Graeco-Roman literary works, historiography, and even the reporting of rumours were couched as if they came in response to an insatiable desire by ordinary citizens to know everything about the lives of their leaders, and to hold them to account, at some level, for their abuse of constitutional powers for personal ends. Ancient writers were equally fascinated with how these same individuals used deceit as a powerful tool to disguise private and public reality. The chapters in this collection examine the themes of despotism and deceit from both historical and literary perspectives, over a range of historical periods including classical Athens, the Hellenistic kingdoms, late republican and early imperial Rome, late antiquity, and Byzantium.

Roman Republican Augury: Freedom and Control proposes a new way of understanding augury, a form of Roman state divination designed to consult the god Jupiter. Previous scholarly studies of augury have tended to focus either upon its legal-constitutional effects or upon its role in maintaining and perpetuating Roman social and political structures. This volume makes a new contribution to the study of Roman religion, politics, and cultural history by focusing instead upon what augury can tell us about how Romans understood their relationship with their gods. Augury is often thought to have told Romans what they wanted to hear. This volume argues that augury left space for perceived expressions of divine will which contradicted human wishes, and that its rules and precepts did not permit human beings to create or ignore signs at will. This analysis allows the Jupiter whom Romans approached in augury to emerge as not simply a source of power to be channelled to human ends, but a person with his own interests and desires, which did not always overlap with those of his human enquirers. When human will and divine will clashed, it was the will of Jupiter which was supposed to prevail. In theory as in practice, it was the Romans, not their supreme god, who were bound by the auguries and auspices.

Any reader of scholarship on the ancient and early medieval world will be familiar with the term 'Germanic', which is frequently used as a linguistic category, ethnonym, or descriptive identifier for a range of forms of cultural and literary material. But is the term meaningful, useful, or legitimate? The term, frequently applied to peoples, languages, and material culture found in non-Roman north-western and central Europe in classical antiquity, and to these phenomena in the western Roman Empire's successor states, is often treated as a legitimate, all-encompassing name for the culture of these regions. Its usage is sometimes intended to suggest a shared social identity or ethnic affinity among those who produce these phenomena. Yet, despite decades of critical commentary that have highlighted substantial problems, its dominance of scholarship appears not to have been challenged. This edited volume, which offers contributions ranging from literary and linguistic studies to archaeology, and which span from the first to the sixteenth centuries AD, examines why the term remains so pervasive despite its problems, offering a range of alternative interpretative perspectives on the late and post-Roman worlds.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1952.

Brill's Companion to Aineias Tacticus is a collection of articles on the significance of the earliest Greek handbook on military tactics. Aineias' (Aeneas) wrote his Poliorketika in the mid-fourth century BC, offering a unique perspective on contemporary Greek city-states, warfare and intellectual trends. We offer an introduction to Aineias and his work, and then discuss the work's historical and intellectual context, his qualities as a writer, and aspects of his work as a historical source for the Greek polis of the fourth century BC. Several chapters discuss Aineias' approach to warfare, specifically light infantry, mercenaries, naval operations, fortifications and technology. Finally, we include a lengthy study of the reception of ancient military treatises, specifically Aineias' Poliorketika, in the Byzantine period.

Greece and Rome have long featured in books for children and teens, whether through the genres of historical fiction, fantasy, mystery stories or mythological compendiums. These depictions and adaptations of the Ancient World have varied at different times, however, in accordance with changes in societies and cultures. This book investigates the varying receptions and ideological manipulations of the classical world in children's literature. Its subtitle, Heroes and Eagles, reflects the two most common ways in which this reception appears, namely in the forms of the portrayal of the Greek heroic world of classical mythology on the one hand, and of the Roman imperial presence on the other. Both of these are ideologically loaded approaches intended to educate the young reader.

Until the Renaissance the centrality of Roman tragedy in Western society and culture was unchallenged. Studies on Roman Republican tragedy and on Imperial Roman tragedy by the contributors have been directing the gaze of scholarship back to Roman tragedy. This volume has two goals: first, to demonstrate that Republican tragedy had a far more central role in shaping Imperial tragedy than is currently thought, and quite possibly more important than Classical Greek tragedy. Second, the influence of other Roman literary genres on Roman tragedy is greater than has formerly been credited. Studies on von Kleist and Shelley, Eliot and Claus help reconstruct the ancient Roman stage by showing how moderns had thought to change it for contemporary aesthetics.

The Church in Ancient Society provides a full and enjoyable narrative history of the first six centuries of the Christian Church. Ancient Greek and Roman society had many gods and an addiction to astrology and divination. This introduction to the period traces the process by which Christianity changed this and so provided a foundation for the modern world: the teaching of Jesus created a lasting community, which grew to command the allegiance of the Roman emperor.

