Rome's power was under constant challenge. Nowhere was this truer than in Britain, Rome's remotest and most recalcitrant province. From the beginning to the end, a succession of idealists, chancers and reactionaries fomented dissent and rebellion. This book covers eleven rebellions and explains why Britain was a hot-bed of dissent.

The essays in this book examine the political activities and institutions of pre-Imperial Rome in conjunction with the habits of the hearts and the minds of the Romans. Relying on the writings of ancient authors, the essays analyze significant political developments and events. They attempt to draw out the meaning of what the authors say and impose no theory on the ancient writings. Nor do they pursue the methodological techniques of contemporary historiography. While avoiding such common present-day anachronisms, they take their guidance directly from the ancient historians themselves and examine their understanding of Rome’s political history and culture. Harking back to the ancient view that a political culture or regime is both a city’s form of government and its way of life, the essays, trying to be true to the full character of Roman political life, seek to understand the political activities and the souls of the Romans, and to understand each in the light of the other.

A timeless tale of love, lust, and politics, Tosca is one of the most popular operas ever written. In Tosca's Rome, Susan Vandiver Nicassio explores the surprising historical realities that lie behind Giacomo Puccini's opera and the play by Victorien Sardou on which it is based. By far the most "historical" opera in the active repertoire, Tosca is set in a very specific time and place: Rome, from June 17 to 18, 1800. But as Nicassio demonstrates, history in Tosca is distorted by nationalism and by the vehement anticlerical perceptions of papal Rome shared by Sardou, Puccini, and the librettists. To provide the historical background necessary for understanding Tosca, Nicassio takes a detailed look at Rome in 1800 as each of Tosca's main characters would have seen it—the painter Cavaradossi, the singer Tosca, and the policeman Scarpia. Finally, she provides a scene-by-scene musical and dramatic analysis of the opera. "[Nicassio] must be the only living historian who can boast that she once sang the role of Tosca. Her deep knowledge of Puccini's score is only to be expected, but her understanding of daily and political life in Rome at the close of the 18th century is an unanticipated pleasure. She has steeped herself in the period and its prevailing culture-literary, artistic, and musical-and has come up with an unusual, and unusually entertaining, history."—Paul Bailey, Daily Telegraph "In Tosca's Rome, Susan Vandiver Nicassio . . . orchestrates a wealth of detail without losing view of the opera and its pleasures. . . . Nicassio aims for opera fans and for historians: she may well enthrall both."—Publishers Weekly "This is the book that ranks highest in my estimation as the most in-depth, and yet highly entertaining, journey into the story of the making of Tosca."—Catherine Malfitano "Nicassio's prose . . . is lively and approachable. There is plenty here to intrigue everyone-seasoned opera lovers, musical novices, history buffs, and Italophiles."—Library Journal

This revealing look at life in ancient Rome offers a compelling journey through the vivid landscape of politics, domestic life, entertainment, and inequality experienced daily by Romans of all social strata. Frenzied crowds, talking ravens, the stench of the Tiber River: life in ancient Rome was stimulating, dynamic, and often downright dangerous. The Romans relaxed and gossiped in baths, stole precious water from aqueducts, and partied and dined to excess. Everyone from senators to the enslaved crowded into theaters and circuses to watch their favorite singers, pantomime, and comedies and scream their approval at charioteers. The lucky celebrated their accomplishments with elaborate tombs. Amid pervasive inequality and brutality, beauty also flourished through architecture, poetry, and art. From the smells of fragrant cookshops and religious sacrifices to the cries of public executions and murderous electoral mobs, Guy de la Bédoyère’s Populus draws on a host of historical and literary sources to transport us into the intensity of daily life at the height of ancient Rome.

A gripping and breath-taking novel of Roman adventure from bestselling author Douglas Jackson. Perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow and Ben Kane. Readers are loving Gaius Valerius Verrens! "Spellbinding" - 5 STARS "I didn't want to come to the end, some really fascinating detail and a great story." - 5 STARS "Unexpected twists and an ending full of surprise rates it among my favorite reads to date." - 5 STARS "Kept me absolutely gripped from start to finish [-] historically accurate with the fictitious stories and characters expertly weaved into the real makes it utterly believable." - 5 STARS ***************************************** REBELLION SIMMERS...AND TREACHERY LIES IN WAIT. AD 72: Vespasian is Emperor of Rome - but his grip on power is weakening. Economic disaster threatens the city - and when Rome is threatened, so too is the Empire. Recently married and building a new home, Gaius Valerius Verrens thought he'd at last found a life away from the battlefield. But he is summoned by the Emperor to do one last favour for Rome: he must journey to the remote, mountainous region of Asturica Augusta and investigate claims that a bandit called 'The Ghost' is raiding the Empire's gold convoys. When Valerius arrives, he finds a tortured, gods-forsaken land whose native tribes, exploited for so long, are a growing threat. But treachery lurks in the shadows, and it seems the real danger comes from those closer to him. Valerius must put an end to a conspiracy that would plunge the Empire into a devastating new conflict - but first he must establish who is a friend, and who a foe . . . Gaius Valerius Verrens's adventures continue in Glory of Rome.

Rome and the Worlds Beyond Its Frontiers examines interactions between those within and those beyond the boundaries of Rome, with an eye to the question of contested identities and identity formations.

When Cleopatra expresses a desire to die 'after the high Roman fashion', acting in accordance with 'what's brave, what's noble', Shakespeare is suggesting that there are certain values that are characteristically Roman. The use of the terms 'Rome' and 'Roman' in Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra or Jonson's Sejanus often carry the implication that most people fail to live up to this ideal of conduct, that very few Romans are worthy of the name. In this book Chernaik demonstrates how, in these plays, Roman values are held up to critical scrutiny. The plays of Shakespeare, Jonson, Massinger and Chapman often present a much darker image of Rome, as exemplifying barbarism rather than civility. Through a comparative analysis of the Roman plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and including detailed discussion of the classical historians Livy, Tacitus and Plutarch, this study examines the uses of Roman history - 'the myth of Rome' - in Shakespeare's age.