The year of the four emperors in AD 193 shows the cosmopolitan interconnectedness of the Roman Empire, yet scholarship has long framed the Severan dynasty in a narrative of descent stressing their North African and in particular their Syrian origins. The contributions of this volume question this conventional approach and instead examine more closely actual Severan policy in the Near East to detect potential local connections that determined this policy as well as how local communities and elites reacted to it. The volume thus explores new beginnings and old connections in the Roman Near East.

The Religious World of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus examines the religious life of one of the last pagan senators of Rome, dates c. 340-402, who lived in a tumultuous time during the Late Antique period of the Roman Empire, dying just a few years before the Western Empire began to break up. Symmachus could not have imagined the political reality developing so soon after his death, so he is important as a late example of the old Roman Western aristocracy, as well as one of the last pagans of Rome. He was regarded as the foremost orator of his time and was a prolific letter-writer who had correspondents in high places and throughout the Empire. He also filled the posts of Urban Prefect of Rome and Consul - and was the opponent of Bishop Ambrose of Milan during the so-called 384 CE "Altar of Victory Dispute," which was one episode of many leading to the " triumph" of Christianity over traditional Roman polytheism. Symmachus cache of 900 private letters and his official despatches while Urban Prefect have provided the raw material for this book.

Marcus Furius Camillus is the dominant figure in our traditional history of the Roman Republic in the early fourth century. He has been featured in histories of Rome since the Renaissance, but currently is viewed with great scepticism, some even questioning his very existence. What is notably absent, however, is any reference to a system of historical method: how one distinguishes fact from fiction. This is the first modern monograph on Camillus, and it grapples head-on with this problem. The results are unexpected.

This volume offers the first comprehensive analysis in English of all the writings of Julian (r. AD 361-363), the last pagan emperor of Rome, noted for his frontal and self-conscious challenge to Christianity. The book also contains treatments of Julians laws, inscriptions, coinage, as well as his artistic programme. Across nineteen papers, international specialists in the field of Late Antique Studies offer original interpretations of an extraordinary figure: emperor and philosopher, soldier and accomplished writer. Julian, his life and writings, are here considered as parts of the tumult in politics, culture and religion during the Fourth Century AD. New light is shed on Julians distinctive literary style and imperial agenda. The volume also includes an up-to-date, consolidated bibliography.

Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius, son of Pompey the Great, fits uneasily - or not at all - into the grand narrative of the civil war of 49-31BC. Modern scholars tend to exclude him or mention him without asking what or whom he represented. Ronald Syme, the father of international orthodoxy in this field, famously remarked that Sextus was in reality an adventurer who was easily represented as a pirate. He was wrong. Sextus Pompeius plays havoc with key elements of the accepted narrative. His military success destroys the myth of continuous Caesarian victory. His commitment to rescuing the victims of Triumviral violence belies claims that only the Caesarian side represented clementia and justice. The naval strategy by which he conducted the war demonstrates his commitment to the same cause and ethics as his father and his fathers allies. Welch argues that, far from being a side-show or a bit player, Sextus Pompeius was integral to the fight for the res publica. She solves the problem by placing him at the centre of the story of Romes transition from Republic to Empire and so reveals a very different landscape that emerges as a result.

Cicero, and others in the Roman Republic, were masters of both invective and panegyric, two hugely important genres in ancient oratory, which influenced the later theory and practice of rhetoric. The papers in this volume address strategies of vituperation and eulogy within the Republic, and examine the mechanisms and effects of praise and blame.

The fifteen papers in this volume discuss issues of Roman social, cultural and political history from the foundation of the Principate to the age of barbarian settlements of the west. Working imaginatively from within the diverse evidence, they show the institutional continuity of the Roman empire between its early and later periods, and reveal the roots of political behaviour in social practice. Five of the papers, including three of the most substantial, are previously unpublished; others have appeared in collections which are now difficult to find. The author has edited the whole to bring out thematic connections as well as for consistency of presentation.