Olynthus, an ancient city in northern Greece, was preserved in an exceptionally complete state after its abrupt sacking by Phillip II of Macedon in 348 B.C., and excavations in the 1920s and 1930s uncovered more than a hundred houses and their contents. In this book Nicholas Cahill analyzes the results of the excavations to reconstruct the daily lives of the ancient Greeks, the organization of their public and domestic space, and the economic and social patterns in the city. Cahill compares the realities of daily life as revealed by the archaeological remains with theories of ideal social and household organization espoused by ancient Greek authors. Describing the enormous variety of domestic arrangements, he examines patterns and differences in the design of houses, in the occupations of owners, and in the articulations between household and urban economies, the value of land, and other aspects of ancient life throughout the city. He thus challenges the traditional view that the Greeks had one standard household model and approach to city planning. He shows how the Greeks reconciled conflicting demands of ideal and practice, for instance between egalitarianism and social inequality or between the normative roles of men and women and roles demanded by economic necessities. The book, which is extensively illustrated with plans and photographs, is supported by a Web site containing a database of the architecture and finds from the excavations linked to plans of the site.

In this book you will discover a history of humanity unlike anything you have ever heard of. Ever wonder what happened to all of the civilizations that have gone before us? Well, the events in history are continually repeated by different cultures throughout time with the same finale, affecting the entire globe in a relatively short time. From the ancient writings of all of the historians, religious scriptures and mythology, we also find the same understanding. And their writings unveil the true nature of the forces behind the events. Yet, we are not taught about these things in schools, universities or the media. The various types of natural disasters, terrorism and war always end up producing the same result. In fact, humans and Nature are so much a part of each other that we literally take turns in accomplishing the same objective, as part of an overall process involving a living Earth. Our ancestors were not ignorant people, but were, in many cases, very capable and intelligent. They were also celestial observers and knew astronomy so well that they have even taught us things we did not know today. They also built structures that were used as astronomical observatories. Much of this was done in an attempt to fully understand what was taking place, for there were dramatic celestial events as well. Natural disasters have been undergoing a steady climb, as things become more and more unstable

The Impact of Justice on the Roman Empire discusses ways in which notions, practice and the ideology of justice impacted on the functioning of the Roman Empire. The papers assembled in this volume follow from the thirteenth workshop of the international network Impact of Empire. They focus on what was considered just in various groups of Roman subjects, how these views were legitimated, shifted over time, and how they affected policy making and political, administrative, and judicial practices. Linking all of the papers are three common themes: the emperor and justice, justice in a dispersed empire and differentiation of justice.

Alexander s Heirs offers a narrative account of the approximately forty years following the death of Alexander the Great, during which his generals vied for control of his vast empire, and through their conflicts and politics ultimately created the Hellenistic Age. * Offers an account of the power struggles between Alexander s rival generals in the forty year period following his death * Discusses how Alexander s vast empire ultimately became the Hellenistic World * Makes full use of primary and secondary sources * Accessible to a broad audience of students, university scholars, and the educated general reader * Explores important scholarly debates on the Diadochi

This unique study is the first systematic examination to be undertaken of the high priesthood in ancient Israel, from the earliest local chief priests in the pre-monarchic period down to the Hasmonaean priest-kings in the first century BCE. It discusses material from the Old Testament and Apocrypha, together with contemporary documents and coins. It challenges the view that by virtue of his office the high priest became sole political leader of the Jews in later times.

This book tells the fascinating story of Roman Britain, beginning with the late pre-Roman Iron Age and ending with the province's independence from Roman rule in AD 409. Incorporating for the first time the most recent archaeological discoveries from Hadrian's Wall, London and other sites across the country, and richly illustrated throughout with photographs and maps, this reliable and up-to-date new account is essential reading for students, non-specialists and general readers alike. Writing in a clear, readable and lively style (with a satirical eye to strange features of past times), Rupert Jackson draws on current research and new findings to deepen our understanding of the role played by Britain in the Roman Empire, deftly integrating the ancient texts with new archaeological material. A key theme of the book is that Rome's annexation of Britain was an imprudent venture, motivated more by political prestige than economic gain, such that Britain became a 'trophy province' unable to pay its own way. However, the impact that Rome and its provinces had on this distant island was nevertheless profound: huge infrastructure projects transformed the countryside and means of travel, capital and principal cities emerged, and the Roman way of life was inseparably absorbed into local traditions. Many of those transformations continue to resonate to this day, as we encounter their traces in both physical remains and in civic life.

Cassiodorus-famed throughout history as one of the great Christian exegetes of antiquity-spent most of his life as a high-ranking public official under the Ostrogothic King Theoderic and his heirs. He produced the Variae, a unique letter collection that gave witness to the sixth-century Mediterranean, as late antiquity gave way to the early middle ages. The Variae represents thirty years of Cassiodorus's work in civil, legal, and financial administration, revealing his interactions with emperors and kings, bishops and military commanders, private citizens, and even criminals. Thus, the Variae remains among the most important sources for the history of this pivotal period and is an indispensable resource for understanding political and diplomatic culture, economic and legal structure, intellectual heritage, urban landscapes, religious worldview, and the evolution of social relations at all levels of society during the twilight of the late-Roman state. This is the first full translation of this masterwork into English.