What was a Roman book? How did it differ from modern books? How were Roman books composed, published and distributed during the high period of Roman literature that encompassed, among others, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Martial, Pliny and Tacitus? What was the ‘scribal art’ of the time? What was the role of bookshops and libraries? The publishing of Roman books has often been misrepresented by false analogies with contemporary publishing. This wide-ranging study re-examines, by appeal to what Roman authors themselves tell us, both the raw material and the aesthetic criteria of the Roman book, and shows how slavery was the ‘enabling infrastructure’ of literature. Roman publishing is placed firmly in the context of a society where the spoken still ranked above the written, helping to explain how some books and authors became politically dangerous and how the Roman book could be both an elite cultural icon and a contributor to Rome’s popular culture through the mass medium of the theatre.

In The Wanderer, Michael of the charmed life continues his erratic career as an adventurer with an interlude which takes him through much of the 16th century Islamic empire. The holocaust in Rome singed his conscience a bit, and he decided - with his brother in arms, the bull-like Andy, to seek peace in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. But Fate decreed otherwise. The pilgrim ship was seized by the infidels. Michael, chameleon like in his loyalties, became for all purposes an aspirant to Islam, and - though a slave - rose rapidly in the service of his masters, until he was confidante, adviser, military leader, political intriguer, whatever suited his mood, and landing - as one of his owners said - "always on his feet." Richly detailed with the lushness of a tawdry era in Europe and the Near East, the novel is more tightly plotted than was "The Adventurer," and Michael finds himself smitten by the strange woman of the evil eye who has captured his heart and imagination. A complex plot, with successive interlocking episodes, this adds up to another picaresque romantic adventure novel which those who enjoyed its predecessors will want to read for sure.

Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity

"This anthology contains all the substantial surviving works from the golden age of Ancient Egyptian fictional literature (c.1940-1640 B.C.). Composed by an anonymous author in the form of a funerary autobiography, the Tale tells how the courtier Sinuhe flees Egypt at the death of his king. His adventures bring wealth and happiness, but his failure to find meaningful life abroad is only redeemed by the new king's sympathy, and he finally returns to the security of his homeland. Other works from the Middle Kingdom include a poetic dialogue between a man and his soul on the problem of suffering and death, a teaching about the nature of wisdom which is bitterly spoken by the ghost of the assassinated King Amenemhat I, and a series of light-hearted tales of wonder from the court of the builder of the Great Pyramid."--Jacket.

In recent years, a long-established view of the Roman Empire during its great age of expansion has been called into question by scholars who contend that this model has made Rome appear too much like a modern state. This is especially true in terms of understanding how the Roman government ordered the city--and the world around it--geographically. In this innovative, systematic approach, Daniel J. Gargola demonstrates how important the concept of space was to the governance of Rome. He explains how Roman rulers, without the means for making detailed maps, conceptualized the territories under Rome's power as a set of concentric zones surrounding the city. In exploring these geographic zones and analyzing how their magistrates performed their duties, Gargola examines the idiosyncratic way the elite made sense of the world around them and how it fundamentally informed the way they ruled over their dominion. From what geometrical patterns Roman elites preferred to how they constructed their hierarchies in space, Gargola considers a wide body of disparate materials to demonstrate how spatial orientation dictated action, shedding new light on the complex peculiarities of Roman political organization.

The political transformation that took place at the end of the Roman Republic was a particularly rich area for analysis by the era's historians. Major narrators chronicled the crisis that saw the end of the Roman Republic and the changes that gave birth to a new political system. These writers drew significantly on the Roman idea of virtus as a way of interpreting and understanding their past. Tracing how virtus informed Roman thought over time, Catalina Balmaceda explores the concept and its manifestations in the narratives of four successive Latin historians who span the late Republic and early Principate: Sallust, Livy, Velleius, and Tacitus. Balmaceda demonstrates that virtus in these historical narratives served as a form of self-definition that fostered and propagated a new model of the ideal Roman more fitting to imperial times. As a crucial moral and political concept, virtus worked as a key idea in the complex system of Roman sociocultural values and norms that underpinned Roman attitudes about both present and past. This book offers a reappraisal of the historians as promoters of change and continuity in the political culture of both the Republic and the Empire.

This sweeping history of the Roman Empire from 44 BC to AD 235 has three purposes: to describe what was happening in the central administration and in the entourage of the emperor; to indicate how life went on in Italy and the provinces, in the towns, in the countryside, and in the army camps; and to show how these two different worlds impinged on each other. Colin Wells's vivid account is now available in an up-to-date second edition.