Rome
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General archaeology and culture
P. Jones and K. Sidwell’s The World of Rome: an introduction to Roman culture (1997, Cambridge, CUP) is excellent, while P. Connolly and H. Dodge’s The Ancient City: life in Classical Athens and Rome (1998, Oxford, OUP) is very good on the archaeology of ancient Rome. Though old, J. Carcopino’s Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the people and the city at the height of the empire (1956, Harmondsworth, Penguin) is a superb window on everyday life. M.I. Finley’s The Ancient Economy (1992, London, Penguin) is invaluable in the light it throws on how the ancient world actually worked. J. Ferguson’s The Religions of the Roman Empire (1970, London, Thames & Hudson) is sound, as is K. Dowden’s Religion and the Romans (1992, Bristol, Bristol Classical). R. MacMullen’s Paganism in the Roman Empire (1981, New Haven, Yale) tries to get beneath the skin of Roman religion. R.E.M. Wheeler’s Roman Art and Architecture (1964, London, Thames & Hudson) remains a superb short introduction. M.I. Finley’s (ed.) Atlas of the Classical World (1977, London, Chatto & Windus) is a good general archaeological reference. On the archaeology of Italy generally, T.W. Potter’s Roman Italy (1987, London, British Museum) offers a good overview. On Pompeii, A.E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley’s Pompeii: a sourcebook (2004, London, Routledge) is a useful collection of inscriptions, and M. Grant’s Cities of Vesuvius: Pompeii and Herculaneum (1976, Harmondsworth, Penguin) is still a fine general introduction to the archaeology. Also good are J.J. Deiss’s Herculaneum: Italy’s buried treasure (1989, California, John Paul Getty Museum) and A. Wallace-Hadrill’s Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (1994, Princeton, Princeton University). Among the countless studies of other regions, provinces and cities of the Roman Empire, I have found the following useful: S. Keay’s Roman Spain (1988, London, British Museum); A. King’s Roman Gaul and Germany (1990, London, British Museum); N. Lewis’s Life in Egypt under Roman Rule (1983, Oxford, Clarendon); S. Raven’s Rome in Africa (1969, London, Evans Brothers); P. Salway’s A History of Roman Britain (1997, Oxford, OUP); and Iain Browning’s three studies, Palmyra (1979, London, Chatto & Windus), Jerash and the Decapolis (1982, London, Chatto & Windus), and Petra (1989, 3rd edn, London, Chatto & Windus). On the other hand, Richard Reece’s My Roman Britain (1988, Cirencester, Cotswold Studies) can be recommended to all those who wish to avoid misuse of archaeological evidence.
Prologue
The two key texts for the mythological account of the origins of Rome and the Romans are Virgil’s The Aeneid (trans. W.F. Jackson Knight, 1958, Harmondsworth, Penguin) and Book 1 of Livy’s The Early History of Rome (trans. A. de Sélincourt, 1960, Harmondsworth, Penguin). Useful critical discussion of these texts can be found in J. Griffin’s Virgil (1986, Oxford, OUP), R. Jenkyns’ Classical Epic: Homer and Virgil (1992, London, Bristol Classical Press), and P.G. Walsh’s Livy: his historical aims and methods (1989, Bristol, Bristol Classical Press). M.C. Howatson’s (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (1989, Oxford, OUP) is also useful. There are handy short summaries on the sources for early Roman history in M. Cary’s A History of Rome down to the reign of Constantine (1935, London, Macmillan), R.M. Ogilvie’s Early Rome and the Etruscans (1976, London, Fontana), and M. Crawford’s The Roman Republic (1992, London, Fontana).
Chapter 1
R.M. Ogilvie’s Early Rome and the Etruscans (1976, London, Fontana) is a generally sensible short introduction to the period c. 650 to 390 BC, but it is overly preoccupied with some rather arcane scholarly debates, and the interpretation of events is often weak. A far more reliable and up-to-date study is T.J. Cornell’s The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC) (1995, London, Routledge); a recent work of high scholarship, this is now the main academic reference for the history of early Rome. M. Pallottino’s The Etruscans (1955, Harmondsworth, Penguin) is still a good introductory book, while A. Boëthius’s Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture (1978, Harmondsworth, Penguin) is a standard work, and N. Spivey’s Etruscan Art (1997, London, Thames & Hudson) is a concise introduction. R.R. Holloway’s The Archaeology of Early Rome and Latium (1996, London, Routledge) is a comprehensive and well-illustrated summary of archaeo-logical evidence, while T.W. Potter’s The Changing Landscape of South Etruria (1979, London, Paul Elek) summarizes the results of a major landscape project immediately north of Rome. Victor Davis Hanson’s The Western Way of War: infantry battle in Classical Greece (1989, London, Hodder & Stoughton) is an excellent analysis of hoplite warfare. The Celtic or Gaulish background is well covered in T.G.E. Powell’s The Celts (1983, London, Thames & Hudson), B. Cunliffe’s The Ancient Celts (1999, London, OUP), and S. James’s Exploring the World of the Celts (1993, London, Thames & Hudson).