The bawdy comedies of Aristophanes gradually began to attract more attention among learned circles in the later 16th century. This trend culminated in 1586, when Nicodemus Frischlin produced new and strikingly original Latin versions of five plays by Aristophanes. With this work Frischlin completely recast the place of Aristophanes in the Republic of Letters, forcing readers to approach him as a dramatist of tremendous contemporary relevance. Frischlin was able to rehabilitate Aristophanes by calling attention both to the practical advice his plays could give on the administration of a res publica, and to the light they could shed on serious problems concerning rhetorical education and political discourse within the troubled Holy Roman Empire under Rudolf II. This work aims to restore Frischlins translations to their rightful place of honor within the broader reception tradition of Aristophanes and Old Comedy, while analyzing them within the context of Frischlins own longstandingcampaigns for educational and political reform.

Augustus Memoirs, written probably in the mid 20s BC, might have been one of the most revealing texts of Roman history - had they survived. Far longer than his surviving Res Gestae, the Memoirs seem to date from a period at which the wounds of Romes civil wars were fresh, and the emperors partisan past might be recalled with discomfort. Existing fragments and testimonia have suggested that the work was apologetic in purpose. In this, the first ever comprehensive study of the subject, a cast of internationally-respected scholars reconstruct aspects of the work, its importance for historians, and its relation to Roman literary genre. The book also contains, by kind permission of Oxford University Press, the fragments and testimonia of the Memoirs as they will appear, newly edited by Christopher Smith, in The Fragmentary Roman Historians.

The period AD 300-600 saw huge changes. The Graeco-Roman city-state was first transformed then eclipsed. Much of the Roman Empire broke up and was reconfigured. New barbarian kingdoms emerged in the Roman West. Above all, religious culture moved from polytheistic to monotheistic. Here, twenty papers by international scholars explore how group identities were established against this shifting background. Separate sections treat the Latin-speaking West, the Greek East, and the age of Justinian. Themes include religious conversion, Roman law in the barbarian West, problems of Jewish identity, and what in Late Antiquity it meant to be Roman.

Eleven new essays, from an international cast, trace the development of political culture in the Roman Republic. Themes include the flourishing of civic society, as with the introduction of the Roman Games, and the emergence of a theory of politeness. How was a Roman aristocrat formed? How did the term Optimates develop from the middle Republic onwards? And how, especially, did the rhetoric of Cicero reflect and adapt to the pressures of civil war in the Republics climactic and dying years?

The son of Pompey the Great cast a long shadow. Acclaimed by the Roman populace in his lifetime, his traditional virtues and military successes put to shame his civil-war rival Octavian. After his death, he was passionately and safely abused by Octavian and Augustan writers as a marginal nuisance, a pirate. The image of a second rank figure has been propagated by scholars into recent times. But a very different story can now be constructed, from the testimony of historians and poets in antiquity and from the eloquent and long-neglected coinage of Sextus Pompeius himself. Here ten studies from an international cast reveal a figure whose actions and image shaped the ethos not just of the civil-war period but of the early Principate.

The plays of Seneca the Younger, minister and philosopher under Nero, are today increasingly studied, appreciated and performed. Here, in twelve new papers from a distinguished international cast, scholars explore established questions, such as whether the plays were written for the stage, and newer topics such as the playwrights subtleties of characterisation, his relation to contemporary Roman spectacle and art - and the problems arising in translating him to modern text or stage.

Con ocasión del bimilenario de la muerte de Augusto en 2014, nos sumamos a la conmemoración internacional de esta efeméride con una serie de actividades que tomaron como hilo conductor el tratamiento interdisciplinar de la mujer en el saeculum augustum. Esta monografia se forja en ese concreto contexto; asi, desde los campos del Derecho romano, Historia del Derecho, Historia antigua, Historia medieval, Literatura, Arqueologia e Historia del arte, se recogen diversos trabajos de investigacion sobre mujeres reales en la frontera temporal y politica en la que convergen dos siglos, dos sistemas de poder: la Republica y el Imperio.

