The so-called divinities of Olympus have not a single worshipper among living men. They belong now not to the department of theology, but to those of literature and taste. There they still hold their place, and will continue to hold it, for they are too closely connected with the finest productions of poetry and art, both ancient and modern, to pass into oblivion.

    "Emperors of Rome" charts the 500 years that followed the death of Caesar and eventual triumph of Augustus, an era during which Rome reached heights of economic prosperity and cultural achievement, but also plumbed depths of anarchy, cruelty and chaos.

    It was the battle that countless armies tried to imitate, most notably in World Wars I & II, the battle that obsessed military minds. Yet no general ever matched Hannibal's unexpected, innovative & brutal military victory--the costliest day of combat for any army in history. Robert L. O'Connell, an admired military historian, now tells the whole story of Cannae, giving a stirring account of this apocalyptic battle of the 2nd Punic War, its causes & consequences. O'Connell shows how a restive Rome amassed a giant army to punish Carthage's commander, who'd dealt them deadly blows at Trebia & Lake Trasimene, & how Hannibal outwitted enemies that outnumbered him. He describes Hannibal's strategy of blinding his opponents with sun & dust, enveloping them in a deadly embrace & sealing their escape, before launching a massive knife fight that would kill 48,000 men in close contact. The Ghosts of Cannae then conveys how this disastrous pivot point in Rome's history ultimately led to the republic's resurgence & the creation of its empire. Piecing together decayed shreds of ancient reportage, the author paints powerful portraits of the leading players: Hannibal, resolutely sane & uncannily strategic; Varro, Rome's co-consul scapegoated for the loss; & Scipio Africanus, the surviving, self-promoting Roman military tribune who would one day pay back Hannibal at Zama in N. Africa. Finally, O'Connell reveals how Cannae's legend has inspired & haunted military leaders ever since, & the lessons it teaches. Superbly researched, written with erudite wit, The Ghosts of Cannae is the definitive account of a battle whose history still resonates.

    and A.D. 800, from the rise of Mycenaean civilization to the fall of Ravenna and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. John Warry tells of an age of great military commanders such as Alexander the Great, Hannibal, and Julius Caesar - men whose feats of generalship still provide material for discussion and admiration in the military academies of the world.The text is complemented by a running chronology, 16 maps, 50 newly researched battle plans and tactical diagrams, and 125 photographs, 65 of them in color.

    They died singly and by the hundreds over several days in a carefully planned ambush led by Arminius-a Roman-trained German warrior determined to stop Rome's advance east beyond the Rhine River. By the time it was over, some 25,000 men, women, and children were dead and the course of European history had been forever altered. "Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!" Emperor Augustus agonized aloud when he learned of the devastating loss. As the decades slipped past, the location of one of the western world's most important battlefields was lost to history for two millenia.Fueled by an unshakeable curiosity and burning interest in the story, a British major named Tony Clunn delved into the nooks and crannies of times past. By sheer persistence and good luck, he turned the foundation of German national history on its ear. Convinced the running battle took place north of Osnabruck, Germany, Clunn set out to prove his point. His discovery of a handful of Roman coins in the late 1980s, followed by a flood of thousands of other artifacts (including weapons and human remains) ended the mystery once and for all. Today, a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art museum houses and interprets these priceless historical treasures on the very site Varus's legions were lost.In Quest of the Lost Roman Legions is a masterful retelling of Clunn's search to discover the Varus battlefield. His well-placed, carefully conceived, and vivid writing style makes for a compelling read from the first page to the last, as he alternates between his incredible modern quest and the ancient tale of the Roman occupation of Germany that ultimately ended so tragically in the peat bogs of Kalkriese.Tony Clunn joined the army at age 15 and served with the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment. He retired in the late 1990s after twenty-two years with the rank of major, an is currently employed by the British Army in Osnaburck and Kalkriese. He was presented with the Member of the Royal Order of the British Empire in 1996 by Queen Elizabeth II.

