The classical historian J. B. Bury (1861-1927) was the author of a history of Greece which served as a standard textbook for over a century (and of which the first edition is also reissued in this series). His interests ranged over a very wide period, and in this 1905 work he apparently abandons the classical world altogether to consider the life of St Patrick, patron saint of his native Ireland. However, as he points out in his preface, Bury was drawn to Patrick through study of the lives of other missionaries across the later Roman empire, and his first chapter surveys the context of the diffusion of Christianity. He considers the various accounts of the life of Patrick, and puts these into the context of what is known of the ancient Irish kingdoms and the coming of Christianity. An appendix supplies details of the original sources, including Patrick's own writings.

This book, originally published in 1900, was the major work of the classical historian J. B. Bury. It became a standard textbook on the topic of ancient Greek history to the death of Alexander the Great for almost a century, and in its updated form is still studied today. Bury had studied philosophy as well as classics at Trinity College, Dublin, and had travelled widely in Greece, but until the publication of this work was better known for his two-volume History of the Later Roman Empire (also reissued in this series), and many of his other works also deal with the Byzantine period. He describes in the preface his decision to limit the extent of his history: 'compression into a single volume often produces a more useful book'. This magisterial and very readable synthesis of political and military history encompasses nearly three millennia and the whole of the Mediterranean and Near East.

Originally published in 1910, this book presents the content of the Creighton Memorial Lecture for 1909, which was delivered at University College, London by John Bagnell Bury. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the Later Roman Empire and Roman political institutions.