This book explores ancient 'foundational' texts relating to property and their reception by later thinkers in their various contexts up to the early nineteenth century. The texts include Plato's vision of an ideal polity in the Republic, Jesus' teachings on renunciation and poverty, and Golden Age narratives and other evolutionary accounts of the transition of mankind from primeval communality to regimes of ownership. The issue of the legitimacy of private ownership exercises the minds of the major political thinkers as well as theologians and jurists throughout the ages. The book gives full consideration to the historical development of Rights Theory, with special reference to the right to property. It ends with a comparative study of the Declarations of Rights in the American and French Revolutions and seeks to explain, with reference to contemporary documents, why the French recognised an inalienable, human right to property whereas the Americans did not.

This is a collection of essays in the social and economic history of Greece and Rome by a leading historian of classical antiquity. They are grouped in three overlapping sections, covering the economy and society of cities; peasants and the rural economy; and food supply and famine. The essays, all previously published, are presented together with bibliographical addenda by Walter Scheidel that summarize and assess scholarly reaction to the author's work. The range of subject matter and approach is wide and the treatment original and provocative.

The first known abolitionist critique of the death penalty-here for the first time in English In 1764, a Milanese aristocrat named Cesare Beccaria created a sensation when he published On Crimes and Punishments. At its centre is a rejection of the death penalty as excessive, unnecessary, and pointless. Beccaria is deservedly regarded as the founding father of modern criminal-law reform, yet he was not the first to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. Against the Death Penalty presents the first English translation of the Florentine aristocrat Giuseppe Pelli's critique of capital punishment, written three years before Beccaria's treatise, but lost for more than two centuries in the Pelli family archives. Peter Garnsey examines the contrasting arguments of the two abolitionists, who drew from different intellectual traditions. Pelli was a devout Catholic influenced by the writings of natural jurists such as Hugo Grotius, whereas Beccaria was inspired by the French Enlightenment philosophers. While Beccaria attacked the criminal justice system as a whole, Pelli focused on the death penalty, composing a critique of considerable depth and sophistication. Garnsey explores how Beccaria's alternative penalty of forced labour, and its conceptualisation as servitude, were embraced in Britain and America, and delves into Pelli's voluminous diaries, shedding light on Pelli's intellectual development and painting a vivid portrait of an Enlightenment man of letters and of conscience. With translations of letters exchanged by the two abolitionists and selections from Beccaria's writings, Against the Death Penalty provides new insights into eighteenth-century debates about capital punishment and offers vital historical perspectives on one of the most pressing questions of our own time.

This is the first study of food in classical antiquity that treats it as both a biological and a cultural phenomenon. The variables of food quantity, quality and availability, and the impact of disease, are evaluated and a judgement reached which inclines to pessimism. Food is also a symbol, evoking other basic human needs and desires, especially sex, and performing social and cultural roles which can be either integrative or divisive. The book explores food taboos in Greek, Roman, and Jewish society, and food-allocation within the family, as well as more familiar cultural and economic polarities which are highlighted by food and eating. The author draws on a wide range of evidence new and old, from written sources to human skeletal remains, and uses both comparative historical evidence from early modern and contemporary developing societies and the anthropological literature, to create a case-study of food in antiquity.

This is a broad-based, comprehensive general study of food in antiquity. The book deals with food as food or nutrition, the discussion revolving around the concrete issues of food availability and the nutritional status of the population. It also treats the nonfood uses of food, focusing on the role of food in forming and marking the social hierarchy. Food defines the group, whether social, religious, philosophical or political.

This is a collection of essays in the social and economic history of Greece and Rome by a leading historian of classical antiquity. They are grouped in three overlapping sections, covering the economy and society of cities; peasants and the rural economy; and food supply and famine. The essays, all previously published, are presented together with bibliographical addenda by Walter Scheidel that summarize and assess scholarly reaction to the author's work. The range of subject matter and approach is wide and the treatment original and provocative.

This study, unique of its kind, asks how slavery was viewed by the leading spokesmen of Greece and Rome. There was no movement for abolition in these societies, or a vigorous debate, such as occurred in antebellum America, but this does not imply that slavery was accepted without question. This book draws on a wide range of sources, pagan, Jewish and Christian, over ten centuries, to challenge the common assumption of passive acquiescence in slavery, and the associated view that, Aristotle apart, there was no systematic thought on slavery. The work contains both a typology of attitudes to slavery ranging from critiques to justifications, and paired case studies of leading theorists of slavery, Aristotle and the Stoics, Philo and Paul, Ambrose and Augustine.

Detailed case studies of Athens and Rome, the best known states of antiquity, reveal the effects of the breakdown of the food supply systems and response to the crisis by the masses of the ancient Mediterranean cities.

