This newly annotated, free verse translation conveys the full force of Lucan's writing and his grimly realistic view of the subject. The work is a powerful condemnation of civil war, emphasizing the stark, dark horror of the catastrophies which the Roman state inflicted upon itself. Both the introduction and glossary set the scene for readers unfamiliar with Lucan and explore his relationship with earlier writers of Latin epic, and his interest in the sensational.

    From then until 751 AD, Ravenna was first the capital of the Western Roman Empire, then that of the immense kingdom of Theoderic the Goth and finally the centre of Byzantine power in Italy.In this engrossing account Judith Herrin explains how scholars, lawyers, doctors, craftsmen, cosmologists and religious luminaries were drawn to Ravenna where they created a cultural and political capital that dominated northern Italy and the Adriatic. As she traces the lives of Ravenna's rulers, chroniclers and inhabitants, Herrin shows how the city became the meeting place of Greek, Latin, Christian and barbarian cultures and the pivot between East and West. The book offers a fresh account of the waning of Rome, the Gothic and Lombard invasions, the rise of Islam and the devastating divisions within Christianity. It argues that the fifth to eighth centuries should not be perceived as a time of decline from antiquity but rather, thanks to Byzantium, as one of great creativity - the period of 'Early Christendom'. These were the formative centuries of Europe.While Ravenna's palaces have crumbled, its churches have survived. In them, Catholic Romans and Arian Goths competed to produce an unrivalled concentration of spectacular mosaics, many of which still astonish visitors today. Beautifully illustrated with specially commissioned photographs, and drawing on the latest archaeological and documentary discoveries, Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe brings the early Middle Ages to life through the history of this dazzling city.

    In 73 B.C., in the heart of Rome’s Mediterranean empire, a slave named Spartacus ignited one of the most violent episodes of slave resistance in the history of the Roman Empire — indeed in the world annals of slavery. Organizing 80 original Greek and Latin source translations into topical chapters on the daily life of slaves trained as gladiators and those who labored on farms in Italy and Sicily, Shaw includes accounts of revolts that preceded and anticipated that of Spartacus. In a carefully crafted introductory essay, Shaw places Spartacus in the broader context of first and second century B.C. Roman Italy and Sicily and explains why his story continues to be a popular symbol of rebellion today. The volume also includes a glossary, chronology, selected bibliography, 3 maps, an annotated list of ancient writers, and questions for consideration.

    David Mattingly draws on a wealth of new findings and knowledge to cut through the myths and misunderstandings that so commonly surround our beliefs about this period. From the rebellious chiefs and druids who led native British resistance, to the experiences of the Roman military leaders in this remote, dangerous outpost of Europe, this book explores the reality of life in occupied Britain within the context of the shifting fortunes of the Roman Empire.

    The making of a Roman official; Travels of a provincial governor; A Christian association; Offerings of wine & incenseChristianity as a burial society. Church or political club?; A sense of belonging; A Bacchic society; An obscure & secret associationThe piety of the persecutors. Roman religion & Christian prejudice; The practice of religion; "We too are a religious people"Galen: the curiosity of a philosopher. Philosophy & medicine; Christianity as a philosophical school; The practice of philosophy; The arbitrary god of the ChristiansCelsus: a conservative intellectual. Begging priests of Cybele & soothsayers; The deficiencies of Christian doctrine; Demythologizing the story of Jesus; An apostasy from Judaism; Religion & the social orderPorphyry: the most learned critic of all. In defense of Plato; The Jewish scriptures; The Christian New Testament; Philosophy from oracles; The religion of the emperor; Jesus not a magician; An unreasoning faithJulian the Apostate: Jewish law & Christian truth. The emperor's piety; Greek education & Christian values; Against the Galilaeans; The tribal god of Jews & Christians; An apostasy from JudaismEpilogueSuggestions for Further ReaderIndex

    Cato grappled with homegrown terrorists, a public and private debt crisis, a yawning gap between rich and poor, and a fractious ruling class whose lives took on the dimensions of soap opera.This is the story of this uncompromising man’s formation in a time of crisis and his lifelong battle to save the Republic.

