"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." ( )

I would recommend this book as an starting point for anyone who is a novice of Caesar's era in Rome. It is an excellent overview of the politics and personalities in Rome and abroad at that time. The only objection I have is that it is very skimpy on details in regards to battles and campaigns,but then again that is not the main empahsis of the book. Three and a half stars. ( )