. C. makes it clear that Cicero and Sallust also reveal the way that appearance matters in politics. In Rome, aesthetic and moral judgement acts as a ‘common sense’ (140, 146) that keeps the orator honest by providing norms against which he must measure himself. The individual might seek an authentic self, but they must also be aware of what is seen as appropriate, decorous and right: that is, any political actor needs to be aware of their audience's limits in order to see his own point of view succeed, but also in order for the dissenters not to feel as if they are being excluded from the political community.

In the final chapters, C. returns to the question of dissent and harmony in the Republic, as she reads Cicero engaging with the ongoing political situation in the Pro Marcello, seeking to help Rome gain closure on the civil war and move towards a new future in which Caesar is the pre-eminent citizen. Here we see Cicero debating with himself as to how to deal with the current situation, acknowledging dissent — including his own, and Marcellus’ — and trying to bring the dissenters back into the body politic of the res publica. As he does this, Cicero employs his imagination to encourage his senatorial peers into a new way of life. This might be lesser, perhaps, for those profoundly attached to the the old res publica, but it is essential that it be established if Rome is not to fall back into civil war.

This is not a particularly accessible volume for the generally interested reader: the readings are complex and presume a familiarity with the background contexts and an openness to an approach that makes use of a wide range of critical and theoretical approaches. Without that openness, a reader might suspect that C. over-claims for the illumination that the political thought of Roman republicanism can provide today. However, her priority is to challenge some of the common automatic assumptions in modern political thought and thus to impact the ‘ethos of civic being’ (207), by offering new readings of ancient texts to break through our ‘routine’ consciousness. In this way, the book reminds us that the individual and the community are not two separate entities, but that we need to choose between participants in a never-ending conversation about how to live together, and C. seeks to give us some critical tools for participating in it. This conversation, The Life of Roman Republicanism suggests will go better if citizens — including ourselves — accept that we act politically on the basis of more than our reason, and embrace emotion, aesthetics and imagination as a part of our political lives. The impact that this has is up to the individual reader.