This book concerns the relationship between ideas and power in the genesis of the Roman empire. The self-justification of the first emperor through the consensus of the citizen body constrained him to adhere to ‘legitimate’ and ‘traditional’ forms of self-presentation. Lobur explores how these notions become explicated and reconfigured by the upper and mostly non-political classes of Italy and Rome. The chronic turmoil experienced in the late republic shaped the values and program of the imperial system; it molded the comprehensive and authoritative accounts of Roman tradition and history in a way that allowed the system to appear both traditional and historical. This book also examines how shifts in rhetorical and historiographical practices facilitated the spreading and assimilation of shared ideas that allowed the empire to cohere.

The Roman empire remains unique. Although Rome claimed to rule the world, it did not. Rather, its uniqueness stems from the culture it created and the loyalty it inspired across an area that stretched from the Tyne to the Euphrates. Moreover, the empire created this culture with a bureaucracy smaller than that of a typical late-twentieth-century research university. In approaching this problem, Clifford Ando does not ask the ever-fashionable question, Why did the Roman empire fall? Rather, he asks, Why did the empire last so long? Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire argues that the longevity of the empire rested not on Roman military power but on a gradually realized consensus that Roman rule was justified. This consensus was itself the product of a complex conversation between the central government and its far-flung peripheries. Ando investigates the mechanisms that sustained this conversation, explores its contribution to the legitimation of Roman power, and reveals as its product the provincial absorption of the forms and content of Roman political and legal discourse. Throughout, his sophisticated and subtle reading is informed by current thinking on social formation by theorists such as Max Weber, Jürgen Habermas, and Pierre Bourdieu.

How encounters with the Roman Empire compelled the Jews of antiquity to rethink their conceptions of Israel and the Torah Throughout their history, Jews have lived under a succession of imperial powers, from Assyria and Babylonia to Persia and the Hellenistic kingdoms. Jews and Their Roman Rivals shows how the Roman Empire posed a unique challenge to Jewish thinkers such as Philo, Josephus, and the Palestinian rabbis, who both resisted and internalized Roman standards and imperial ideology. Katell Berthelot traces how, long before the empire became Christian, Jews came to perceive Israel and Rome as rivals competing for supremacy. Both considered their laws to be the most perfect ever written, and both believed they were a most pious people who had been entrusted with a divine mission to bring order and peace to the world. Berthelot argues that the rabbinic identification of Rome with Esau, Israel's twin brother, reflected this sense of rivalry. She discusses how this challenge transformed ancient Jewish ideas about military power and the use of force, law and jurisdiction, and membership in the people of Israel. Berthelot argues that Jewish thinkers imitated the Romans in some cases and proposed competing models in others. Shedding new light on Jewish thought in antiquity, Jews and Their Roman Rivals reveals how Jewish encounters with pagan Rome gave rise to crucial evolutions in the ways Jews conceptualized the Torah and conversion to Judaism.

From ancient times to the present day, utopian social ideas have made the unity of humankind a central concern. In the face of the threats to civic peace and harmony caused by misrule, factions, inequality, and moral weakness, philosophical and religious traditions in antiquity gave considered attention to the attainment of oneness both as an ideal and as an embodied practice. In this volume, scholars of ancient history, early Judaism, and biblical studies come together to show that ideas of unity and practices of oneness were grounded in larger conceptions of worldview, cosmic order, and power, with theological ideas such as the oneness of God laying an important foundation. In particular, contributors focus on how early Christians, with their inherited Jewish, Greek, and Roman traditions, reinterpreted oneness in light of their new identity as “members of Christ” and how they put it into practice. Contributors are Stephen C. Barton, Anna Sieges-Beal, Max Botner, Andrew J. Byers, Carsten Claußen, Kylie Crabbe, Robbie Griggs, James R. Harrison, Walter J. Houston, T. J. Lang, Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, John-Paul Lotz, Lynette Mitchell, Nicholas J. Moore, Elizabeth E. Shively, Julien C. H. Smith, and Alan Thompson.

In this wonderful collection of essays the reader travels with Columbanus through the Christian West, from Ireland to Brittany, from Northern Gaul to the Rhine, Bavaria, Alamannia, and Italy. Through the great Irishman's encounters with secular and ecclesiastical elites, with various religious cultures, Roman traditions, post-Roman states and peoples, this volume illuminates the profound changes that characterize the transition from the ancient to the medieval world.

The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre is a senatorial decree issued in AD 20 following the trial of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, the governor of Syria, who was accused of rebellion against Tiberius following the death of his heir Germanicus. It survives on several inscriptions and is among the most important documents from the early Principate. This new edition, with translation and commentary, sets the text within its contemporary context, considering it alongside other texts (including Tacitus' Annales), coins, and monuments, focusing upon the development of Tiberian political discourse. It explores how contemporary observers (including Valerius Maximus and Velleius Paterculus) understood and contributed to the shaping of dynastic rule at Rome after the death of Augustus in AD 14. It analyses how the Principate continued to evolve under his successor Tiberius, and explores the role of different individuals and groups in negotiating these political changes.