European history: the Romans Books

The teachings of Stoic philosophy began and thrived in the Greek and Roman world until the 3rd century AD, and has since experienced multiple revivals right up to the modern day. With wise lessons in key philosophical subjects, from Acceptance and...

A multifaceted exploration of the interplay between civic and military life in ancient RomeThe ancient Romans famously distinguished between civic life in Rome and military matters outside the city-a division marked by the pomerium, an abstract religious...

A provocative look at the central role of slavery in Augustine's religious, ethical, and political thoughtAugustine believed that slavery is permissible, but to understand why, we must situate him in his late antique Roman intellectual context. Slaves of...

An enriching collection of classical writings about how ancient Romans made and thought about moneyAncient Romans liked money. But how did they make a living and sometimes even become rich? The Roman economy was dominated by agriculture, but it was...

How Romans coped with the anxieties and risks of childbirthAcross the vast expanse of the Roman Empire, anxieties about childbirth tied individuals to one another, to the highest levels of imperial politics, even to the movements of the stars. Birthing...

The story of the Roman Empire's enormous wine industry told through the remarkable ceramic storage and shipping containers that made it possibleThe average resident of ancient Rome drank two-hundred-and-fifty liters of wine a year, almost a bottle a day,...

Who was Rome's greatest general, statesman, and nation-builder: Caesar or Pompey?Few people have had as many words written about them down through the centuries as Julius Caesar - the brilliant general who made Queen Cleopatra of Egypt his mistress. He...

In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Then,...

Hadrian's Wall is the largest, most spectacular and one of the most enigmatic historical monument in Britain. Nothing else approaches its vast scale: a land wall running 73 miles from east to west and a sea wall stretching at least 26 miles down the...

Award-winning author Stephen Dando-Collins brings his renowned expertise toRebels Against Rome, where he showcases many of the rebellious movements against the Great Roman Empire, as well as the rebels behind these lost causes and the circumstances that...

Award-winning author Stephen Dando-Collins brings his renowned expertise to Constantine at the Bridge, where he unveils how the Battle of the Milvian Bridge marked the point of no return for Rome and shaped the Western world as we know it.The AD 312...

Expert historian and author Stephan Dando-Collins chronicles the First Jewish Revolt and its important role in both Roman and Jewish historical memory.Dando-Collins details the conflict from both sides of the 7-year campaign. His examination of the...

Throughout the Roman Empire Cities held public speeches and lectures, had libraries, and teachers and professors in the sciences and the humanities, some subsidized by the state. There even existed something equivalent to universities, and medical and...

This new edition of Anthology of Classical Myth offers selections from key Near Eastern texts-the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Epic of Creation (Enuma Elish), and Atrahasis; the Hittite Song of Emergence; and the flood story from the book of...

Roman Religion: A Sourcebook provides an introduction to the fundamentals of ancient Roman religious beliefs and rituals through a rich collection of ancient source readings. The ancient sources are to be viewed with utmost respect as the primary means...

What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore? In this book - against a background of today's 'sculpture wars' - Mary Beard tells the story of how...

In 63 BC, frustrated by his failure to be elected leader of the Roman Republic, the aristocrat Catiline tried to topple its elected government. Backed by corrupt elites and poor, alienated Romans, he fled Rome while his associates plotted to burn the...

From the moment a child in ancient Rome began to speak Latin, the surrounding world became populated with objects possessing grammatical gender-masculine eyes (oculi), feminine trees (arbores), neuter bodies (corpora). Sexing the World surveys the many...

A cultural and literary history of mountains in classical antiquity.The mountainous character of the Mediterranean was a crucial factor in the history of the ancient Greek and Roman world. The Folds of Olympus is a cultural and literary history that...

A vivid and accessible new translation of Cicero's influential writings on the Stoic idea of the divine Most ancient Romans were deeply religious and their world was overflowing with gods - from Jupiter, Minerva, and Mars to countless local...

Andrea Carandini's archaeological discoveries and controversial theories about ancient Rome have made international headlines over the past few decades. In this book, he presents his most important findings and ideas, including the argument that there...

A radical reexamination of the textual and archaeological evidence about Augustus and the PalatineCaesar Augustus (63 BC-AD 14), who is usually thought of as the first Roman emperor, lived on the Palatine Hill, the place from which the word "palace"...

The most pervasive gods in ancient Rome had no traditional mythology attached to them, nor was their worship organized by elites. Throughout the Roman world, neighborhood street corners, farm boundaries, and household hearths featured small shrines to...

According to legend, the Roman emperor Nero set fire to his majestic imperial capital on the night of July 19, AD 64 and fiddled while the city burned. It's a story that has been told for more than two millennia - and it's likely that almost none of it...

How religious ritual united a growing and diversifying Roman RepublicMany narrative histories of Rome's transformation from an Italian city-state to a Mediterranean superpower focus on political and military conflicts as the primary agents of social...

A new account of the famous site and story of the last stand of a group of Jewish rebels who held out against the Roman EmpireTwo thousand years ago, 967 Jewish men, women, and children-the last holdouts of the revolt against Rome following the fall of...

A groundbreaking reinterpretation that draws on cognitive theory to show that belief wasn't absent from-but rather was at the heart of-Roman religionBelief and Cult argues that belief isn't uniquely Christian but was central to ancient Roman religion...

Timeless political wisdom from ancient history's greatest statesmanMarcus Cicero, Rome's greatest statesman and orator, was elected to the Roman Republic's highest office at a time when his beloved country was threatened by power-hungry politicians, dire...

An essential introduction to Josephus's momentous war narrativeThe Jewish War is Josephus's superbly evocative account of the Jewish revolt against Rome, which was crushed in 70 CE with the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. Martin...

From humble beginnings, Rome became perhaps the greatest intercontinental power in the world. Why did this historic city become so much more influential than its neighbor, nearby Latium, which was peopled by more or less the same stock? Over the years,...

Grand political accomplishment and artistic productivity were the hallmarks of Augustus Caesar's reign (31 B.C. to A.D. 14), which has served as a powerful model of achievement for societies throughout Western history. Although much research has been...

In addition to Valerie Warrior's crisp, fluent translation of the first five books of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, this edition features a general introduction to Livy and his work, extensive foot-of-the-page notes offering essential contextual information,...

Most historians, both ancient and modern, have viewed the Late Republic of Rome through the eyes of its rich nobility. In The Assassination of Julius Caesar, Michael Parenti presents us with a story of popular resistance against entrenched power and...

This new Satyricon features not only a lively, new, annotated translation of the text, but fresh and accessible commentaries that discuss Petronius' masterpiece in terms of such topics as the identity of the author, the transmission of his manuscript,...

This essential document for the study of Roman history traces the story of Rome from Romulus and the foundations of Rome to the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. It is especially valuable to historians and students for its vivid eyewitness account of the...

By exposing the perversion, repression, corruption, and injustice at the heart of Justinian's regime, Prokopios' The Secret History destroyed forever that emperor's reputation as the great and benevolent ruler of a vast Byzantine state.Faithfully...

A.J. Woodman's translation combines accuracy and Tacitean invention, masterfully conveying Tacitus' distinctive and powerful manner of expression, and reflecting the best of current scholarship. An introductory essay discusses Tacitus' career, the period...