In the early 12th century, the Late Bronze Age Hittite empire collapsed during a series of upheavals which swept the Greek and Near Eastern worlds. In the subsequent Iron Age, numerous cities and states emerged in south-eastern Anatolia and northern Syria, which are generally known today as the 'Neo-Hittite kingdoms'. Bryce's volume gives an account of the military and political history of these kingdoms, moving beyond the Neo-Hittites themselves to the broader Near Eastern world and the states which dominated it during the Iron Age. Divided into three sections, The World of Neo-Hittite Kingdoms looks at the last decades of the empire and the features of these kingdoms and their subsequent treatment under their Anatolian successors. Through a closer look at the individual Neo-Hittite kingdoms and their rulers and a comparison with the contemporary Aramaean states and the other kingdoms of the age - notably the Neo-Assyrian empire - it concludes with a historical synthesis of the Neo-Hittites when the last kingdom was absorbed into the Assyrian provincial administration.

This book is the first attempt that has ever been made to give a comprehensive account of the religious life of ancient Athens. The city's many festivals are discussed in detail, with attention to recent anthropological theory; so too, for instance, are the cults of households and of smaller
groups, the role of religious practice and argumentation in public life, the authority of priests, the activities of religious professionals such as seers and priestesses, magic, the place of theatrical representations of the gods within public attitudes to the divine. A long final section considers
the sphere of activity of the various gods, and takes Athens as a uniquely detailed test case for the structuralist approach to polytheism. The work is a synchronic, thematically organized complement (though designed to be read independently) to the same author's Athenian Religion: A History (OUP,
1996).

This study, first published in German in 1975, addresses the need for a comprehensive account of Roman social history in a single volume. Specifically, Alfoeldy attempts to answer three questions: What is the meaning of Roman social history? What is entailed in Roman social history? How is it to be conceived as history? Alfoeldy's approach brings social structure much closer to political development, following the changes in social institutions in parallel with the broader political milieu. He deals with specific problems in seven periods: Archaic Rome, the Republic down to the Second Punic War, the structural change of the second century BC, the end of the Republic, the Early Empire, the crisis of the third century AD and the Late Empire. Excellent bibliographical notes specify the most important works on each subject, making it useful to the graduate student and scholar as well as to the advanced and well-informed undergraduate.

This is the first comprehensive and fully illustrated study of silver vessels from ancient Macedonia from the 4th to the 2nd centuries BC. These precious vessels formed part of dining sets owned by the royal family and the elite and have been discovered in the tombs of their owners. Eleni Zimi presents 171 artifacts in a full-length study of form, decoration, inscriptions and manufacturing techniques, set against contemporary comparanda in other media (clay, bronze, glass). She adopts an art historical and sociological approach to the archaeological evidence and demonstrates that the use of silver vessels as an expression of wealth and a status symbol is not only connected with the wealth spread in the empire after Alexander's the Great expedition to the East, but constitutes a practice reflecting the opulence and appreciation for luxury at least in the Macedonian court from the reign of Philip II onwards.

Proclus (412-485 A.D.) was one of the last official 'successors' of Plato at the head of the Academy in Athens at the end of Antiquity, before the school was finally closed down in 529. As a prolific author of systematic works on a wide range of topics and one of the most influential commentators on Plato of all times, the legacy of Proclus in the cultural history of the west can hardly be overestimated. This book introduces the reader to Proclus' life and works, his place in the Platonic tradition of Antiquity and the influence his work exerted in later ages. Various chapters are devoted to Proclus' metaphysical system, including his doctrines about the first principle of all reality, the One, and about the Forms and the soul. The broad range of Proclus' thought is further illustrated by highlighting his contribution to philosophy of nature, scientific theory, theory of knowledge and philosophy of language. Finally, also his most original doctrines on evil and providence, his Neoplatonic virtue ethics, his complex views on theology and religious practice, and his metaphysical aesthetics receive separate treatments. This book is the first to bring together the leading scholars in the field and to present a state of the art of Proclean studies today. In doing so, it provides the most comprehensive introduction to Proclus' thought currently available.

This, the first volume in the History of Wales, provides a detailed history of Wales in the period in which it was created out of the remnants of Roman Britain. It thus begins in the fourth century, with accelerating attacks from external forces, and ends shortly before the Norman Conquest of England. The narrative history is interwoven with chapters on the principal sources, the social history of Wales, the Church, the early history of the Welsh language, and its early literature, both in Welsh and in Latin. In the fourth century contemporaries knew of the Britons but not of Wales in the modern sense. Charles-Edwards, therefore, includes the history of the other Britons when it helps to illuminate the history of what we now know as Wales. Although an early form of the name Wales existed, it was a word in the Germanic languages, including English, and meant inhabitants of the former Roman Empire; it therefore covered the Gallo-Romans of what we know as France as well as the Britons.

"This book is a tour de force." --Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take A revolutionary new history of humankind through the prism of work by leading anthropologist James Suzman Work defines who we are. It determines our status, and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hard-wired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like? To answer these questions, James Suzman charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are. Drawing insights from anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, zoology, physics, and economics, he shows that while we have evolved to find joy, meaning and purpose in work, for most of human history our ancestors worked far less and thought very differently about work than we do now. He demonstrates how our contemporary culture of work has its roots in the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago. Our sense of what it is to be human was transformed by the transition from foraging to food production, and, later, our migration to cities. Since then, our relationships with one another and with our environments, and even our sense of the passage of time, have not been the same. Arguing that we are in the midst of a similarly transformative point in history, Suzman shows how automation might revolutionize our relationship with work and in doing so usher in a more sustainable and equitable future for our world and ourselves.

The Ancient Egyptians continue to fascinate people from all walks of life. Of all the knowledge we have of their culture, the rituals connected to death and the afterlife are the most compelling.

An amusing, fascinating and intriguing description of the origins of everyday phrases, the titles in the 'Well I Never Knew That ' series reveals how many of our common expressions and sayings came to be.

Stonehenge was not an observatory used by druidical astronomer-priests. It was, instead, a monument in which the moon and the sun and the dead were joined together. In this book the author explains how people in the British Isles, four thousand or more years ago, identified life and death with the cycle of midwinter and midsummer and with the risings and settings of the sun and moon. This is why so many megalithic monuments have astronomical sightlines built into them. This book describes how astronomical customs developed in the British Isles. Unlike other works about 'megalithic astronomy' technical explanations about azimuths and declinations are kept to their simplest. The emphasis here is upon people rather than pertrubations and eclipses.