Mario Attilio Levi’s Ottaviano Capoparte and its influence on Ronald Syme’s The Roman Revolution

Abstract

The Ottaviano Capoparte, the two-volume monograph written by the Italian historian Mario Attilio Levi (1902-1988), published in Florence in 1933, exerted a great influence on the process of composition of The Roman Revolution (1939), the best-known work by Ronald Syme (1903-1989). The work of the Italian is quoted ten times in The Roman Revolution. This fact gives an idea of the importance that the work of Levi had for Syme. Terms such as “party”, “faction” and “new state”, which recurrently appear in Ottaviano Capoparte, are present throughout Syme’s book. In our article we want to show that Syme had very present, perhaps at his working table, the monograph by Levi when he wrote The Roman Revolution.