    600. Centered around a traditional political and military narrative, it presents in-depth coverage of Roman social, economic, and cross-cultural developments, providing a reader of a greater understanding of the people, places, and events that shaped the great Roman empire. KEY TOPICS: This comprehensive book covers such topics as the foundations of early Rome and Italy; the Phoenicians, Etruscans and Greeks in pre-Roman Italy, early Rome to 500 B.C.; early Roman society, religion, and values; the rise of the Roman Republic; the Roman Conquest of Italy; the late Republic; the rise of Caesar; the early Roman empire; the impact of Augustus on Roman life; Tiberius and Caligula; Claudius, Nero, and the Julio-Claudians; the Flavians; crisis and change in the third and fourth centuries A.D.; Constantine and Christianity; and the Church and its legacy. MARKET: For anyone interested in a comprehensive book on the history of the Roman people, from prehistory through 600 A.D.

    . . the narrative verve of a born writer and the erudition of a scholar” —Daniel  Mendelsohn) and editor of The Landmark Arrian:The Campaign of Alexander (“Thrilling” —The New York Times Book Review), a  high-stakes drama full of murder, madness, tyranny, perversion, with the sweep of history on the grand scale. At the center, the tumultuous life of Seneca, ancient Rome’s preeminent writer and philosopher, beginning with banishment in his fifties and subsequent appointment as tutor to twelve-year-old Nero, future emperor of Rome. Controlling them both, Nero’s mother, Julia Agrippina the Younger, Roman empress, great-granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus, sister of the Emperor Caligula, niece and fourth wife of Emperor Claudius.             James Romm seamlessly weaves together the life and written words, the moral struggles, political intrigue, and bloody vengeance that enmeshed Seneca the Younger in the twisted imperial family and the perverse, paranoid regime of Emperor Nero, despot and madman. Romm writes that Seneca watched over Nero as teacher, moral guide, and surrogate father, and, at seventeen, when Nero abruptly ascended to become emperor of Rome, Seneca, a man never avid for political power became, with Nero, the ruler of the Roman Empire. We see how Seneca was able to control his young student, how, under Seneca’s influence, Nero ruled with intelligence and moderation, banned capital punishment, reduced taxes, gave slaves the right to file complaints against their owners, pardoned prisoners arrested for sedition. But with time, as Nero grew vain and disillusioned, Seneca was unable to hold sway over the emperor, and between Nero’s mother, Agrippina—thought to have poisoned her second husband, and her third, who was her uncle (Claudius), and rumored to have entered into an incestuous relationship with her son—and Nero’s father, described by Suetonius as a murderer and cheat charged with treason, adultery, and incest, how long could the young Nero have been contained?             Dying Every Day is a portrait of Seneca’s moral struggle in the midst of madness and excess. In his treatises, Seneca preached a rigorous ethical creed, exalting heroes who defied danger to do what was right or embrace a noble death. As Nero’s adviser, Seneca was presented with a more complex set of choices, as the only man capable of summoning the better aspect of Nero’s nature, yet, remaining at Nero’s side and colluding in the evil regime he created.Dying Every Day is the first book to tell the compelling and nightmarish story of the philosopher-poet who was almost a king, tied to a tyrant—as Seneca, the paragon of reason, watched his student spiral into madness and whose descent saw five family murders, the Fire of Rome, and a savage purge that destroyed the supreme minds of the Senate’s golden age.

    Into the 'autobiography' of Clau-Clau-Claudius, the pitiful stammerer who was destined to become Emperor in spite of himself, Graves packs the everlasting intrigues, the depravity, the bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, soon to culminate in the deified insanity of Caligula.I, Claudius and its sequel, Claudius the God, are among the most celebrated, as well the most gripping historical novels ever written.Cover illustration: Brian Pike

    Originally published by Columbia University Press in 1955, the authors have undertaken another revision which takes into account recent work in the field. These volumes consist of selected primary documents from ancient Rome, covering a range of over 1,000 years of Roman culture, from the foundation of the city to its sacking by the Goths.The selections cover a broad spectrum of Roman civilization, including literature, philosophy, religion, education, politics, military affairs, and economics. These English translations of literary, inscriptional, and papyrological sources, many of which are available nowhere else, create a mosaic of the brilliance, the beauty, and the power of Rome.

