This volume provides a detailed examination of nearly 1,400 years of Roman history, from the foundation of the city in the eighth century BC until the evacuation of Roman troops from Alexandria in AD 642 in the face of the Arab conquests. Drawing on a vast array of ancient texts written in Latin, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, and Arabic, and relying on a host of inscriptions, archaeological data, and the evidence from ancient art, architecture, and coinage, The Roman World from Romulus to Muhammad brings to the fore the men and women who chronicled the story of the city and its empire. Richly illustrated with 71 maps and 228 illustrations—including 20 in colour—and featuring a detailed glossary and suggestions for further reading, this volume examines a broad range of topics, including ancient climate change, literature, historiography, slavery, war and conquest, the development of Christianity, the Jewish revolts, and the role of powerful imperial women. The author also considers the development of Islam within a Roman historical context, examines the events that led to the formation of the post-Roman states in Western Europe, and contemplates aff airs on the imperial periphery in the Caucasus, Ethiopia, and the Arabian Peninsula. Emphasising the voices of antiquity throughout, The Roman World from Romulus to Muhammad is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in the beguiling history of the world’s most famous empire.

This volume provides a detailed examination of nearly 1,400 years of Roman history, from the foundation of the city in the eighth century BC until the evacuation of Roman troops from Alexandria in AD 642 in the face of the Arab conquests. Drawing on a vast array of ancient texts written in Latin, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, and Arabic, and relying on a host of inscriptions, archaeological data, and the evidence from ancient art, architecture, and coinage, The Roman World from Romulus to Muhammad brings to the fore the men and women who chronicled the story of the city and its empire. Richly illustrated with 71 maps and 228 illustrations—including 20 in colour—and featuring a detailed glossary and suggestions for further reading, this volume examines a broad range of topics, including ancient climate change, literature, historiography, slavery, war and conquest, the development of Christianity, the Jewish revolts, and the role of powerful imperial women. The author also considers the development of Islam within a Roman historical context, examines the events that led to the formation of the post-Roman states in Western Europe, and contemplates aff airs on the imperial periphery in the Caucasus, Ethiopia, and the Arabian Peninsula. Emphasising the voices of antiquity throughout, The Roman World from Romulus to Muhammad is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in the beguiling history of the world’s most famous empire.

The articles of this comprehensive edited volume offer a multidisciplinary, global and comparative approach to the history of empires. They analyze their ends over a long spectrum of humankind’s history, ranging from Ancient History through Modern Times. As the main guiding question, every author of this volume scrutinizes the reasons for the decline, the erosion, and the implosion of individual empires. All contributions locate and highlight different factors that triggered or at least supported the ending or the implosion of empires. This overall question makes all the contributions to this volume comparable and allows to detect similarities, differences as well as inconsistencies of historical processes.

Introduces the history, culture, and people of ancient Rome and examines its many contributions to the development of Western society, from the founding of Rome to the emergence and expansion of the Roman Republic and the spread of the Roman Empire and the Pax Romana, to the decline and defeat of the Empire and division into two distinct entities: Rome in the west and Byzantium in the east; and the rise and spread of Christianity and the migration of Jews throughout the Mediterranean region.

Presents a time of intrigue, invention, and empire building and introduces the people from the Caesars and warriors to the patricians and plebeians who built, governed, conquered, and inhabited the territories under Roman rule.

Western culture saw some of the most significant and innovative developments take place during the passage from antiquity to the middle ages. This stimulating new book investigates the role of the visual arts as both reflections and agents of those changes. It tackles two inter-related periodsof internal transformation within the Roman Empire: the phenomenon known as the 'Second Sophistic' (c. ad 100300)two centuries of self-conscious and enthusiastic hellenism, and the era of late antiquity (c. ad 250450) when the empire underwent a religious conversion to Christianity. Vases, murals, statues, and masonry are explored in relation to such issues as power, death, society, acculturation, and religion. By examining questions of reception, viewing, and the culture of spectacle alongside the more traditional art-historical themes of imperial patronage and stylisticchange, Jas Elsner presents a fresh and challenging account of an extraordinarily rich cultural crucible in which many fundamental developments of later European art had their origins. 'a highly individual work . . . wonderful visual and comparative analysis . . . I can think of no other general book on Roman art that deals so elegantly and informatively with the theme of visuality and visual desire.' Professor Natalie Boymel Kampen, Barnard College, New York 'exciting and original . . . a vibrant impression of creative energy and innovation held in constant tension by the persistence of more traditional motifs and techniques. Elsner constantly surprises and intrigues the reader by approaching familiar material in new ways.' Professor Averil Cameron,Keble College, Oxford

This is the first collection of essays to be published since the poet's death. Continuing a tradition of more than thirty years of Ted Hughes studies, it gathers contributions by most of the major international Hughes scholars, voicing their critical preoccupations at the turn of the century. Over the years, academic criticism on the poetry of Ted Hughes has established some well-trodden paths, which this collection still strongly reflects, however, the productions of the latter Hughes, in poetry as well as in criticism, demand a revisiting of the critical discourse on his work. The biographical dimension, for instance, has gradually gathered momentum, and it is no longer possible to study the work of Ted Hughes without due reference to the life and work of Sylvia Plath. This book is, nonetheless, also motivated by the wish to bring some fresh blood to the Hughes studies by politely rocking the boat of a rather comfortably established critical reception that has prided itself on being the mouthpiece of the poet's own ideological discourse. For this reason, some of the chapters in this collection belong to a continental European tradition that is resolutely foreign to the former partisanships. For all that, Ted Hughes: Alternative Horizons suggests that steering clear of the polemical ruts dug by fans and detractors alike can only benefit the future of scholarly studies devoted to a great poet.

First Published in 2004. Punishment was an integral element of the Roman justice system and as controversial as it is today. Bauman examines the mechanics of the administering of punishment and the philosophical beliefs from which attitudes to penalty were born. The emphasis is placed on crimes against the public during the Republic and Principate with less discussion of either civil cases or issues. Special reference is made to changes in attitudes concerning the death penalty.