Trajano

El mejor emperador

Nacido el año 53 d. C. en Itálica, en la fértil Bética, el corazón de la Hispania romana, Marco Ulpio Trajano estaba llamado a ser honrado por sus coetáneos como Optimus Princeps, el «mejor emperador», un epíteto que permanece vivo hasta hoy. Como militar echó ...

Pre-Islamic Arabia

societies, politics, cults and identities during late antiquity

This book delves into the political and cultural developments of pre-Islamic Arabia, focusing on the religious attitudes of the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula and its northern extension into the Syrian desert. Between the third and the Seventh Century, Arabia was on the edge of ...

Etruria and Anatolia

material connections and artistic exchange

Striking similarities in Etruscan and Anatolian material culture reveal various forms of contact and exchange between these regions on opposite sides of the Mediterranean. This is the first comprehensive investigation of these connections, approaching both cultures as agents of artistic exchange rather than as side ...

The Greeks and their histories

myth, history, and society

In this concise but stimulating book on history and Greek culture, Hans-Joachim Gehrke continues to refine his work on 'intentional history', which he defines as a history in the self-understanding of social groups and communities - connected to a corresponding understanding of the other - which is ...

Connecting communities in Archaic Greece

exploring economic and political networks through data modelling

This is a new history of Greece in the seventh and sixth centuries BC written for the twenty-first century. It brings together archaeological data from over 100 years of 'Big Dig' excavation in Greece, employing experimental data analysis techniques from the digital humanities to identify ...

The local horizon of ancient Greek religion

Which dimensions of the religious experience of the ancient Greeks become tangible only if we foreground its local horizons? This book explores the manifold ways in which Greek religious beliefs and practices are encoded in and communicate with various local environments. Its individual chapters explore ...

Imagining the Roman emperor

perceptions of rulers in the high empire

How was the Roman emperor viewed by his subjects? How strongly did their perception of his role shape his behaviour? Adopting a fresh approach, Panayiotis Christoforou focuses on the emperor from the perspective of his subjects across the Roman Empire. Stress lies on the imagination ...

Making the middle Republic

new approaches to Rome and Italy, c.400-200 BCE

During the fourth and third centuries BCE, Roman expansion into Italy reshaped the peninsula's Archaic societies and prompted new political relationships, new economic practices, and new sociocultural structures. Rural landscapes and urban spaces throughout Latium saw intensified use amidst novel principles of land management ...

The politics of immorality in ancient Rome

The question this book addresses is not how immoral the ancient Romans were, but why the literature they produced is so preoccupied with immorality. The modern image of immoral Rome derives from ancient accounts which are largely critical rather than celebratory. Far from being empty ...

Cleopatra

La mujer tras el mito de la última reina de Egipto

Tras el mito de la reina más carismática de la Antigüedad se esconden la erudita, la gobernante, la estratega y la mujer. Dos mil años después de su muerte, Cleopatra es más leyenda que personaje histórico: sobre ella se han concentrado cuestiones como el colonialismo ...

Embajadoras y espías

Lo sabemos por la literatura, el cine y las series de televisión: pasar de embajadora a espía es, a veces, una mera cuestión de perspectiva. Durante la República romana no fue de otra manera, ya que la fina línea que separaba el éxito del fracaso ...

Sacerdotisas

Las sacerdotisas son, para muchas sociedades modernas, figuras envueltas en un halo de exotismo y fascinación, percibidas con una mezcla de curiosidad y extrañeza. Pero ¿siempre fue así? En la Roma republicana, existieron mujeres dedicadas a servir a las divinidades en nombre de su comunidad ...

Cursus honorum

pathways to rank and power in the Roman Republic

This volume addresses a crucial issue for the political culture of the Roman Republic: competition among individuals and families of the social elite. This rivalry came to head at the annual elections of new magistrates: every year, a number of candidates ran for office and ...

Heracles and Athenian propaganda

politics, imagery and drama

Heracles and Athenian Propaganda examines how Greece's most important hero was appropriated and portrayed by Athens in religion, politics, architecture and literature, with a detailed study of Euripides' Heracles in relation to this interplay between the hero and the city's ideology. Though Athens ...

The 'cursus laborum' of Roman women

social and medical aspects of the transition from puberty to motherhood

This book assesses a narrow but vital - and so far understudied - part of Roman women's lives: puberty, preparation for pregnancy, pregnancy and childbirth. Bringing together for the first time the material and textual sources for this key life stage, it describes the scientific, educational ...

Ancient Rome

facts and fictions

This book shares little-known facts from and excerpts of primary source documents to correct popular misconceptions about Ancient Rome and to show how those misconceptions became widespread. Roman personalities and history have always had a larger-than-life profile in American popular culture, but most people think ...

The falls of Rome

crises, resilience, and resurgence in late antiquity

Over the course of the fourth through seventh centuries, Rome witnessed a succession of five significant political and military crises, including the Sack of Rome, the Vandal occupation, and the demise of the Senate. Historians have traditionally considered these crises as defining events, and thus ...

The Celts

a modern history

A new history of the Celts that reveals how this once-forgotten people became a pillar of modern national identity in Britain, Ireland, and France Before the Greeks and Romans, the Celts ruled the ancient world. They sacked Rome, invaded Greece, and conquered much of Europe ...

La Perse antique

La glorieuse civilisation de la Perse antique séduit un large public. Mais en dépit de la fascination qu’il a exercé sur l’Occident depuis Hérodote, l’Iran préislamique demeure une civilisation méconnue, dans l’ombre des cultures voisines. Entre Nil et Indus, les Perses ...

La Mésopotamie

Oubliée pendant de longs millénaires, l’histoire de la Mésopotamie est reconstituée progressivement par les chercheurs depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle. Loin du despotisme oriental et des fastes exotiques, trois civilisations revoient le jour grâce aux efforts conjugués des historiens et des archéologues: Sumer ...