What was a Roman book? How did it differ from modern books? How were Roman books composed, published and distributed during the high period of Roman literature that encompassed, among others, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Martial, Pliny and Tacitus? What was the ‘scribal art’ of the time? What was the role of bookshops and libraries? The publishing of Roman books has often been misrepresented by false analogies with contemporary publishing. This wide-ranging study re-examines, by appeal to what Roman authors themselves tell us, both the raw material and the aesthetic criteria of the Roman book, and shows how slavery was the ‘enabling infrastructure’ of literature. Roman publishing is placed firmly in the context of a society where the spoken still ranked above the written, helping to explain how some books and authors became politically dangerous and how the Roman book could be both an elite cultural icon and a contributor to Rome’s popular culture through the mass medium of the theatre.

This sweeping history of the Roman Empire from 44 BC to AD 235 has three purposes: to describe what was happening in the central administration and in the entourage of the emperor; to indicate how life went on in Italy and the provinces, in the towns, in the countryside, and in the army camps; and to show how these two different worlds impinged on each other. Colin Wells's vivid account is now available in an up-to-date second edition.

“A clear, brisk writer, Pearson is also quite thorough, taking a holistic attitude to the many facets of a confused, turbulent period.” —NYMAS Review This book is a narrative history of a dozen years of turmoil that begins with Rome’s millennium celebrations of 248 CE and ends with the capture of the emperor Valerian by the Persians in 260. It was a period of almost unremitting disaster for Rome, involving a series of civil wars, several major invasions by Goths and Persians, economic crisis, and an empire-wide pandemic, the “plague of Cyprian.” There was also sustained persecution of the Christians. A central theme of the book is that this was a period of moral and spiritual crisis in which the traditional state religion suffered greatly in prestige, paving the way for the eventual triumph of Christianity. The sensational recent discovery of extensive fragments of the lost Scythica of Dexippus sheds much new light on the Gothic Wars of the period. The author has used this new evidence in combination with in-depth investigations in the field to develop a revised account of events surrounding the great Battle of Abritus, in which the army of the emperor Decius was annihilated by Cniva’s Goths. The Roman Empire in Crisis, 248-260 sheds new light on a period that is pivotal for understanding the transition between Classical civilization and the period known as Late Antiquity.

In recent years, a long-established view of the Roman Empire during its great age of expansion has been called into question by scholars who contend that this model has made Rome appear too much like a modern state. This is especially true in terms of understanding how the Roman government ordered the city--and the world around it--geographically. In this innovative, systematic approach, Daniel J. Gargola demonstrates how important the concept of space was to the governance of Rome. He explains how Roman rulers, without the means for making detailed maps, conceptualized the territories under Rome's power as a set of concentric zones surrounding the city. In exploring these geographic zones and analyzing how their magistrates performed their duties, Gargola examines the idiosyncratic way the elite made sense of the world around them and how it fundamentally informed the way they ruled over their dominion. From what geometrical patterns Roman elites preferred to how they constructed their hierarchies in space, Gargola considers a wide body of disparate materials to demonstrate how spatial orientation dictated action, shedding new light on the complex peculiarities of Roman political organization.

In this new and authoritative history of the Roman republic, distinguished historian Klaus Bringmann traces the rise of a small city state near the Tiber estuary into a power that controlled the Italian peninsula and created the final Empire of antiquity, an Empire that was to become both the most enduring in the ancient world and to have the most far-reaching consequences for posterity. Whilst this book is chronologically organized, giving the reader a clear sense of the historical progress and dynamics of Roman republican history, it also offers a coherent and authoritative overview of the culture, economics, religion and military might of the Roman empire, presented in an original and stimulating way. Thoroughly referenced and illustrated throughout, with a wealth of primary sources from great Roman writers such as Cicero and Plutarch, A History of the Roman Republic will be essential reading for university students in history and classical studies. It will also appeal to a wider audience of general readers who are interested in the history of the Ancient world and its legacy.

Goodman presents a lucid and balanced picture of the Roman world examining the Roman empire from a variety of perspectives; cultural, political, civic, social and religious.

The Greek statesman Polybius (c.200–118 BC) wrote his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire in order to help his fellow countrymen understand how their world came to be dominated by Rome. Opening with the Punic War in 264 BC, he vividly records the critical stages of Roman expansion: its campaigns throughout the Mediterranean, the temporary setbacks inflicted by Hannibal and the final destruction of Carthage. An active participant of the politics of his time as well as a friend of many prominent Roman citizens, Polybius drew on many eyewitness accounts in writing this cornerstone work of history.