Preliminary Material /Steven E. Sidebotham -- Introduction /Steven E. Sidebotham -- Erythraean Sea Trade: Wares, Type, Cost and Volume /Steven E. Sidebotham -- Facilitating the Commerce: Roads, Ports and Canals for the Expanding Roman Trade /Steven E. Sidebotham -- Regulations, Traders and Taxes /Steven E. Sidebotham -- The Genesis and Evolution of Roman Policy in the Erythraean sea /Steven E. Sidebotham -- Conclusion /Steven E. Sidebotham -- The Terms 'Erythra Thalassa ' and 'Rubrum Mare ' /Steven E. Sidebotham -- The Date of the Periplus Maris Erythraei /Steven E. Sidebotham -- Bibliography /Steven E. Sidebotham -- Index /Steven E. Sidebotham.

During the first century BC, the Near and Middle Easy saw a great transition from the Seleucid and Ptolemaic Empires, by way of the brief Pontic and Armenian Empires, to the triumphant Parthian and Roman Empires. Richard D. Sullivan offers a guide to the central role of royalty during this period. He provides, through narrative and citations, a context for the frequent references to Eastern kings and queens by Caesar, Cicero, Strabo, Josephus, Tacitus, Appian, Dio, and others. He also discusses related inscriptions, coins, and papyri. Sullivan focuses on the personnel of the many dynasties which rules the Near and Middle East, from Thrace through Asia Minor and the Levant to Egypt, then eastward to Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Parthia. He studies such famous figures as Mithradates Eupator, Cleopatra, and Herod the Great as well as others now obscure. To ‘locate’ them properly, he provides a narrative history of each dynasty and draws them together in a coherent account of Eastern royal governance and its accommodations with Rome and Parthia.

Fragile Hierarchies deals with the world of the urban elites of third century Roman Egypt. It discusses economic, social and demographic aspects of the position of the elites of the small towns that dotted the Nile. The work combines analysis of Greek papyri with modelling techniques used in ancient history. The first part of the book analyses patterns of urbanisation, property relations and their consequences for elite formation. The second part discusses demographic aspects, patterns of inheritance and their consequences for continuity and discontinuity. The central argument of the book is that a strong social and economic hierarchy occurred side by side with a dynamic pattern of elite renewal.

An assessment of the economic success of Imperial Rome, consisting of eleven previously published papers by the historian W. V. Harris, with additional comments to bring them up to date. Harris also includes a new study of poverty and destitution, and a substantial introduction which ties the collection together.