Between 2016-2019, I listened through Mike Duncan’s History of Rome podcast series, but I never picked up his first book. As appropriate, I listened to this one as an audiobook. This book helped remind me of the role that street violence and political violence played in pushing Roman society towards its autocratic destiny. Duncan’s book recounts the fractures that opened in Roman society over inequality and land reform, the Social War (concerning the establishment of citizenship for residents of Italy), and concludes with a recounting of Sulla’s time as permanent dictator of Rome. At least in the way that Duncan tells it, the story feels very legible in modern terms, beginning with politicians being outpaced by popular forces they unleash, to seeing political descendants cynically harnessing those energies, and culminating with undemocratic (and conservative) reforms that misdiagnose the problems faced by their society.