It is largely thanks to Zvi Yavetz that the Roman plebs has become “Salonfähig”. In numerous important studies Yavetz has focused his — and our — attention on the problem of the relationship between the ruler and the masses of the ruled. Thus, it seemed natural to choose various aspects of this relationship as the topic of a volume in his honour. The articles here contributed by thirteen eminent friends and colleagues deal with historical and theoretical questions of the relationship between “the one” and “the many”, covering a period from the second century B.C., through the times of the Late Republic and the Principate, to Late Antiquity and, finally, to an intriguing view at modern totalitarianism as perceived from an Enlightenment perspective.

A preeminent classical scholar on the emergence of one of our most familiar social divisions.

The study of Roman society and social relations blossomed in the 1970s. By now, we possess a very large literature on the individuals and groups that constituted the Roman community, and the various ways in which members of that community interacted. There simply is, however, no overview that takes into account the multifarious progress that has been made in the past thirty-odd years. The purpose of this handbook is twofold. On the one hand, it synthesizes what has heretofore been accomplished in this field. On the other hand, it attempts to configure the examination of Roman social relations in some new ways, and thereby indicates directions in which the discipline might now proceed. The book opens with a substantial general introduction that portrays the current state of the field, indicates some avenues for further study, and provides the background necessary for the following chapters. It lays out what is now known about the historical development of Roman society and the essential structures of that community. In a second introductory article, Clifford Ando explains the chronological parameters of the handbook. The main body of the book is divided into the following six sections: 1) Mechanisms of Socialization (primary education, rhetorical education, family, law), 2) Mechanisms of Communication and Interaction, 3) Communal Contexts for Social Interaction, 4) Modes of Interpersonal Relations (friendship, patronage, hospitality, dining, funerals, benefactions, honor), 5) Societies Within the Roman Community (collegia, cults, Judaism, Christianity, the army), and 6) Marginalized Persons (slaves, women, children, prostitutes, actors and gladiators, bandits). The result is a unique, up-to-date, and comprehensive survey of ancient Roman society.

A very readable introduction exploring much-contested issues and debates, and providing an original synthesis of this important topic.

This 2006 book examines hostage-taking in ancient Rome, which was a standard practice of international diplomacy. Hundreds of foreign hostages, typically adolescents, were detained as the empire grew in the Republic and early Principate.

This volume contains nineteen of the more important of Frank Walbank's essays on Polybius and is prefaced by a critical discussion of the main aspects of work done on that author. Several of these essays deal with specific historical problems for which Polybius is a major source. Five deal with Polybius as an historian and three with his attitude towards Rome; one of these raises the question of 'treason' in relation to Polybius and Josephus. Finally, two papers discuss Polybius' later fortunes - in England up to the time of John Dryden and in twentieth-century Italy in the work of Gaetano de Sanctis. Several of these essays originally appeared in journals and collections not always easily accessible, and all students of the ancient Mediterranean world will welcome their assembly within a single volume.

This volume aims to address the question of political communication in the Roman world. What constitutes political communication in the Roman world? In what ways could information be transmitted and represented? What mechanisms made political communication successful or unsuccessful?