Hadrian's reign (AD 117-138) was a watershed in the history of the Roman Empire. Hadrian abandoned his predecessor Trajan's eastern conquests - Mesopotamia and Armenia - trimmed down the lands beyond the lower Danube, and constructed new demarcation lines in Germany, North Africa, and most famously Hadrian's Wall in Britain, to delimit the empire.
The emperor Hadrian, a strange and baffling figure to his contemporaries, had a many-sided personality. Insatiably ambitious, and a passionate Philhellene, he promoted the 'Greek Renaissance' extravagantly. But his attempt to Hellenize the Jews, including the outlawing of circumcision, had disastrous consequences, and his 'Greek' love of the beautiful Bithynian boy Antinous ended in tragedy.
No comprehensive account of Hadrian's life and reign has been attempted for over seventy years. In Hadrian: The Restless Emperor, Anthony Birley brings together the new evidence from inscriptions and papyri, and up-to-date and in-depth examination of the work of other scholars on aspects of Hadrian's reign and policies such as the Jewish war, the coinage, Hadrian's building programme in Rome, Athens and Tivoli, and his relationship with his favourite, Antinous, to provide a thorough and fascinating account of the private and public life of a man who, though hated when he died, left an indelible mark on the Roman Empire.

Series Information:
Roman Imperial Biographies

In this, the only biography of Septimius Severus in English, Anthony R. Birley explors how 'Roman' or otherwise this man was and examines his remarkable background and career.
Severus was descended from Phoenician settlers in Tripolitania, and his reign, AD 193-211, represents a key point in Roman history. Birley explores what was African and what was Roman in Septimius' background, given that he came from an African city. He asks whether Septimius was a 'typical cosmopolitan bureaucrat', a 'new Hannibal on the throne of Caesar' or 'principle author of the decline of the Roman Empire'?

eBook available with sample pages: 0203028597

Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor who ruled the Roman Empire between AD 161 and 180, is one of the best recorded individuals from antiquity. Even his face became more than usually familiar: the imperial coinage displayed his portrait for over 40 years, from the clean-shaven young heir of Antonius to the war-weary, heavily bearded ruler who died at his post in his late fifties. His correspondence with his tutor Fronto, and even more the private notebook he kept for his last ten years, the Meditations, provides a unique series of vivid and revealing glimpses into the character and peoccupations of this emporer who spent many years in terrible wars against northern tribes. In this accessible and scholarly study, Professor Birley paints a portrait of an emporer who was human and just - an embodiment of the pagan virtues of Rome.

In this, the only biography of Septimius Severus in English, Anthony R. Birley explors how 'Roman' or otherwise this man was and examines his remarkable background and career. Severus was descended from Phoenician settlers in Tripolitania, and his reign, AD 193-211, represents a key point in Roman history. Birley explores what was African and what was Roman in Septimius' background, given that he came from an African city. He asks whether Septimius was a 'typical cosmopolitan bureaucrat', a 'new Hannibal on the throne of Caesar' or 'principle author of the decline of the Roman Empire'?

The Roman Government of Britain is a completely rewritten version of Professor Birley's Fasti of Roman Britain (1981), with biographical entries for all higher officials from AD 43 to 409. Several new governors, legionary legates, tribunes, procurators, and fleet prefects are included, and the entries for those previously known revised; and in this edition translations of all sources have been added. Introductory sections deal with career structures in the principate and the changed system of the late empire. Evidence for imperial visits is also quoted and discussed. The work provides a full conspectus of all the literary, epigraphic, and numismatic sources for the history of Roman rule in Britain.

Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor who ruled the Roman Empire between AD 161 and 180, is one of the best recorded individuals from antiquity. Even his face became more than usually familiar: the imperial coinage displayed his portrait for over 40 years, from the clean-shaven young heir of Antonius to the war-weary, heavily bearded ruler who died at his post in his late fifties.
His correspondence with his tutor Fronto, and even more the private notebook he kept for his last ten years, the Meditations, provides a unique series of vivid and revealing glimpses into the character and peoccupations of this emporer who spent many years in terrible wars against northern tribes.
In this accessible and scholarly study, Professor Birley paints a portrait of an emporer who was human and just - an embodiment of the pagan virtues of Rome.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203137590

No historian of ancient Rome in this century has had a greater influence on historical research or won greater international acclaim than Sir Ronald Syne (1903-89). His outstanding position was due mainly to his first two books, The Roman Revolution, which appeared in 1939, and Tacitus (two volumes, 1958) - although he went on to produce many more monographs, and seven volumes of his Roman Papers have so far appeared. The long gap between his first two books is partly explained by the war, which took him on official duties to Belgrade and Ankara; and he spent the years 1943-5 at Istanbul as Professor of Classical Philology. It was known that in spite of the war, Syme had continued to write in these years, in particular `Strabonia', investigations into the famous ancient Geography composed by Strabo, a native of Asia Minor in the time of Augustus. After Syme's death, the manuscript was discovered among his papers: he had not quite completed the work, but what he had written, with almost complete annotation, represents a substantial and fascinating study of the historical geography of Anatolia in the Hellenistic and early Roman period. Syme ruthlessly dissects the often incoherent and inconsistent text of Strabo, at the same time providing rich detail on client kings, Roman generals and emperors, writers and travellers. Above all, he shows unequalled ability to understand the landscape and settlement of Anatolia; and the work is composed in the same forceful and elegant style that made his other books classics of historical literature.

Sir Ronald Syme has been a major figure in classical studies for almost half a century, and this final volume contains his most recent papers. Syme offers insightful discussions of ancient authors such as the younger Pliny and Tacitus, and also sheds much new light on the classical Roman age's important political events and figures.

Shortly before his death in September 1989, Sir Ronald Syme approved the selection and publication of these fifty-nine papers. Volume VI, composed of previously published articles and reviews, offers a splendid cross-section of Syme's interests: the Roman revolution; the Augustan aristocracy; Tacitus and Sallust; historical geography; the Roman army; a variety of classical authors (Horace, Ovid, Strabo, Seneca, Justin, the Historia Augusta); the Emperor Hadrian; colonial elites; historiography, ancient and modern; and Roman political thought and society. Volume VII consists of twelve unpublished papers (originally intended to form part of a separate book, `Pliny and Italia Transpadana'), in which the two Plinies and their age are put under searching scrutiny. It is rounded off by a Latin text purporting to derive from a lost book of Tacitus' Histories (duly equipped with commentary); and by an Index to both volumes.

Before his death in late 1989, Sir Ronald Syme approved the publication of these 59 papers on Roman history which complete this collection of his life's work. Volume VI covers such varied topics as "Human Rights and Social Status at Rome", "Marriage Ages for Roman Senators", "Oligarchy at Rome: A Paradigm for Political Science", "Military Geography at Rome", "Diet on Capri ", "A Dozen Early Priesthoods", and "Some Unrecognized Authors from Spain ". Volume VII contains solely later, unpublished work which was still in manuscript form at the time of Sir Ronald's death. The final item is a spoof on Tacitus, comprising a Latin text on the story of Titus and Berenice with historical commentary. The work is aimed at scholars and students of Roman history, Roman literature, Roman philosophy, and classics.

Volumes Iv and V of Roman Papers contain forty-two of Sir Ronald Syme's papers composed between 1981 and 1985. A good many deal with the younger Pliny and Tacitus; other ancient authors examined here include Strabo, the elder Pliny, Statius, Quintilian, and Arrian. Several papers focus on the Spanish provinces and on the Greek east. New light is shed on the 'Hispano-Narbonensian nexus' that emerged under the Flavians and was to form the Antonine dynasty, on the emperor Hadrian and his Antonine successors, and on the usurper Avidius Cassius. There is an Index of Persons for the two volumes at the end of Roman Papers V.