"This title is a definitive and comprehensive edition of the fragmentary texts of all the Roman historians whose works are lost. Historical writing was an important part of the literary culture of ancient Rome, and its best-known exponents, including Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, and Suetonius, provide much of our knowledge of Roman history. However, these authors constitute only a small minority of the Romans who wrote historical works from around 200 BC to AD 250. In this period we know of more than 100 writers of history, biography, and memoirs whose works no longer survive for us to read. They include well-known figures such as Cato the Elder, Sulla, Cicero, and the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Hadrian, and Septimius Severus"--Page 4 of cover.

This title is a definitive and comprehensive edition of the fragmentary texts of all the Roman historians whose works are lost. Historical writing was an important part of the literary culture of ancient Rome, and its best-known exponents, including Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, and Suetonius, provide much of our knowledge of Roman history. However, these authors constitute only a small minority of the Romans who wrote historical works from around 200 BC to AD 250. In this period we know of more than 100 writers of history, biography, and memoirs whose works no longer survive for us to read. They include well-known figures such as Cato the Elder, Sulla, Cicero, and the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Hadrian, and Septimius Severus -- cover.

"This title is a definitive and comprehensive edition of the fragmentary texts of all the Roman historians whose works are lost. Historical writing was an important part of the literary culture of ancient Rome, and its best-known exponents, including Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, and Suetonius, provide much of our knowledge of Roman history. However, these authors constitute only a small minority of the Romans who wrote historical works from around 200 BC to AD 250. In this period we know of more than 100 writers of history, biography, and memoirs whose works no longer survive for us to read. They include well-known figures such as Cato the Elder, Sulla, Cicero, and the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Hadrian, and Septimius Severus"--Page 4 of cover.

Attila, king of the Huns, is a name universally known even 1,500 years after his death. His meteoric rise and legendary career of conquest left a trail of destroyed cities across the Roman Empire. At its height, his vast domain commanded more territory than the Romans themselves, and those he threatened with attack sent desperate embassies loaded with rich tributes to purchase a tenuous peace. Yet as quickly he appeared, Attila and his empire vanished with startling rapidity. His two decades of terror, however, had left an indelible mark upon the pages of European history. Priscus was a late Roman historian who had the ill luck to be born during a time when Roman political and military fortunes had reached a nadir. An eye-witness to many of the events he records, Priscus's history is a sequence of intrigues, assassinations, betrayals, military disasters, barbarian incursions, enslaved Romans and sacked cities. Perhaps because of its gloomy subject matter, the History of Priscus was not preserved in its entirety. What remains of the work consists of scattered fragments culled from a variety of later sources. Yet, from these fragments emerge the most detailed and insightful first-hand account of the decline of the Roman Empire, and nearly all of the information about Attila’s life and exploits that has come down to us from antiquity. Translated by classics scholar Professor John Given of East Carolina University, this new translation of the Fragmentary History of Priscus arranges the fragments in chronological order, complete with intervening historical commentary to preserve the narrative flow. It represents the first translation of this important historical source that is easily approachable for both students and general readers.

Collecting the most incisive and influential writings of one of Rome's finest orators, Cicero's Selected Works is translated with an introduction by Michael Grant in Penguin Classics. Lawyer, philosopher, statesman and defender of Rome's Republic, Cicero was a master of eloquence, and his pure literary and oratorical style and strict sense of morality have been a powerful influence on European literature and thought for over two thousand years in matters of politics, philosophy, and faith. This selection demonstrates the diversity of his writings, and includes letters to friends and statesmen on Roman life and politics; the vitriolic Second Philippic Against Antony; and his two most famous philosophical treatises, On Duties and On Old Age - a celebration of his own declining years. Written at a time of brutal political and social change, Cicero's lucid ethical writings formed the foundation of the Western liberal tradition in political and moral thought that continues to this day. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

"This title is a definitive and comprehensive edition of the fragmentary texts of all the Roman historians whose works are lost. Historical writing was an important part of the literary culture of ancient Rome, and its best-known exponents, including Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, and Suetonius, provide much of our knowledge of Roman history. However, these authors constitute only a small minority of the Romans who wrote historical works from around 200 BC to AD 250. In this period we know of more than 100 writers of history, biography, and memoirs whose works no longer survive for us to read. They include well-known figures such as Cato the Elder, Sulla, Cicero, and the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Hadrian, and Septimius Severus"--Page 4 of cover.