Chapter 2
W.V. Harris’s War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 BC (1985, Oxford, OUP) is a masterful study in which the evidence is assembled to demonstrate Republican Rome’s essentially aggressive and predatory character. E.T. Salmon’s Roman Colonisation under the Republic (1969, London, Thames & Hudson) is the standard work on colonies. J.G. Pedley’s Paestum: Greeks and Romans in Southern Italy (1990, London, Thames & Hudson) provides an insight into the archaeology and multicultural civilization of southern Italy. R. Meiggs’s Roman Ostia (1973, Oxford, OUP) is the standard work on this very important site. J.K. Davies’ Democracy and Classical Greece (1993, London, Fontana) and F.W. Walbank’s The Hellenistic World (1992, London, Fontana) provide good introductions to the Greek world, while M.I. Finley’s A History of Sicily: Ancient Sicily to the Arab Conquest (1968, London, Chatto & Windus) contains rich insights into the decay of Greek civilization. Possibly the two best books on the Punic Wars are B. Craven’s The Punic Wars (1980, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) and A. Goldsworthy’s The Punic Wars (2000. London, Cassell). The ancient accounts in Polybius (The Rise of the Roman Empire, trans. I. Scott-Kilvert, 1979, Harmondsworth, Penguin) and Livy (The War with Hannibal, trans. A. de Sélincourt, 1965, Harmondsworth, Penguin) are highly accessible. A. Goldsworthy’s Cannae (2001, London, Cassell) offers a vivid reconstruction of ancient combat.
Chapter 3
The literature on the Late Republic is huge. R. Syme’s The Roman Revolution (1960, Oxford, OUP) is seminal. T. Holland’s Rubicon: the triumph and tragedy of the Roman Republic (2003, London, Little, Brown) has been deservedly praised: when has Roman history ever been such a compelling and convincing read? M. Parenti’s The Assassination of Julius Caesar: a people’s history of ancient Rome (2003, New York, New Press) is an excellent read and a refreshingly acerbic indictment of the Late Republican ruling class, but the analysis of Caesar and what he represented is naïve. K. Hopkins’s Conquerors and Slaves (1978, Cambridge, CUP) is an excellent analysis of slavery under the Republic by someone who is both classicist and sociologist. Also valuable on slavery are K. Bradley’s Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 BC – 70 BC (1989, London, Batsford) and Slavery and Society at Rome (1994, Cambridge, CUP). The standard work on the vexed question of citizenship is A.N. Sherwin-White’s The Roman Citizenship (1973, Oxford, OUP), while J.P.V.D. Balsdon’s Romans and Aliens (1979, London, Duckworth) is a superb exposé of the snobbery and prejudice that permeated Roman society. Several of the leading figures of the Late Republic have attracted modern biographies. Among the more important are Peter Greenhalgh’s Pompey: the Roman Alexander (1980, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) and Christian Meier’s Caesar (1996, London, Fontana), though J.P.V.D. Balsdon’s Julius Caesar and Rome (1967, London, English Universities) and Michael Grant’s Julius Caesar (1972, London, Granada) are good, concise, serviceable accounts.
