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There can be few historical figures who have made such a powerful
impact on the popular imagination as the Roman emperor Caligula
(died AD 41). Yet an accurate reconstruction of his life and reign
largely eludes us. This is paradoxical. The source material is
plentiful, even lavish, by the standards of antiquity. The problem
lies not so much in the quantity of evidence available, but in its
quality. For our information we are obliged to draw on ancient
accounts that can be colourful and wonderfully entertaining but
have a flexible notion of historical truth and often seem to border
on fiction. The consequence is that there is hardly a detail that
the modern historian can present without deep reservations about
its reliability. A biography of Caligula, in the regular modern
sense of the word, is an insurmountable task, and can be at best be
a summary personal interpretation by an individual historian of a
mass of incoherent and often inconsistent material. Where does this
leave the serious general reader? This book approaches Caligula
from a quite different angle, by presenting the reader with the raw
material of the ancient sources. It provides over 300 translated
passages of texts, taken mainly from ancient writers, but also from
coins and inscriptions. The translations are accompanied by
extensive introductions and notes. These are tailored to the
non-specialist, and intended to help such readers navigate material
that is often contradictory, sometimes downright incredible, and
helps to place events and institutions in their historical
contexts. The colourful and exotic incidents are still here, but
are presented in a context that will help the reader gain a more
sophisticated understanding of how scholars try to reconstruct
events of the past. This approach allows the reader to tackle
head-on the stark reality that what we read in our sources is not
necessarily the truth.
Nero's reign (AD 54-68) witnessed some of the most memorable events
in Roman history, such as the rebellion of Boudica and the first
persecution of the Christians--not to mention Nero's murder of his
mother, his tyranny and extravagance, and his suicide, which
plunged the empire into civil war. The Emperor Nero gathers into a
single collection the major sources for Nero's life and rule,
providing students of Nero and ancient Rome with the most
authoritative and accessible reader there is. The Emperor Nero
features clear, contemporary translations of key literary sources
along with translations and explanations of representative
inscriptions and coins issued under Nero. The informative
introduction situates the emperor's reign within the history of the
Roman Empire, and the book's concise headnotes to chapters place
the source material in historical and biographical context.
Passages are accompanied by detailed notes and are organized around
events, such as the Great Fire of Rome, or by topic, such as Nero's
relationships with his wives. Complex events like the war with
Parthia--split up among several chapters in Tacitus's Annals--are
brought together in continuous narratives, making this the most
comprehensible and user-friendly sourcebook on Nero available.
There can be few historical figures who have made such a powerful
impact on the popular imagination as the Roman emperor Caligula
(died AD 41). Yet an accurate reconstruction of his life and reign
largely eludes us. This is paradoxical. The source material is
plentiful, even lavish, by the standards of antiquity. The problem
lies not so much in the quantity of evidence available, but in its
quality. For our information we are obliged to draw on ancient
accounts that can be colourful and wonderfully entertaining but
have a flexible notion of historical truth and often seem to border
on fiction. The consequence is that there is hardly a detail that
the modern historian can present without deep reservations about
its reliability. A biography of Caligula, in the regular modern
sense of the word, is an insurmountable task, and can be at best be
a summary personal interpretation by an individual historian of a
mass of incoherent and often inconsistent material. Where does this
leave the serious general reader? This book approaches Caligula
from a quite different angle, by presenting the reader with the raw
material of the ancient sources. It provides over 300 translated
passages of texts, taken mainly from ancient writers, but also from
coins and inscriptions. The translations are accompanied by
extensive introductions and notes. These are tailored to the
non-specialist, and intended to help such readers navigate material
that is often contradictory, sometimes downright incredible, and
helps to place events and institutions in their historical
contexts. The colourful and exotic incidents are still here, but
are presented in a context that will help the reader gain a more
sophisticated understanding of how scholars try to reconstruct
events of the past. This approach allows the reader to tackle
head-on the stark reality that what we read in our sources is not
necessarily the truth.
Pompeius Trogus, a Romanized Gaul living in the age of Augustus,
wrote a forty four-book universal history (The Philippic History)
of the non-Roman, Mediterranean world. This work was later
abbreviated by a certain M. Junianus Justinus, better know as
Justin. This volume presents the first modern English translation
and scholarly commentary on Books 11-12 of Justin's so-called
"Epitome" of the history. These books constitute one of the five
major sources for the history of Alexander the Great and belong to
the so-called "Vulgate" tradition, which in the opinion of many
scholars derives ultimately from the lost historian Clearchus of
Alexandria. The original work of Pompeius Trogus appears to have
had stylistic and historical influences on the better know History
of Alexander by Quintus Curtius Rufus. In this volume the authors
tease out and differentiate as far as possible the relative
contributions of the historian Trogus and the "epitomator", Justin.
The commentary examines the relationship of Justin-Trogus to both
the extant sources and the works of the lost Alexander historians,
and a serous attempt is made to explain errors or deviations from
well-known sources in terms of the methods of historian and
"epitomator" before resorting to the expedient of textual
emendation. A second volume, covering books 13-15, is forthcoming.
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