    505–565 AD) was the greatest general of the Eastern Roman Empire and is among history’s most notable military personalities. At the age of 29, he twice defeated the Persians and reconquered North Africa from the Vandals, before going on to regain the Italian peninsula from the Ostrogoths, including the Eternal City, Rome. Fighting in the name of Justinian I, Belisarius recaptured large portions of the original territory of the ancient Roman Empire. However, Byzantium was both unwilling and incapable of retaining much of Belisarius’s hard-won advances, and soon after his death, the empire once again retracted.In Belisarius: The Last Roman General, historian Ian Hughes recounts the life of this great soldier. In addition, he explains the evolution of classical Roman armies and systems of warfare into those of the Byzantine Empire, as well as those of their chief enemies, the Persians, Goths, and Vandals. Based on ancient source and drawing on a wealth of modern research, Belisarius’s career is set in the context of the turbulent times in which he lived and his reputation is reassessed to give a balanced portrait of this neglected giant among ancient commanders.

    After conquering the Roman city of Saguntum, Hannibal wages his campaign through the outposts of the empire, shrewdly befriending peoples disillusioned by Rome and, with dazzling tactics, outwitting the opponents who believe the land route he has chosen is impossible. Yet Hannibal's armies must take brutal losses as they pass through the Pyrenees mountains, forge the Rhone river, and make a winter crossing of the Alps before descending to the great tests at Cannae and Rome itself. David Anthony Durham draws a brilliant and complex Hannibal out of the scant historical record?sharp, sure-footed, as nimble among rivals as on the battlefield, yet one who misses his family and longs to see his son grow to manhood. Whether portraying the deliberations of a general or the calculations of a common soldier, vast multilayered scenes of battle or moments of introspection when loss seems imminent, Durham brings history alive.

    By focusing on a single year not overshadowed by an epochal event, 428 AD provides a truly fresh look at a civilization in the midst of enormous change--as Christianity takes hold in rural areas across the empire, as western Roman provinces fall away from those in the Byzantine east, and as power shifts from Rome to Constantinople. Taking readers on a journey through the region, Giusto Traina describes the empires' people, places, and events in all their simultaneous richness and variety. The result is an original snapshot of a fraying Roman world on the edge of the medieval era. The result is an original snapshot of a fraying Roman world on the edge of the medieval era. Readers meet many important figures, including the Roman general Flavius Dionysius as he encounters a delegation from Persia after the Sassanids annex Armenia; the Christian ascetic Simeon Stylites as he stands and preaches atop his column near Antioch; the eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II as he prepares to commission his legal code; and Genseric as he is elected king of the Vandals and begins to turn his people into a formidable power. We are also introduced to Pulcheria, the powerful sister of Theodosius, and Galla Placidia, the queen mother of the western empire, as well as Augustine, Pope Celestine I, and nine-year-old Roman emperor Valentinian III. Full of telling details, 428 AD illustrates the uneven march of history. As the west unravels, the east remains intact. As Christianity spreads, pagan ideas and schools persist. And, despite the presence of the forces that will eventually tear the classical world apart, Rome remains at the center, exerting a powerful unifying force over disparate peoples stretched across the Mediterranean.

    Tracing the development of tactics, equipment and training through detailed text, illustrations, diagrams, and photographs, this book will give the reader an accessible yet detailed insight into the military force that enabled Rome to become the greatest empire the world has ever seen, to defeat its enemies, subdue its neighbors and control vast territories.This book describes the organization of the forces, equipment and weaponry, uniforms, and development in tactics and warfare of the Roman Army. Each of the four historical sections will focus on the changes in the army, but will also look at the talented men who transformed and led the army, such as Scipio Africanus, Caesar and Marcus Aurelius, and the momentous battles fought, including Cannae, Pharsalus, and Adrianople.

    for ISBN 037572706X.The remarkable bestseller about the fourth-century Roman emperor who famously tried to halt the spread of Christianity, Julian is widely regarded as one of Gore Vidal’s finest historical novels.Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshiping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign. A marvelously imaginative and insightful novel of classical antiquity, Julian captures the religious and political ferment of a desperate age and restores with blazing wit and vigor the legacy of an impassioned ruler.