An in-depth analysis of the changes that occurred between AD 150 and 600 that led into the medieval world, with particular focus on the visual arts.

To the work of a great historian this edition adds a clear and balanced picture of the century of change that led to Vatican Council and the century of even greater change that brought Vatican Council II.

There is no other published book in English studying the constitution of the Roman Republic as a whole. Yet the Greek historian Polybius believed that the constitution was a fundamental cause of the exponential growth of Rome's empire. He regarded the Republic as unusual in two respects: first, because it functioned so well despite being a mix of monarchy, oligarchy and democracy; secondly, because the constitution was the product of natural evolution rather than the ideals of a lawgiver. Even if historians now seek more widely for the causes of Rome's rise to power, the importance and influence of her political institutions remains. The reasons for Rome's power are both complex, on account of the mix of elements, and flexible, inasmuch as they were not founded on written statutes but on unwritten traditions reinterpreted by successive generations. Knowledge of Rome's political institutions is essential both for ancient historians and for those who study the contribution of Rome to the republican tradition of political thought from the Middle Ages to the revolutions inspired by the Enlightenment.

Excerpt from The Constitution of the Later Roman Empire The Later Koman Empire is an example of absolute monarchy, and I propose to shew that so far as it is concerned there is a good deal more to be said. The term absolute monarchy is applied in contradistinction to limited or constitutional monarchy. I understand the former to mean that the whole legislative, judicial, and executive powers of the state are vested in the monarch, and there is no other independent and concurrent authority. The latter means that besides the so-called monarch there are other political bodies which possess an independent and effective authority of their own, and share in the sovran power. These terms, absolute and constitutional monarchy, are unsatisfactory, from a logical point of view. For they group together these two forms of government as subdivisions of the class monarchy, implying or suggesting that they have much more real affinity to one another than either has to other constitutions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.