After Caesar, the Gauls exchanged their tribal quarrels for Roman values and acquired the paraphernalia of civilized urban life. The Romans also left behind a legacy of language, literature, law, government, religion, architecture, and industry.Each chapter of Caesar's Footprints is dedicated to a specific journey of exploration through Roman Gaul. From the amphitheatres of Arles and Nîmes to the battlefield of Châlons (where Flavius Aetius defeated Attila the Hun) Bijan Omani—an exciting and authoritative new voice in Roman history—explores archaeological sites, artifacts, and landscapes to reveal how the imprint of Roman culture shaped Celtic France—and thereby helped to create modern Europe.

    Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. Dozens of maps provide a clear geography of great events, while timelines give the reader an ongoing sense of the passage of years and cultural interconnection. This narrative history employs the methods of “history from beneath”—literature, epic traditions, private letters and accounts—to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled. The result is an engrossing tapestry of human behavior from which we may draw conclusions about the direction of world events and the causes behind them.

    Indeed, he sees the fall of Rome as a time of horror and dislocation that destroyed a great civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Attacking contemporary theories with relish and making use of modern archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, who were caught in a world of marauding barbarians, and economic collapse.The book recaptures the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminds us of the very real terrors of barbarian occupation. Equally important, Ward-Perkins contends that a key problem with the new way of looking at the end of the ancient world is that all difficulty and awkwardness is smoothed out into a steady and positive transformation of society. Nothing ever goes badly wrong in this vision of the past. The evidence shows otherwise.Up-to-date and brilliantly written, combining a lively narrative with the latest research and thirty illustrations, this superb volume reclaims the drama, the violence, and the tragedy of the fall of Rome.From Back Cover:For decades, the dominant view amongst historians has been that the 'fall of Rome' was a largely peaceful transition to Germanic rule, within a period of positive cultural evolution. Now, Bryan Ward-Perkins argues for what you always thought but didn't dare say: the Roman Empire really did fall to violent invasion; the 'transformation' of the Roman world saw a catastrophic collapse of living standards; and the 'Dark Ages' were genuinely sombre.

    In tracing the history of the Church from the time of Christ to the Great Persecution at the beginning of the fourth century, and ending with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, his aim was to show the purity and continuity of the doctrinal tradition of Christianity and its struggle against persecutors and heretics.

    59 BC-AD 17) dedicated most of his life to writing some 142 volumes of history, the first five of which comprise The Early History of Rome. With stylistic brilliance, he chronicles nearly 400 years of history, from the founding of Rome (traditionally dated to 757 BC) to the Gallic invasion in 386 BC - an era which witnessed the reign of seven kings, the establishment of the Republic, civil strife and brutal conflict. Bringing compelling characters to life, and re-presenting familiar tales - including the tragedy of Coriolanus and the story of Romulus and Remus - The Early History is a truly epic work, and a passionate warning that Rome should learn from its history.

    Yet little has been known about who they really were and their true roles in the history-making schemes of imperial Rome's ruling Caesars--indeed, how they figured in the rise, decline, and fall of the empire. Now, in Caesars' Wives: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Roman Empire, Annelise Freisenbruch pulls back the veil on these fascinating women in Rome's power circles, giving them the chance to speak for themselves for the first time. With impeccable scholarship and arresting storytelling, Freisenbruch brings their personalities vividly to life, from notorious Livia and scandalous Julia to Christian Helena. Starting at the year 30 BC, when Cleopatra, Octavia, and Livia stand at the cusp of Rome's change from a republic to an autocracy, Freisenbruch relates the story of Octavian and Marc Antony's clash over the fate of the empire--an archetypal story that has inspired a thousand retellings--in a whole new light, uncovering the crucial political roles these first "first ladies" played. From there, she takes us into the lives of the women who rose to power over the next five centuries--often amid violence, speculation, and schemes--ending in the fifth century ad, with Galla Placidia, who was captured by Goth invaders (and married to one of their kings). The politics of Rome are revealed through the stories of Julia, a wisecracking daughter who disgraced her father by getting drunk in the Roman forum and having sex with strangers on the speaker's platform; Poppea, a vain and beautiful mistress who persuaded the emperor to kill his mother so that they could marry; Domitia, a wife who had a flagrant affair with an actor before conspiring in her husband's assassination; and Fausta, a stepmother who tried to seduce her own stepson and then engineered his execution--afterward she was boiled to death as punishment.Freisenbruch also tells a fascinating story of how the faces of these influential women have been refashioned over the millennia to tell often politically motivated stories about their reigns, in the process becoming models of femininity and female power. Illuminating the anxieties that persist even today about women in or near power and revealing the female archetypes that are a continuing legacy of the Roman Empire, Freisenbruch shows the surprising parallels of these iconic women and their public and private lives with those of our own first ladies who become part of the political agenda, as models of comportment or as targets for their husbands' opponents. Sure to transform our understanding of these first ladies, the influential women who witnessed one of the most gripping, significant eras of human history, Caesars' Wives is a significant new chronicle of an era that set the foundational story of Western Civilization and hung the mirror into which every era looks to find its own reflection.

    With black and white illustrations and detailed explanations, this comprehensive and visual resource is perfect for young readers interested in history, architecture, and Roman civilization.

    A murderer, and the most wicked woman in history.She kicked her way into the male spaces of politics and demanded to be recognized as an equal and a leader. For her audacity, she was murdered by her son and reviled by history.She was the sister, niece, wife, and mother of Emperors. She was an Empress in her own right, and she was a nuanced, fearless trail-blazer in the Roman world.The story of Agrippina -- the first Empress of Rome is the story of an empire at its bloody, extravagant, chaotic, ruthless height.

    We see the relentless propaganda, the cut-throat politics, the brutality and repression that lay behind the appearance of unchanging monarchy.

    This up-to-date new survey draws on evidence produced at the cutting edge of modern archaeological research, revealing how the evidence for life in this city was first uncovered, and how archaeologists over the centuries have unpeeled the layers that enable us to reconstruct Pompeii's history.With its lavish illustrations, covering monumental architecture and inscriptions, shops, graffiti, wall-paintings, and mosaics, plus its numerous box features ranging from theatrical entertainments to water supply, The Complete Pompeii is the ultimate resource and inspirational guide to this iconic ancient town.Among the many topics covered:How Pompeii was destroyed in the eruption of AD 79What we know of the lives and deaths of its inhabitantsWhat the houses tell us about the people who lived in themWho was involved in politicsWhat can be reconstructed about religious practices

     Includes a new introduction, a new essay on the revised Plutarch editions, notes, a glossary, and updated suggestions for further reading Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Cicero

    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 beginnings of Rome, once thought to be lost in the mists of legend, are now being revealed by an ever-increasing body of archaeological evidence, much of it unearthed during the past twenty-five years. This new material has made it possible to trace the development of Rome from an iron-age village to a major state which eventually outstripped its competitors and became a Mediterranean power. The Beginnings of Rome offers new and often controversial answers to major questions such as Rome's relations with the Etruscans, the conflict between patricians and plebeians, the causes of Roman imperialism and the growth of a slave-based economy.

    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.

    Follows life for folks in Roman Britain from Nero to Boudicca and includes a look at gory games, rotten recipes, and loads of frightening facts.