Chapter 4
There are good biographies of all the Julio-Claudian emperors, notably P. Southern’s Augustus (1998, Routledge, London), B. Levick’s Tiberius the Politician (1986, Beckenham, Croom Helm), A.A. Barrett’s Caligula: the corruption of power (1993, London, Batsford), B. Levick’s Claudius (1993, London, Batsford), and M.T. Griffin’s Nero: the end of a dynasty (1987, London, Batsford). Also of great value are
D. Earl’s The Age of Augustus (1968, London, Elek) and the excellent Open University sourcebook by K. Chisholm and J. Ferguson, Rome: the Augustan Age (1981, Oxford, OUP). P. Garnsey and R. Saller’s The Roman Empire: economy, society and culture (1987, London, Duckworth) is good on the mechanics of the Early Empire. G. Woolf’s Becoming Roman: the origins of provincial civilisation in Gaul (1998, Cambridge, CUP) is a scholarly study of the Romanization process, while M. Millett’s The Romanization of Britain: an essay in archaeological interpretation (1992, Cambridge, CUP) is equally good but using archaeological evidence. The First Jewish War and the Palestinian background are covered in my Apocalypse: the great Jewish revolt against Rome, AD 66–73 (2002, Stroud, Tempus). Trajan’s Dacian Wars are well covered by a combination of Frank Lepper and Sheppard Frere’s Trajan’s Column (1988, Gloucester, Alan Sutton), a scholarly study of the sculptures, and Peter Connolly’s Tiberius Claudius Maximus: the Legionary (1988a, Oxford, OUP) and Tiberius Claudius Maximus: the Cavalryman (1988b, Oxford, OUP), which are popular illustrated books aimed at older children.
Chapter 5
The best narrative account of the first part of this period is H.M.D. Parker’s A History of the Roman World from AD 138 to 337 (1935, London, Methuen), whereas a more thematic approach to the same period is offered by P. Southern’s The Roman Empire from Severus and Constantine (2001, London, Routledge). Overlapping with these studies but taking the story up to the beginning of the 7th century are the magisterial volumes of A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–60: a social, economic and administrative survey (2 vols, 1986, Oxford, Blackwell), and The Decline of the Ancient World (1966, London, Longmans), which is effectively a précis of the former. Another narrative history, J.B. Bury’s History of the Later Roman Empire from the death of Theodosius I to the death of Justinian (2 vols, 1958, New York, Dover), covers the period AD 395 to 565, again in exceptional detail. Other important studies of the period include P. Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity (1971, London, Thames & Hudson) and The Making of Late Antiquity (1993, London, Harvard), A. Cameron’s The Later Roman Empire, AD 284–430 (1993, London, Fontana) and The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, AD 395–600 (1993, London, Routledge), and B. Ward-Perkins’s The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation (2005, Oxford, OUP). M. Maas’s Readings in Late Antiquity: a sourcebook (2000, London, Routledge) is a handy collection. Good imperial biographies for this period include A.R. Birley’s Septimius Severus: the African emperor (1999, London, Routledge), S. Williams’s Diocletian and the Roman Recovery (2000, London, Routledge), A.H.M. Jones’s Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (1948, London, Hodder & Stoughton), J. Holland Smith’s Constantine the Great (1971, New York, Charles Scribner’s), and S. Williams and G. Friell’s Theodosius: the empire at bay (1994, London, Batsford). R. MacMullen makes many interesting observations in Corruption and the Decline of Rome (1988, New Haven, Yale University). My The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain (2000, Stroud, Tempus) offers an archaeological case-study, and the archaeology of Late Roman towns generally is covered in John Rich’s (ed.) The City in Late Antiquity (1992, London, Routledge) and J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman City (2003, Oxford, OUP). E. Hobsbawm’s Bandits (1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin) is an important work of historical sociology with real value in understanding the hidden history of the Late Roman Empire. N. Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millennium: revolutionary millenarians and mystical anarchists of the Middle Ages (1970, London, Paladin) may be useful in getting a grip on the true character of groups like the North African circumcelliones. Disease and Roman responses to it are covered in R. Jackson’s Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire (1995, London, British Museum).
Index and glossary
An index should be useful. Therefore, only substantive references have been included; minor passing references have generally been ignored. Where subjects are discussed at length, full page runs are given. The index also functions as a mini-glossary, providing summary descriptions and definitions. Historical figures are listed under the name by which they are best known; unless otherwise stated, they can be assumed to be Roman. Most towns, provinces and regions are shown on the maps and have not been included in the index unless the text offers more substantive information. Entries are usually in English, occasionally in Latin, according to what seemed most logical. Some references are subsumed under general categories, such as Temple of Jupiter under Rome. References under general categories are listed in text rather than alphabetic order. Where possible, I have tried to index discussion of key themes, so the index includes some abstract-noun concepts, of which the most important is Roman imperialism.