    From that exhilarating portrait, he takes us back more than two thousand years to the city's foundation, one mired in mythologies and superstitions that would inform Rome's development for centuries.From the beginning, Rome was a hotbed of power, overweening ambition, desire, political genius, and corruption. Hughes details the turbulent years that saw the formation of empire and the establishment of the sociopolitical system, along the way providing colorful portraits of all the major figures, both political (Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Nero, Caligula) and cultural (Cicero, Martial, Virgil), to name just a few. For almost a thousand years, Rome would remain the most politically important, richest, and largest city in the Western world.From the formation of empire, Hughes moves on to the rise of early Christianity, his own antipathy toward religion providing rich and lively context for the brutality of the early Church, and eventually the Crusades. The brutality had the desired effect—the Church consolidated and outlasted the power of empire, and Rome would be the capital of the Papal States until its annexation into the newly united kingdom of Italy in 1870.As one would expect, Hughes lavishes plenty of critical attention on the Renaissance, providing a full survey of the architecture, painting, and sculpture that blossomed in Rome over the course of the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries, and shedding new light on old masters in the process. Having established itself as the artistic and spiritual center of the world, Rome in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries saw artists (and, eventually, wealthy tourists) from all over Europe converging on the bustling city, even while it was caught up in the nationalistic turmoils of the Italian independence struggle and war against France.Hughes keeps the momentum going right into the twentieth century, when Rome witnessed the rise and fall of Italian Fascism and Mussolini, and took on yet another identity in the postwar years as the fashionable city of "La Dolce Vita." This is the Rome Hughes himself first encountered, and it's one he contends, perhaps controversially, has been lost in the half century since, as the cult of mass tourism has slowly ruined the dazzling city he loved so much. Equal parts idolizing, blasphemous, outraged, and awestruck, Rome is a portrait of the Eternal City as only Robert Hughes could paint it.

    His existence was invariably short and violent, improved only faintly by the prospect of honor, wealth, and public attention. Yet men gave up their freedom to become gladiators, noblewomen gave up their positions to elope with them, and Emperors risked death to fight them. This thrilling popular history of ancient Rome's gladiators charts the evolution of the games; introduces us to the legendary fighters, trainers, and emperors who participated in the violent sport; and re-creates in gripping detail a day at the bloody games. Alan Baker reveals the techniques of the training school, then sets us ringside to witness the torturous battles between bulls, lions, jaguars, and battle-hardened human beings. With each breathtaking scene, the complex culture of world that created and adored these bloody games between man and beast comes into clear focus. A work of history that reads like fiction, The Gladiator brings to life Spartacus, Commodus, Caligula, and all of the other memorable players of the nearly thousand-year-long gladiatorial era.

    Two years earlier, an unforeseen flood of refugees from the East Germanic tribe known as the Goths had arrived at the Empire's eastern border, seeking admittance. Though usually successful in dealing with barbarian groups, in this instance the Roman authorities failed. Gradually coalesced into an army led by Fritigern, the barbarian horde inflicted on Emperor Valens the most disastrous defeat suffered by the Roman army since Hannibal's victory at Cannae almost 600 years earlier. The Empire did not actually fall for another century, but some believe this battle signaled nothing less than the end of the ancient world and the start of the Middle Ages.With impeccable scholarship and narrative flair, renowned historian Alessandro Barbero places the battle in its historical context, chronicling the changes in the Roman Empire, west and east, the cultural dynamics at its borders, and the extraordinary administrative challenge in holding it together. Vividly recreating the events leading to the clash, he brings alive leaders and common soldiers alike, comparing the military tactics and weaponry of the barbarians with those of the disciplined Roman army as the battle unfolded on that epic afternoon. Narrating one of the turning points in world history, The Day of the Barbarians is military history at its very best.

    In one of the bloodiest battles ever, his outnumbered mercenaries massacred the greater part of Rome's large army. For the Romans, Cannae became the yardstick against which all other defeats were measured; for generals centuries after, it became a perfectly executed model to draw on. Using primary sources and brilliant images, Goldsworthy tells the story of this epic confrontation and its devastating tactics.

    This Penguin Classics edition is translated with an introduction by Betty Radice.A prominent lawyer and administrator, Pliny was also a prolific letter-writer, who numbered among his correspondents such eminent figures as Tacitus, Suetonius and the Emperor Trajan, as well as a wide circle of friends and family. His lively and very personal letters address an astonishing range of topics, from a deeply moving account of his uncle's death in the eruption that engulfed Pompeii, to observations on the early Christians - 'a desperate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths' - from descriptions of everyday life in Rome, with its scandals and court cases, to Pliny's life in the country.Betty Radice's definitive edition was the forst complete modern translation of Pliny's letters. In her introduction she examines the shrewd, tolerant and occasionally pompous man who emerges from these letters.Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (c. 61-113), better known as Pliny the Younger, and nephew of Pliny the Elder, was born in Como, Italy. Beginning his career at the bar when he was eighteen, Pliny managed to emerge unscathed from Domitian's 'reign of terror', even being appointed an official at the treasury. In 103 he was awarded a priesthood in recognition of his distinguished public service, and was prominent in several major prosecutions. His nine books of personal letters were selected by Pliny himself and published during his lifetime, while his official correspondence with Trajan was published as a tenth book after his death and contains a celebrated exchange of letters on the early Christians.If you enjoyed The Letters of the Younger Pliny, you might like Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome, also available in Penguin Classics.

