During the first century BC, the Near and Middle Easy saw a great transition from the Seleucid and Ptolemaic Empires, by way of the brief Pontic and Armenian Empires, to the triumphant Parthian and Roman Empires. Richard D. Sullivan offers a guide to the central role of royalty during this period. He provides, through narrative and citations, a context for the frequent references to Eastern kings and queens by Caesar, Cicero, Strabo, Josephus, Tacitus, Appian, Dio, and others. He also discusses related inscriptions, coins, and papyri. Sullivan focuses on the personnel of the many dynasties which rules the Near and Middle East, from Thrace through Asia Minor and the Levant to Egypt, then eastward to Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Parthia. He studies such famous figures as Mithradates Eupator, Cleopatra, and Herod the Great as well as others now obscure. To ?locate? them properly, he provides a narrative history of each dynasty and draws them together in a coherent account of Eastern royal governance and its accommodations with Rome and Parthia.

During the first century BC, the Near and Middle Easy saw a great transition from the Seleucid and Ptolemaic Empires, by way of the brief Pontic and Armenian Empires, to the triumphant Parthian and Roman Empires. Richard D. Sullivan offers a guide to the central role of royalty during this period. He provides, through narrative and citations, a context for the frequent references to Eastern kings and queens by Caesar, Cicero, Strabo, Josephus, Tacitus, Appian, Dio, and others. He also discusses related inscriptions, coins, and papyri. Sullivan focuses on the personnel of the many dynasties which rules the Near and Middle East, from Thrace through Asia Minor and the Levant to Egypt, then eastward to Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Parthia. He studies such famous figures as Mithradates Eupator, Cleopatra, and Herod the Great as well as others now obscure. To ‘locate’ them properly, he provides a narrative history of each dynasty and draws them together in a coherent account of Eastern royal governance and its accommodations with Rome and Parthia.

This volume looks at various ways in which royal images functioned within different ideological frameworks in the ancient Near East, Greece and Rome. It argues that visibility lies at the heart of power, especially under monarchic rule. The contributions highlight how, throughout the ancient Mediterranean, patterns can be detected in the use of royal images. There seem to have been continuous (re)negotiations between innovation and tradition, East and West, and between aerealAe and aeimaginaryAe kings. Contents Richard Fowler / Olivier Hekster: Imagining kings: From Persia to Rome Lindsay Allen: Le roi imaginaire: An audience with the Achaemenid king Peter Thonemann: The tragic king: Demetrios Poliorketes and the city of Athens Margherita Facella: Roman perception of Commagenian royalty Matthew Gisborne: A curia of kings: Sulla and royal imagery Richard Fowler: aeMost fortunate rootsAe: Tradition and legitimacy in Parthian royal ideology Olivier Hekster: Captured in the gaze of power: Visibility, games and Roman imperial representation Ted Kaizer: Kingly priests in the Roman Near East? Bibliography Index

When the Roman Republic became the master of an overseas empire, the Romans had to adapt their civic institutions so as to be able to rule the dominions that were successively subjected to their imperium. As a result, Rome created an administrative structure mainly based on an element that became the keystone of its empire: the provincia. This book brings together nine contributions from a total of ten scholars, all specialists in Republican Rome and the Principate, who analyse from diverse perspectives and approaches the distinct ways in which the Roman res publica constituted and ruled a far-flung empire. The book ranges from the development of the Roman institutional structures to the diplomatic and administrative activities carried out by the Roman commanders overseas. Beyond the subject on which each author focuses, all chapters in this volume represent significant and renewed contributions to the study of the provinces and the Roman empire during the Republican period and the transition to the Principate.

The revised third edition of the 'Oxford Classical Dictionary' is the ultimate reference on the classical world containing over 6,200 entries. The 2003 revision includes minor corrections and updates and all Latin and Greek words in the text are now translated into English.

