The Tiber Bridge tells the story of Ancus Marcius, Romes fourth king, a man of power and ability haunted by the ghosts of his past, and of Vel Prasanai, a cast-out Etruscan who becomes his bridge builder. Conflict between gods and mortals intensifies over the sacrilege of spanning the Tiber in this spellbinding tale of war, political rivalry, love, and ambition set in the fabled years of early Rome. The many accomplishments of legendary King Ancus remain tarnished and unrewarding, as he faces endless war, endures the enmity of his predecessors son, is thwarted by Romes pontifex, and suffers the cruel suspicions of his wife. Engineers, priests, vestal virgins, generals, queens, and a family of shepherds all play a part in this sweeping tale of courage and endurance in the shadow of the first bridge built in Rome.

In this rich history of Italy's Tiber River, Bruce Ware Allen charts the main currents, mythic headwaters, and hidden tributaries of one of the world's most renowned waterways. He considers life along the river, from its twin springs high in the Apennines all the way to its mouth at Ostia, and describes the people who lived along its banks and how they made the Tiber work for them. The Tiber has served as the realm of protomythic creatures and gods, a battleground for armies and navies, a livelihood for boatmen and fishermen, the subject matter of poets and painters, and the final resting place for criminals and martyrs. Tiber: Eternal River of Rome is a highly readable history and a go-to resource for information about Italy's most storied river.

Publisher description

Presents a coherent model for understanding historical examples in Ancient Rome and their rhetorical, moral and historiographical functions.

Rome was the largest city in the ancient world. As the capital of the Roman Empire, it was clearly an exceptional city in terms of size, diversity and complexity. While the Colosseum, imperial palaces and Pantheon are among its most famous features, this volume explores Rome primarily as a city in which many thousands of men and women were born, lived and died. The thirty-one chapters by leading historians, classicists and archaeologists discuss issues ranging from the monuments and the games to the food and water supply, from policing and riots to domestic housing, from death and disease to pagan cults and the impact of Christianity. Richly illustrated, the volume introduces groundbreaking new research against the background of current debates and is designed as a readable survey accessible in particular to undergraduates and non-specialists.

When Roman objects are discovered in rivers they are commonly interpreted as accidental losses or as rubbish deposits revealed by fluvial erosion; this is in contrast to prehistoric assemblages, which are often seen as ritual offerings. Our project challenges these assumptions by publishing for the first time an entire riverine artifact assemblage and comparing its composition to nearby excavated assemblages. The ca. 3,600 finds retrieved by two divers from the River Tees at Piercebridge are also related to the Roman bridges, settlement, and fort, and analyzed to better understand the people who used and deposited them.

Constantine's victory in 312 at the battle of the Milvian Bridge established his rule as the first Christian emperor. This book examines the creation and dissemination of the legends about that battle and its significance. Christian histories, panegyrics and an honorific arch at Rome soon commemorated his victory, and the emperor himself contributed to the myth by describing his vision of a cross in the sky before the battle. Through meticulous research into the late Roman narratives and the medieval and Byzantine legends, this book moves beyond a strictly religious perspective by emphasizing the conflicts about the periphery of the Roman empire, the nature of emperorship and the role of Rome as a capital city. Throughout late antiquity and the medieval period, memories of Constantine's victory served as a powerful paradigm for understanding rulership in a Christian society.

The Romans were the first great builders of bridges in the western world. Professor O'Connor, a civil engineer and expert in bridge construction, has examined a very large number of those bridges that still remain all over the Roman empire. In this book he presents a thorough listing and description of all known bridges, in many cases illustrating the construction of the bridges by his own photographs and sketches. Introductory chapters place the bridges in their geographical and historical contexts, with detailed maps of the empire-wide system of Roman roads and discussion of how these came to be constructed, and an investigation of the technology available to the Romans. Finally, in order to elucidate the principles used by the Romans in designing their bridges Professor O'Connor examines the proportions of the stone arches, and subjects the rules that emerge to modern structural analysis.