As the Romans Did

As the Romans Did

Author: Jo-Ann Shelton

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 483

ISBN-13: 9780195089738

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Revised to include new selections and updated bibliographical material, the second edition of this popular sourcebook offers a rich, revealing look at everyday Roman life. It provides clear, lively translations of a fascinating array of documents drawn from Latin and Greek source material--from personal letters, farming manuals, medical texts, and recipes to poetry, graffiti, and tombstone inscriptions. Each selection has been translated into readable, contemporary English. This edition includes more than 50 additional selections that introduce new topics and expand coverage of existing topics. In addition, the commentary on all the selections has been revised to reflect the recent scholarship of social and cultural historians. Extensive annotations, abundant biographical notes, maps, appendices, cross-references to related topics, and a newly-updated bibliography provide readers with the historical and cultural background material necessary to appreciate the selections. Arranged thematically into chapters on family life, housing, education, entertainment, religion, and other important topics, the translations reveal the ambitions and aspirations not only of the upper class, but of the average Roman citizen as well. They tell of the success and failure of Rome's grandiose imperialist policies and also of the pleasures and hardships of everyday life. Wide-ranging and lively, the second edition of As the Romans Did offers the most lucid account available of Roman life in all its diversity. Ideal for courses in Ancient Roman History, Social History of Rome, Roman Civilization, and Classics, it will also appeal to readers interested in ancient history.


What Did the Romans Know?

What Did the Romans Know?

Author: Daryn Lehoux

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-03-15

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0226471152

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What did the Romans know about their world? Quite a lot, as Daryn Lehoux makes clear in this fascinating and much-needed contribution to the history and philosophy of ancient science. Lehoux contends that even though many of the Romans’ views about the natural world have no place in modern science—the umbrella-footed monsters and dog-headed people that roamed the earth and the stars that foretold human destinies—their claims turn out not to be so radically different from our own. Lehoux draws upon a wide range of sources from what is unquestionably the most prolific period of ancient science, from the first century BC to the second century AD. He begins with Cicero’s theologico-philosophical trilogy On the Nature of the Gods, On Divination, and On Fate, illustrating how Cicero’s engagement with nature is closely related to his concerns in politics, religion, and law. Lehoux then guides readers through highly technical works by Galen and Ptolemy, as well as the more philosophically oriented physics and cosmologies of Lucretius, Plutarch, and Seneca, all the while exploring the complex interrelationships between the objects of scientific inquiry and the norms, processes, and structures of that inquiry. This includes not only the tools and methods the Romans used to investigate nature, but also the Romans’ cultural, intellectual, political, and religious perspectives. Lehoux concludes by sketching a methodology that uses the historical material he has carefully explained to directly engage the philosophical questions of incommensurability, realism, and relativism. By situating Roman arguments about the natural world in their larger philosophical, political, and rhetorical contexts, What Did the Romans Know? demonstrates that the Romans had sophisticated and novel approaches to nature, approaches that were empirically rigorous, philosophically rich, and epistemologically complex.


The Romans and Trade

The Romans and Trade

Author: André Tchernia

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-11-10

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 019109109X

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André Tchernia is one of the leading experts on amphorae as a source of economic history, a pioneer of maritime archaeology, and author of a wealth of articles on Roman trade, notably the wine trade. This book brings together the author's previously published essays, updated and revised, with recent notes and prefaced with an entirely new synthesis of his views on Roman commerce with a particular emphasis on the people involved in it. The book is divided into two main parts. The first is a general study of the structure of Roman trade: Landowners and traders, traders' fortunes, the matter of the market, the role of the state, and dispatching what is required. It tackles the recent debates on Roman trade and Roman economy, providing, original and convincing answers. The second part of the book is a selection of 14 of the author's published papers. They range from discussions of general topics such as the ideas of crisis and competition, the approvisioning of Ancient Rome, trade with the East, to more specialized studies, such as the interpretation of the 33 AD crisis. Overall, the book contains a wealth of insights into the workings of ancient trade and expertly combines discussion of the material evidence-especially of amphorae and wrecks-with the prosopographical approach derived from epigraphic, papyrological and historical data.