Achaean League, confederation of cities in southern Greece 98–99
Actium, battle of 174–176
Adherbal, Numidian ruler favoured by Rome 125
Adrianople, battle of 290–292
aedilis (aedile), junior Roman magistrate 32, 43
Aegates Islands, battle of 73
Aemilianus, emperor 254
Aeneas, mythic Trojan hero 1–2, 4–6
Aeneid, Latin epic poem 1–2, 4–6
Aëtius, general, effective ruler of Western Empire 302–305
Aetolian League, confederation of cities in north-west Greece 95–96
ager publicus (publicly owned farmland) 112, 114
ager Romanus (Roman land), territory belonging to Roman citizens 25, 37, 40, 50, 67
agri deserti (abandoned fields) 282
Agricola, Gnaeus Julius, Flavian Governor of Britain 206–210
Agrigento, Greek city in Sicily 69, 109–110
Agrippa, Marcus, leading lieutenant of Augustus 173
Agrippina, empress of Claudius, mother of Nero 195–196
Alaric, King of Visigoths 298–299
Alba Longa, ancient city of Latium 2–3
Alesia, siege of 160–161
Allia, battle of 39
Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman historian of Late Empire 287
Amulius, mythic king of Alba Longa 3
Anchises, mythic father of Aeneas 1–2
Ancus Marcius, fourth king of Rome 3–4
Andriscus, Macedonian pretender and anti-Roman rebel 98–99
Antiochus III, ruler of Seleucid kingdom 96–97
Antium, seaboard town in southern Latium 49
Antoninus Pius, emperor 227–229
Antonius Primus, Flavian general in civil war of AD 69 203
Antony, Mark, ally of Caesar, member of Second Triumvirate 163, 170–176
Appius Claudius, Sabine chieftain admitted to Senate 28
Appius Claudius Caecus, Middle Republican politician and general 44
Appius Claudius Pulcher, hawkish Middle Republican politician 62
Appius Claudius Pulcher, senior senator, ally of Gracchi, father-in-law of Tiberius 102–103
Aquae Sextiae, battle of 128
Aquitania, Gothic settlement in Western Empire 300, 306–307
Arausio, battle of 127–128
Arbogast, pagan general in Late Roman West 295–296
Arcadius, emperor, son of Theodosius 295–297
Aricia, battle of 26–27
Aricia, Latin city and capital of rebel confederation 29
Armenia 153
Arminius, German chieftain, victor of Teutoburg Forest 185
army, Roman
in chiefdom period 15
in regal period 23–24
in Samnite Wars 55
in Second Punic War 80, 84–86
in Macedonian Wars 94
in Spanish Wars 104–105, 108–109
reformed by Marius 131–133
in Late Republican civil conflicts 133–134
in Early Empire 179, 181–182
under military monarchy 233–235, 243
in Anarchy 258–260
in Late Empire 266–268, 293–294, 300
Ascanius, mythic son of Aeneas 1–2
Assembly of the Cantons (Comitia Curiata), Roman popular assembly 15, 24, 43
Assembly of the Centuries (Comitia Centuriae), Roman popular assembly 24, 41, 43, 115
Assembly of the Plebs (Concilium Plebis), Roman popular assembly 33, 35, 41, 43
Assembly of the Tribes, Roman popular assembly 43, 115
assidui, small farmer class of ancient Rome
in chiefdom period 19
in Early Republic 30–32, 35
in Late Republic 105–108, 114–115, 123
Atargatis-Demeter, deity worshipped by Sicilian slave rebels 110–111
Athaulf, King of Visigoths 299–300
Athenion, revolutionary leader in Second Sicilian Slave War 129
Athens 225–226
Attila, King of Huns 303–305
auctoritas (authority), combination of authority, influence and prestige 29, 43
Augustus (aka Octavian), civil war leader and first emperor
imperial4–7, 174–175, 184–185
in Second Triumvirate 170–176
consolidating power after Actium 177–182
imperial expansion 182–186
problem of succession 186–188
Aulus Plautius, general under Claudius, conqueror of Britain 194
Aurelian, emperor 259–261
Ausculum, battle of 62–63
auxiliaries, non-citizen troops in Roman army 182
Avidius Cassius, leader of revolt against Marcus Aurelius 235–236
Baecula, battle of 86
bagaudae, peasant rebels in Late Empire 279–281
banditry 278–281
Bar-Kokhba, leader of Second Jewish Revolt 226–227