    Jerry Toner shows what can be learnt from new approaches to ancient history, from analysing the bones of the dead in Pompeii or assessing the impact of environmental change, and considers how we can discover what it was like to live back then. He looks at every period, not just classical Athens and Republican Rome, but the Hellenistic kingdoms that followed Alexander and the Christian-dominated later Roman Empire. Greece and Rome, he argues, must be fitted into the global history of their day: what did Persians think of Greeks and how does the Roman empire stack up to China's?With vivid examples and animation from award-winning Cognitive at every stage, this is the ideal introduction to the ancient world for general readers and students.

    Volume 1 was published in 1776, going thru six printings; 2-3 in 1781; 4-6 in 1788-89. It was a major literary achievement of the 18th century, adopted as a model for the methodologies of historians.The books cover the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius, from 180 to 1590. They take as their material the behavior & decisions that led to the eventual fall of the Empire in East & West, offering explanations.Gibbon is called the 1st modern historian of ancient Rome. By virtue of its mostly objective approach & accurate use of reference material, his work was adopted as a model for the methodologies of 19-20th century historians. His pessimism & detached irony was common to the historical genre of his era. Although he published other books, Gibbon devoted much of his life (1772-89) to this one work. His Memoirs of My Life & Writings is devoted largely to his reflections on how the book virtually became his life. He compared the publication of each succeeding volume to a newborn.Gibbon offers an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell, a task difficult because of few comprehensive written sources, tho he wasn't the only historian to tackle the subject. Most of his ideas are taken from what few relevant records were available: those of Roman moralists of the 4-5th centuries. According to Gibbon, the Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions because of lost of civic virtue. They'd become weak, outsourcing defence to barbarian mercenaries, who became so numerous & ingrained that they took over. Romans had become effeminate, incapable of tough military lifestyles. In addition, Christianity created belief that a better life existed after death, fostering indifference to the present, sapping patriotism. Its comparative pacifism tended to hamper martial spirit. Lastly, like other Enlightenment thinkers, he held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious, dark age. It wasn't until his age of reason that history could progress.

    The story concludes with the stark contrast between high-minded Stoicism and the collapse of values witnessed by Tacitus and Juvenal.

    The world's largest navy lies peacefully at anchor in Misenum. The tourists are spending their money in the seaside resorts of Baiae, Herculaneum, and Pompeii.But the carefree lifestyle and gorgeous weather belie an impending cataclysm, and only one man is worried. The young engineer Marcus Attilius Primus has just taken charge of the Aqua Augusta, the enormous aqueduct that brings fresh water to a quarter of a million people in nine towns around the Bay of Naples. His predecessor has disappeared. Springs are failing for the first time in generations. And now there is a crisis on the Augusta's sixty-mile main line—somewhere to the north of Pompeii, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.Attilius—decent, practical, and incorruptible—promises Pliny, the famous scholar who commands the navy, that he can repair the aqueduct before the reservoir runs dry. His plan is to travel to Pompeii and put together an expedition, then head out to the place where he believes the fault lies. But Pompeii proves to be a corrupt and violent town, and Attilius soon discovers that there are powerful forces at work—both natural and man-made—threatening to destroy him.With his trademark elegance and intelligence, Robert Harris, bestselling author of Archangel and Fatherland, re-creates a world on the brink of disaster.

    to the fall of Rome in A.D. 476, Dark History of The Roman Emperors reveals the adultery, incest, profligacy, sadism, and insanity of Rome's 500-year empire, including:- A.D. 40 Caligula orders his troops to collect seashells as the 'spoils of war'- A.D. 54 The bumbling Claudius, who had his nymphomaniac third wife killed, was murdered himself by his fourth wife, his niece- A.D. 64 Nero sings and plays the lyre while Rome burns- A.D. 192 The megalomaniac Commodus is assassinated by his wrestling partner Narcissus- A.D. 193 Rome's Year of Shame: the office of Emperor is put up for sale to the highest bidder- A.D. 238 Six emperors hold the throne in one year - five were murdered