Las disposiciones de Derecho conocidas como constituciones imperiales nuevas, esto es, Novelas, emitidas por el emperador Mayoriano entre el 457-460 d.C. han estado siempre presentes en los escritos especializados sobre el Bajo Imperio a proposito de multiples temas, pero normalmente como sucintas referencias al hilo de investigaciones sobre materias legisladas por otros emperadores; no obstante, desde finales del s. XIX d.C., el perfil sui generis de Mayoriano ha suscitado interes propio en algunos articulos especificos y en obras de conjunto, comenzando por la de Cantarelli en 1883. Se destaca sin duda alguna en el estudio de la normativa mayorianea la monografia de Oppedisano, quien desde su formacion como historiador en el año 2013 ofrecio una esplendida vision de conjunto del contexto politico-militar, vida y obra de este Emperador, asi como de su legislacion.En esta investigacion pongo especialmente el foco de atencion en cuatro de las Novelas mayorianeas, publicadas entre los años 458 y 459 d.C., que afectan a la condicion juridica de las mujeres que le son coetaneas; abarcando con ello la descripcion de modelos femeninos que conviven en un mismo espacio temporal y fisico el Imperio romano de Occidente, pero dispares por su extraccion social: Solteras, casadas, viudas, aristocratas y campesinas-colonas.

Septimius Severus was Romes black emperor. Born in the blistering heat of a North African spring in Leptis Magna AD 145, he died in the freezing cold of a northern British winter in York in AD 211. A giant of an emperor, whose career can be counted in superlatives, Severus was in power at the height of Romes might. He led the largest army to ever campaign in Britain, comprising 50,000 men, part of a Roman military establishment which peaked at 33 legions under his rule.Born into the richest family, in the richest part of the Roman Empire, Severus monumentalised his rule across the empire. He visited - and often fought in - every region. Where he did, he left a mighty legacy in the built environment, for example in Rome where much of the Forum Romanum and most of the imperial palaces are Severan. In North Africa, his hometown of Leptis Magna is all Severan, as are the Roman cities at the Atlas mountains. In London, the land walls that still define the Citys Square Mile were delineated under his rule. Visitors to the under croft at York Minster can stand where he died.Septimius Severus was one of the greatest warrior emperors, a hard man who almost died in battle several times and whose attitude is reflected in his deathbed advice to two sons: Be of one mind with your family, enrich the soldiers, and despise the rest.

El nombre de Nerón, emperador del Imperio romano entre los años 54 y el 68, ha sido durante mucho tiempo sinónimo de crueldad, decadencia y despotismo. Según nos han contado, ordenó prender fuego a Roma y, mientras tanto, el tocaba la lira; luego, hizo limpiar los destrozos y las ruinas carbonizadas y construyo un gran palacio. Cometio incesto con su madre, Agripina, quien lo puso en el trono, y luego lo asesino... Pero todas estas historias no forman una imagen completa del personaje, lleno de matices y contradicciones.Por el contrario, durante su mandato, el Imperio estuvo bien administrado; presidio triunfos diplomaticos, y las legiones finalmente consquistaron Britania, tras vencer a la feroz reina icena Boudica, que habia encabezado una de las mayores revueltas a las que Roma jamas se tuvo que enfrentar. Neron amaba el arte, la cultura y la musica, y se gano la fidelidad de las clases bajas organizando espectaculos grandiosos. Y, segun parece, no mando incendiar Roma.Ahora, al fin, gracias a esta biografia escrita por el historiador Anthony Everitt y el periodista de investigacion Roddy Ashworth, podemos comprender realmente quien fue Neron y cual fue su historia. Y, ademas, podemos disfrutar de una antigua Roma que cobra vida.