A Brief History of the Romans

A Brief History of the Romans

Author: Mary Taliaferro Boatwright

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780199987559

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Revised edition of: A brief history of ancient Rome. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.


Roman Social History

Roman Social History

Author: Tim Parkin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-10-17

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1134091249

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This Sourcebook contains a comprehensive collection of sources on the topic of the social history of the Roman world during the late Republic and the first two centuries AD. Designed to form the basis for courses in Roman social history, this excellent resource covers original translations from sources such as inscriptions, papyri, and legal texts. Topics include: social inequality and class games, gladiators and attitudes to violence the role of slaves in Roman society economy and taxation the Roman legal system the Roman family and gender roles. Including extensive explanatory notes, maps and bibliographies, this Sourcebook is the ideal resource for all students and teachers embarking on a course in Roman social history.


Lives of the Romans

Lives of the Romans

Author: Philip Matyszak

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Published: 2013-11-18

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0500771693

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A vibrant portrait of a lost world, 'Lives of the Romans' reveals the mightiest civilization of antiquity through the eyes of 100 of its citizens. The book gives a voice not just to Rome's most famous generals and rulers, such as Caesar and Caligula, but also to her builders and sculptors, her poets, historians, gladiators, shepherds, slaves and courtesans. Exploring every level of society and using the latest archaeological evidence as well as ancient texts, the authors build up a picture of what it meant to be a Roman citizen. Note: The ebook edition includes the complete text of the printed book without illustrations


The Romans : from village to empire

The Romans : from village to empire

Author: Mary Taliaferro Boatwright

Publisher:

Published: 2011-11

Total Pages: 586

ISBN-13: 9780199730575

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"The Romans unfolds Rome's remarkable evolution from village to monarchy and then republic and finally to one-man rule by an emperor whose power at its peak stretched from Scotland to Iraq and the Nile Valley. Firmly grounded in ancient literary and material sources, the book captures and analyzes the outstanding political and military landmarks from the Punic Wars, to Caesar's conquest of Gaul and his crossing of the Rubicon, to the victory of Octavian over Mark Antony, to Constantine's adoption of Christianity. Here too are some of the most fascinating individuals ever to walk across the world stage, including Hannibal, Mithridates, Pompey, Cicero, Cleopatra, Augustus, Livia, Nero, Marcus Aurelius, and Shapur. The authors bring to life many aspects of Rome's cultural and social history, from the role of women, to literature, entertainments, town-planning, portraiture, and religion. The book incorporates more than 30 maps."--Jacket.


The Christians as the Romans Saw Them

The Christians as the Romans Saw Them

Author: Robert Louis Wilken

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2003-01-01

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9780300098396

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This book offers an engrossing portrayal of the early years of the Christian movement from the perspective of the Romans.


Why We're All Romans

Why We're All Romans

Author: Carl J. Richard

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2010-04-16

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 074256780X

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This engaging yet deeply informed work not only examines Roman history and the multitude of Roman achievements in rich and colorful detail but also delineates their crucial and lasting impact on Western civilization. Noted historian Carl J. Richard argues that although we Westerners are "all Greeks" in politics, science, philosophy, and literature and "all Hebrews" in morality and spirituality, it was the Romans who made us Greeks and Hebrews. As the author convincingly shows, from the Middle Ages on, most Westerners received Greek ideas from Roman sources. Similarly, when the Western world adopted the ethical monotheism of the Hebrews, it did so at the instigation of a Roman citizen named Paul, who took advantage of the peace, unity, stability, and roads of the empire to proselytize the previously pagan Gentiles, who quickly became a majority of the religion's adherents. Although the Roman government of the first century crucified Christ and persecuted Christians, Rome's fourth- and fifth-century leaders encouraged the spread of Christianity throughout the Western world. In addition to making original contributions to administration, law, engineering, and architecture, the Romans modified and often improved the ideas they assimilated. Without the Roman sense of social responsibility to temper the individualism of Hellenistic Greece, classical culture might have perished, and without the Roman masses to proselytize and the social and material conditions necessary to this evangelism, Christianity itself might not have survived.