Honors Foundations of World History: Ancient Rome

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This book examines all the aspects of daily life across all strata of Roman society, from the senatorial order to the plebs and slaves; from food to religious beliefs. Coverage includes the Roman family, The Roman Calendar, Roman goods and water supply, and the importance of games and theater in everyday life.

Echoes of ancient Roman concepts of governance, law, and society still ring throughout the world today. A stranger to neither war nor wealth, ancient Rome was shaped as much by strife as it was by prosperity. The expansion of the Roman Empire was buoyed by this cultures tendency to embrace traditions of its newly assimilated peoples, making Rome a cradle of endless and enduring possibilities. The history of an exceptional empire is recounted in this sweeping volume.

* Over 40 documents, excerpted from the writings of ancient Greek and Roman authors, such as Plutarch's description of the banishment from Athens of a just man * A timeline of the ancient Greco-Roman world provides a chronology of important events * A glossary containing descriptions/definitions of many Greek and Roman words and terms, such as "strategos"

Religion was integral to the conduct of war in the ancient world and the Romans were certainly no exception. No campaign was undertaken, no battle risked, without first making sacrifice to propitiate the appropriate gods (such as Mars, god of War) or consulting oracles and omens to divine their plans. The chapters have been carefully structured by the editors so that this wide array of scholarship combines to give a coherent, comprehensive study of the role of religion in the wars of the Roman Empire.

Standing at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Constantinople was the most splendid city of the Roman Empire for more than 1,000 years. The attack of the city by Muslim Turks of the Ottoman Empire brought about a seven-week siege that would forever change the course of world history. Learn how the Byzantine ruler, Constantine XI, rallied the greatly outnumbered troops of the Roman city.

In ancient Rome, the subtlest details in dress helped to distinguish between levels of social and moral hierarchy. Clothes were a key part of the sign systems of Roman civilization - a central aspect of its visual language, for women as well as men. This engaging book collects and examines artistic evidence and literary references to female clothing, cosmetics and ornament in Roman antiquity.

An important new look at Rome's earliest buildings and their context within the broader tradition of Mediterranean culture This groundbreaking study traces the development of Roman architecture and its sculpture from the earliest days to the middle of the 5th century BCE.

Figuring in myth, religion, law, the military, commerce, and transportation, rivers were at the heart of Rome's increasing exploitation of the environment of the Mediterranean world. In Rivers and the Power of Ancient Rome, Brian Campbell explores the role and influence of rivers and their surrounding landscape on the society and culture of the Roman Empire.

Laughter in Ancient Rome explores one of the most intriguing, but also trickiest, of historical subjects. Drawing on a wide range of Roman writing--from essays on rhetoric to a surviving Roman joke book--Mary Beard tracks down the giggles, smirks, and guffaws of the ancient Romans themselves.

This study of Ancient Rome offers a fascinating glimpse of what Roman society was like--from fashion, to food, to politics and recreation--gathered from literary works, art, and archaeological remains.

In this unique and stimulating book, Richard Bauman investigates the concept of human rights in the Roman world. He argues that on the theoretical side, ideas were developed by thinkers such as Cicero and Seneca and on the pragmatic side, practical applications were rewarded mainly through the law. He presents a comprehensive analysis of human rights in ancient Rome and offers enlightening comparisons between the Roman and twentieth century understanding of human rights.

The monumental clashes of the Carthaginian and Roman fleets in the Mediterranean that are the focus of Christa Steinby's absorbing study. She exploits new evidence, including the latest archaeological discoveries, and she looks afresh at the ancient sources and quotes extensively from them. In particular she shows how the Romans' seafaring tradition and their skill, determination and resourcefulness eventually gave them a decisive advantage.

This short text looks at the daily lives of the Empire's people: both those in Rome as well as those living in its furthest colonies. Romans used astonishing logistical feats, political savvy, and military oppression to rule their vast empire. This Very Short Introduction examines how they "romanised" the cultures they conquered, imposing their own culture in order to subsume them completely.

Covering material from the time of Julius Caesar to the sack of Rome, this topically arranged reference set provides substantive entries on people, cities, government, institutions, military developments, material culture, and other topics related to the Roman Empire.

When it came to suppressing counterinsurgencies, or deterring the depredations of bandits, the army frequently deployed small groups of infantry and cavalry based in fortlets. This remarkable installation type has never previously been studied in detail, and shows a new side to the Roman army. Rather than displaying the aggressive uniformity for which the Roman military is famous, individual fortlets were usually bespoke installations tailored to local needs. Examining fortlet use in north-west Europe helps explain the differing designs of the Empire's most famous artificial frontier systems: Hadrian's Wall, the Antonine Wall, and the Upper German and Raetian limites.

This volume explores the nature of religious change in the Greek-speaking cities of the Roman Empire. Emphasis is put on those developments that apparently were not the direct result of Roman actions: the intensification of idiosyncratically Greek features in the religious life of the cities (Heller, Mu iz, Camia); the active role of a new kind of Hellenism in the design of imperial religious policies (Gordillo, Galimberti, Rosillo-L pez); or the locally different responses to central religious initiatives, and the influence of those local responses in other imperial contexts (Cort s, Melfi, Lozano, Rizakis). All the chapters try to suggest that religion in the Greek cities of the empire was both conservative and innovative, and that the 'Roman factor' helps to explain this apparent paradox.