Built around AD122, Hadrians Wall was guarded by the Roman army for over three centuries and has left an indelible mark on the landscape of northern Britain. It was a wonder of the ancient world and is a World Heritage Site. Written by a leading archaeologist who has excavated widely on the Wall, this is an authoritative yet accessible treatment of the archaeological evidence. The book explains why the expansion of the Roman empire ground to a halt in remote northern Britain, how the Wall came to be built and the purpose it was intended to serve. It is not a guidebook to the remains, but an introduction to the Wall and the soldiers and civilians, men, women and children, who once peopled the abandoned ruins visited by tourists today.

Tras el asesinato de Julio César en el 44 a. C., fueron dos los hombres que se disputaban el mandato de la todopoderosa Roma: Marco Antonio y el heredero elegido por el propio César, el joven Octavio, futuro Augusto. Pero Marco Antonio se enamoro de la mujer mas poderosa del mundo, la gobernante egipcia Cleopatra, y frustro la ambicion de Octavio de gobernar el Imperio. Y entonces estallo una nueva guerra civil.Corria el año 31 a. C. cuando tuvo lugar una de las mayores batallas navales del mundo antiguo: mas de 600 barcos, casi 200000 hombres y una mujer. Aquello fue la batalla de Accio. El resultado: la victoria de Octavio, que derroto posteriormente a Marco Antonio y Cleopatra. Y estos acabaron suicidandoseLas consecuencias de Accio cambiaron para siempre el Imperio romano. De haber ganado los amantes, la capital podria haberse trasladado a Alejandria, y el latin podria haberse convertido en el segundo idioma del Imperio despues del griego, lengua que se hablaba en todo el Mediterraneo oriental, incluido Egipto.Y esta es por fin la historia que no se habia contado. En esta fascinante y emocionante historia, Barry Strauss, experto mundial en Historia de la Roma antigua, describe la batalla y sus consecuencias con el dramatismo y la intensidad que merece. Fascinante y emocionante, este ensayo es una obra esencial que nos presenta, ademas, a tres de las figuras mas importantes no solo del Imperio romano, sino de nuestra Historia con mayusculas.

En este trabajo esencial y esclarecedor, Barry Strauss cuenta la histoira del Imperio romano desde sus inicios hasta su cambio final; desde Augusto, que fundó el imperio como tal, hasta Constantino, que lo convirtio al cristianismo y traslado la capital de Roma a Constantinopla. Una suma de tres siglos y medio, vistos a traves de la vida de diez de los emperadores mas importantes.Con esta novela se inicia la trilogia de Las Cronicas del Señor de la Guerra.Durante estos siglos, Roma gano esplendor y territorios, para luego perder ambas cosas. El legado de Roma permanece hoy en muchas facetas del dia a dia, desde el lenguaje, la ley y la arquitectura hasta la sede de la Iglesia Catolica. Sin embargo, en el siglo IV, en tiempos de Constantino, el Imperio romano habia cambiado tan drasticamente en geografia, poblacion, religion y cultura que habria sido practicamente irreconocible para Augusto. Pero Strauss estudia esa herencia perdurable a traves de las vidas de los hombres que la conformaron: Augusto, Tiberio, Neron, Vespasiacno, Trajano, Adriano, Marco Aurelio, Septimio Severo, Diocleciano y Constantino. on el paso del tiempo, los emperadores eprendieron a mantener el negocio familiar -el gobierno de un imperio-, sin importar las consecuencias.Con un estilo tan ameno como clarividente, y gracias al profundo conocimiento de la epoca del autor, Diez Cesares se convierte en una narrativa cautivadora que da nueva vida a diez personajes que transformaron la Historia. Sin duda, esta magnifica suma de cuatro siglos de historia romana, obra maestra de la condensacion del saber, confirma a Barry Strauss como el principal escritor academico de los tiempos clasicos para el lector general de hoy.