Eastern Wines on Western Tables: Consumption, Trade and Economy in Ancient Italy is an interdisciplinary and multifaceted study concerning wine commerce and the Roman economy during Classical antiquity. Wine was one of the main consumption goods in the Mediterranean during antiquity, and the average Roman adult male probably consumed between 0,5 - 1 litre of it per day. It is therefore clear that the production and trading of wine was essential for the Roman economy. This book demonstrates that wines from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean region in particular, played a crucial part in wine commerce. Moreover, it sheds new light on economic dilemmas that have long puzzled scholars, such as growth and market integration during antiquity.

Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire offers new analysis of the textual depictions of a series of emperors in the fourth century within overlapping historical, religious, and literary contexts. Drawing on the recent Representational Turn in the study of imperial power, these essays examine how literary authors working in various genres, both Latin and Greek, and of differing religious affiliations construct and manipulate the depiction of a series of emperors from the late third to the late fourth centuries CE. In a move away from traditional source criticism, this volume opens up new methodological approaches to chart intellectual and literary history during a critical century for the ancient Mediterranean world.

Calendars in the Making investigates the origins of calendars we are most familiar with today, yet whose early histories, in the Roman and medieval periods, are still shrouded in obscurity. It examines when the seven-day week was standardized and first used for dating and time reckoning, in Jewish and other constituencies of the Roman Empire; how the Christian liturgical calendar was constructed in early medieval Europe; and how and when the Islamic calendar was instituted. The volume includes studies of Roman provincial calendars, medieval Persian calendar reforms, and medieval Jewish calendar cycles. Edited by Sacha Stern, it presents the original research of a team of leading experts in the field. Contributors are: Francois de Blois, Ilaria Bultrighini, Sacha Stern, Johannes Thomann, Nadia Vidro, Immo Warntjes.