The Roman Revolution
10 best books like The Roman Revolution (Ronald Syme): The Civil Wars, The History of Rome, Books 21-30: The War with Hannibal, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Vols. 1-4, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, Pagans and Christians, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, The World of Odysseus, Chronicle of the Roman Republic: The Rulers of Ancient Rome from Romulus to Augustus, Later Roman Empire, The Jugurthine War and the Conspiracy of Catiline
| Author | Appian |
| ISBN | 0140445099 |
Appian's Civil Wars offers a masterly account of the turbulent epoch from the time of Tiberius Gracchus (133 BC) to the tremendous conflicts which followed the murder of Julius Caesar. For the events between 133 and 70 BC he is the only surviving continuous narrative source. The subsequent books vividly...
It is Livy (59 BC-AD 17) who re-creates for us in vivid detail the terrible events of the Second Punic War, down to the Battle of Zama (202 BC). It is Livy who shows us the immense armies of Hannibal, elephants and all, crossing the Alps (still regarded as a near-miraculous feat by historians), the panic...
Rome falling is more interesting to Gibbon than Rome rising. Not in some shandenfreude sense, just objectively. Plus, whether intentional or not, he is building upon the classical historians before him. Specifically, I'm thinking of Tacitus who, between his Histories and Annals, covered from the...
| Author | Martin Goodman |
| ISBN | 0375411852 |
A magisterial history of the titanic struggle between the Roman and Jewish worlds that led to the destruction of Jerusalem.
In 70 C.E., after a four-year war, three Roman legions besieged and eventually devastated Jerusalem, destroying Herod’s magnificent Temple. Sixty years later,...
| Author | Robin Lane Fox |
| ISBN | 0670808482 |
Fox recreates the period from the 2nd to the 4th century, when the Olympians lost their dominion and Christianity, with Constantine's conversion, triumphed in the Mediterranean world.
CONTENTS
List of Maps
Preface
Pagans & Christians
Pagans & their cities
Pagan...
| Author | Erich S. Gruen |
| ISBN | 0520201531 |
The biggest problem with history is History. Writing the story of the events is replete with the spoilers that we see coming - the ones that none of the actors of the events understand. Scholars that write the books we read on any historical subject wrestle with this dilemma. The temptation to place...
| Author | Moses I. Finley |
| ISBN | 1590170172 |
The World of Odysseus is a concise and penetrating account of the society that gave birth to the Iliad and the Odyssey--a book that provides a vivid picture of the Greek Dark Ages, its men and women, works and days, morals and values. Long celebrated as a pathbreaking achievement in the social history...
| Author | Philip Matyszak |
| ISBN | 0500051216 |
The Roman Republic was one of the most civilized societies in the ancient world, ruled by elected officials whose power was checked by a constitution so well crafted that it inspired the founding fathers of the United States of America. Here Philip Matyszak describes fifty-seven of the foremost Romans...
| Author | Averil Cameron |
| ISBN | 0674511948 |
Marked by the shift of power from Rome to Constantinople and the Christianization of the Empire, this pivotal era requires a narrative and interpretative history of its own. Averil Cameron, an authority on later Roman and early Byzantine history and culture, captures the vigor and variety of the fourth...
| Author | Sallust |
| ISBN | 0140441328 |
"The Conspiracy of Catiline" (his first published work) contains the history of the memorable year 63. Sallust adopts the usually accepted view of Catiline, and describes him as the deliberate foe of law, order and morality, and does not give a comprehensive explanation of his views and intentions....
| Author | Tim J. Cornell |
| ISBN | 0415015960 |
Using the results of archaeological techniques, and examining methodological debates, Tim Cornell provides a lucid and authoritative account of the rise of Rome. The beginnings of Rome, once thought to be lost in the mists of legend, are now being revealed by an ever-increasing body of archaeological...
| Author | Robert L. O'Connell |
| ISBN | 1400067022 |
A stirring account of the most influential battle in history: For millennia, Carthage's triumph over Rome at Cannae in 216 BCE has inspired reverent awe. It was the battle that countless armies tried to imitate, most notably in World Wars I & II, the battle that obsessed military minds. Yet no general...
| Author | H.H. Scullard |
| ISBN | 0415025273 |
I enjoyed reading (or maybe more accurate--I enjoyed having read) H. H. Scullard's masterpiece. Scullard's first publishing of the book was in 1959, and he updated the information and republished in 1963, 1970, 1976, and 1982. In fact, what prevented further publishing was Scullard's death in 1983....
| Author | Mary Beard |
| ISBN | 0674026136 |
Listen to a short interview with Mary BeardHost: Chris Gondek - Producer: Heron & Crane
It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers;...
Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age
| Author | Peter Green |
| ISBN | 0520083490 |
The Hellenistic Age, the three extraordinary centuries from the death of Alexander in 323 B. C. to Octavian's final defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, has offered a rich and variegated field of exploration for historians, philosophers, economists, and literary critics. Yet few...
Taken at the Flood: The Roman Conquest of Greece
"Is there anyone on earth who is so narrow-minded or uninquisitive that he could fail to want to know how and thanks to what kind of political system almost the entire known world was conquered and brought under a single empire in less than fifty-three years?" --Polybius, Histories
The 53-year period...
| Author | Peter R.L. Brown |
| ISBN | 0393958035 |
This remarkable study in social and cultural change explains how and why the Late Antique world, between c. 150 and c. 750, came to differ from "Classical civilization."
These centuries, as the author demonstrates, were the era in which the most deeply rooted of ancient institutions disappeared...
The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus
| Author | Paul Zanker |
| ISBN | 0472081241 |
"Art and architecture are mirrors of a society. They reflect the state of its values, especially in times of crisis or transition." Upon this premise Paul Zanker builds an interpretation of Augustan art as a visual language that both expressed and furthered the transformation of Roman society during...
| Author | Adrian Goldsworthy |
| ISBN | 0500051240 |
The Roman army was one of the most successful fighting forces in history. Its organization and tactics were highly advanced and were unequaled until the modern era. Spectacular monuments to its perseverance and engineering skill are still visible today, most notably Hadrian’s Wall and the siegeworks...
| Author | Bryan Ward-Perkins |
| ISBN | 0192807285 |
Was the fall of Rome a great catastrophe that cast the West into darkness for centuries to come? Or, as scholars argue today, was there no crisis at all, but simply a peaceful blending of barbarians into Roman culture, an essentially positive transformation?
In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian...
An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire, 54 BC - AD 409
| Author | David Mattingly |
| ISBN | 0140148221 |
The definitive history of Roman Britain
In the first major narative history of the subject in more than a generation, David Mattingly brings life in Britain during four hundred years of Roman domination into vivid relief. Drawing on a wealth of new research and cutting through the myths and...