Few personalities from classical antiquity are more famous--yet more poorly understood--than Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt. In this major biography, Duane Roller reveals that Cleopatra was in fact a learned and visionary leader whose overarching goal was always the preservation of her dynasty and kingdom. Roller's authoritative account is the first to be based solely on primary materials from the Greco-Roman period: literary sources, Egyptian documents (Cleopatra's own writings), and representations in art and coinage produced while she was alive. His compelling portrait of the queen illuminates her prowess as a royal administrator who managed a large and diverse kingdom extending from Asia Minor to the interior of Egypt, as a naval commander who led her own fleet in battle, and as a scholar and supporter of the arts. Even her love affairs with Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius--the source of her reputation as a supreme seductress who drove men to their doom--were carefully crafted state policies: she chose these partners to insure the procreation of successors who would be worthy of her distinguished dynasty. That Cleopatra ultimately lost to her Roman opponents, Roller contends, in no way diminishes her abilities. "Roller tells his tale smoothly and accessibly....The resulting portrait is that of a complex, many-sided figure, a potent Hellenistic ruler who could move the tillers of power as skillfully as any man, and one far and nobly removed from the 'constructed icon' of popular imagination." --The New York Times Book Review "A rich account of late Ptolemaic culture." --The New Yorker "Offers a superb panorama of the society and culture of late Ptolemaic Egypt, with vivid sketches of the (remarkably vigorous) intellectual life of Cleopatra's Alexandria and the structural instabilities of the late Ptolemaic state." --Times Literary Supplement "Besides providing a compelling story and breathing fresh air into a heretofore two-dimensional caricature from history, Roller's 'Cleopatra' provides an interesting commentary on the attitudes still prevalent towards women who rule." --Christian Science Monitor "Compulsively readable." --Bookslut "A definitive account of a queen of remarkable strength." --Publishers Weekly

This volume is a translation and commentary on the works of three geographers from Greco-Roman antiquity: Hanno of Carthage, from around 500 BC; the author of the Periodos Dedicated to King Nikomedes, from the last half of the second century BC; and Avienus, from the fourth century AD. The modern translations of texts in this book represent 1,000 years of Greco-Roman geographical scholarship, and thus provide an overview of the discipline from its beginnings to late antiquity. Readers will learn about the development of Greek geography, and the earliest adventures outside the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, as far south as the tropics and north toward the Arctic. These explorations make for fascinating stories about early human endeavors into an unknown world. Three Ancient Geographical Treatises in Translation offers specialists new information about Greek exploration and a modern translation of significant ancient texts, while non-specialist scholars and undergraduate students with an interest in Greco-Roman literature and ancient geography will also find the volume useful and accessible.

The world that Alexander remade in his lifetime was transformed once more by his death in 323 BCE. His successors reorganized Persian lands to create a new empire stretching from the eastern Mediterranean as far as present-day Afghanistan, while in Greece and Macedonia a fragile balance of power repeatedly dissolved into war. Then, from the late third century BCE to the end of the first, Rome’s military and diplomatic might successively dismantled these post-Alexandrian political structures, one by one. During the Hellenistic period (c. 323–30 BCE), small polities struggled to retain the illusion of their identity and independence, in the face of violent antagonism among large states. With time, trade growth resumed and centers of intellectual and artistic achievement sprang up across a vast network, from Italy to Afghanistan and Russia to Ethiopia. But the death of Cleopatra in 30 BCE brought this Hellenistic moment to a close—or so the story goes. In Angelos Chaniotis’s view, however, the Hellenistic world continued to Hadrian’s death in 138 CE. Not only did Hellenistic social structures survive the coming of Rome, Chaniotis shows, but social, economic, and cultural trends that were set in motion between the deaths of Alexander and Cleopatra intensified during this extended period. Age of Conquests provides a compelling narrative of the main events that shaped ancient civilization during five crucial centuries. Many of these developments—globalization, the rise of megacities, technological progress, religious diversity, and rational governance—have parallels in our world today.

Although there are many publications which discuss the history of the ancient horse, few focus their attention on the origin and development of the various breeds. Most publications examine the horse’s contribution to human history through its role as transport facilitator and military machine, and concentrate mainly on subjects such as the origin and development of chariot and cavalry equipment and changes in military tactics over time. This book examines what happened when humans took the horse from the wild and domesticated it for their own use. This focus was taken as it was felt that the understanding of the huge role which the horse played in human history can only be improved by gaining an understanding of the equally huge role which humans played when they took horses from the wild and, through many hundreds of years of daily interaction, cross-breeding, and training, facilitated the development and spread of many breeds across the ancient world. This book takes as its chronological focus the Greco-Persian world of the second and first millennia BC. This time period was selected for examination as it was during these two millennia that the vital role which the horse was to play in human history became fully apparent. The second millennium BC saw the development of the vast chariot forces which were to form an important part of the armed forces of numerous lands, from Mycenaean Greece in the West to India and China in the far East, while the following millennium saw the gradual replacement of chariots with cavalry forces, which continued to play a vital role in military warfare right up until the beginnings of the twentieth century AD. Part One traces the history of the horse from its evolution to the development and spread of chariot and cavalry forces. Parts Two and Three examine the famous horse-breeding regions of the ancient world and, through an analysis of archaeological, iconographical, and literary evidence, attempts to determine why these regions were famed for horse breeding and what were the physical characteristics and given attributes of the various breeds.

Herod, King of Judea from 44 to 4 BC, was a major figure in the politics of the Roman east during the emperor Augustus's ascension to power.