The first full-length study of famine in antiquity. The study provides detailed case studies of Athens and Rome, the best known states of antiquity, but also illuminates the institutional response to food crisis in the mass of ordinary cities in the Mediterranean world. Ancient historians have generally shown little interest in investigating the material base of the unique civilisations of the Graeco-Roman world, and have left unexplored the role of the food supply in framing the central institutions and practices of ancient society.

With Volume 13, the new edition of The Cambridge Ancient History moves into fresh territory. The first edition was completed by Volume 12, which closed in AD 324. The editors of the new edition have enlarged the scope of Volume 12 to include the foundation of Constantinople and the death of Constantine, and extended the series with two wholly new volumes taking the History up to AD 600. Volume 13, the first of these new volumes, covers the years 337SH425, from the death of Constantine to the reign of Theodosius II.

This book explores ancient 'foundational' texts relating to property and their reception by later thinkers in their various contexts up to the early nineteenth century. The texts include Plato's vision of an ideal polity in the Republic, Jesus' teachings on renunciation and poverty, and Golden Age narratives and other evolutionary accounts of the transition of mankind from primeval communality to regimes of ownership. The issue of the legitimacy of private ownership exercises the minds of the major political thinkers as well as theologians and jurists throughout the ages. The book gives full consideration to the historical development of Rights Theory, with special reference to the right to property. It ends with a comparative study of the Declarations of Rights in the American and French Revolutions and seeks to explain, with reference to contemporary documents, why the French recognised an inalienable, human right to property whereas the Americans did not.

Volume 11 of the second edition of The Cambridge Ancient History covers the history of the Roman empire from AD 70 to 192--Vespasian to the Antonines. The volume begins with the political and military history of the period. Developments in the structure of the empire are then examined, including the organization and personnel of the central government and province-based institutions and practices. A series of provincial studies follows, and the society, economy and culture of the empire as a whole are reviewed in a group of thematic chapters.

The Divine Institutes of Lactantius was a vigorous riposte to pagan criticism and persecution of Christianity, which came to a head in the 'Great' Persecution of Diocletian in the early fourth century AD. This edition has been prepared with students and scholars of intellectual history in mind, but it will also appeal to those concerned with ecclesiastical history and patristics, and to anyone interested in tracing the impact of classical philosophy and literature on an early Christian thinker.

This volume covers the history of the Roman Empire from the accession of Septimius Severus in AD 193 to the death of Constantine in AD 337. This period was one of the most critical in the history of the Mediterranean world. It begins with the establishment of the Severan dynasty as a result of civil war. From AD 235 this period of relative stability was followed by half a century of short reigns of short-lived emperors and a number of military attacks on the eastern and northern frontiers of the empire. This was followed by the First Tetrarchy (AD 284-305), a period of collegial rule in which Diocletian, with his colleague Maximian and two junior Caesars (Constantius and Galerius), restabilised the empire. The period ends with the reign of the first Christian emperor, Constantine, who defeated Licinius and established a dynasty which lasted for thirty-five years.

During the Principate (roughly from 27 BC to AD 235), when the empire reached its maximum extent, Roman society and culture were radically transformed. But how was the vast territory of the empire controlled? Did the demands of central government stimulate economic growth or endanger survival? What forces of cohesion operated to balance the social and economic inequalities and high mortality rates? How did the official religion react in the face of the diffusion of alien cults and the emergence of Christianity? These are some of the many questions posed here, in an expanded edition of the original, pathbreaking account of the society, economy and culture of the Roman empire. As an integrated study of the life and outlook of the ordinary inhabitants of the Roman world, it deepens our understanding of the underlying factors in this important formative period of world history. Additions to the second edition include an introductory chapter which sets the scene and explores the consequences for government and the governing classes of the replacement of the Republic by the rule of emperors. A second extra chapter assesses how far Rome's subjects resisted her hegemony. Addenda to the chapters throughout offer up-to-date bibliography and point to new evidence and approaches which have enlivened Roman history in recent decades.

The Hellenistic period (approximately the last three centuries B.C.), with its cultural complexities and enduring legacies, retains a lasting fascination today. Reflecting the vigor and productivity of scholarship directed at this period in the past decade, this collection of original essays is a wide-ranging exploration of current discoveries and questions. The twelve essays emphasize the cultural interaction of Greek and non-Greek societies in the Hellenistic period, in contrast to more conventional focuses on politics, society, or economy. The result of original research by some of the leading scholars in Hellenistic history and culture, this volume is an exemplary illustration of the cultural richness of this period.
Paul Cartledge's introduction contains an illuminating introductory overview of current trends in Hellenistic scholarship. The essays themselves range over broad questions of comparative historiography, literature, religion, and the roles of Athens, Rome, and the Jews within the context of the Hellenistic world. The volume is dedicated to Frank Walbank and includes an updated bibliography of his work which has been essential to our understanding of the Hellenistic period.