The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire provides a complete secular biographical dictionary of the period AD 527 (the beginning of the reign of Justinian) to 641 (the death of Heraclius). The information has been gathered from a wide variety of sources in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Syriac and other languages. The project makes available for the first time in one work mass of information relating to the personnel of the Roman Empire and the western kingdoms that were its heirs, and of other nations with which Rome had dealings.

Prosopography definition: "a study that identifies and relates a group of persons or characters within a particular historical or literary context"--Http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prosopography.

This is the final volume of the three-volume Prosopography which now provides a complete secular biographical dictionary for the Later Roman Empire from AD 260 to 641. This volume begins at the start of the reign of Justinian in 527 and ends at the death of Heraclius in 641. Like its predecessors, this volume has collected the surviving evidence about the personnel of the empire, about members of the senates of Rome and Constantinople and their families, about members of senatorial families still surviving and holding public office in the western lands (Gaul and Spain) no longer under Roman rule. It includes officials serving at the imperial court and in the civil and provincial administration, as well as army personnel at least of the rank of tribune and above. It also includes all persons, male and female, of the status of perfectissimus and above, whether holding office or not, and persons of learning, such as lawyers, doctors, teachers and writers. The project is intended as a tool for research works in the whole field of late empire studies.

This collection of 29 essays, ranging from ancient to modern history and including Arabic-Islamic prosopography, covers all aspects of prosopography as currently practised.

The first full-scale history of Theoderic and the Goths in more than seventy-five years, tracing the transformation of a divided kingdom into a great power In the year 493, the leader of a vast confederation of Gothic warriors, their wives, and children personally cut down Odoacer, the man famous for deposing the last Roman emperor in 476. That leader became Theoderic the Great (454–526). This engaging history of his life and reign immerses readers in the world of the warrior-king who ushered in decades of peace and stability in Italy as king of Goths and Romans. Theoderic transformed his roving “warrior nation” from the periphery of the Roman world into a standing army that protected his taxpaying Roman subjects with the support of the Roman elite. With a ruling strategy of “integration through separation,” Theoderic not only stabilized Italy but also extended his kingdom to the western Balkans, southern France, and the Iberian Peninsula. Using sources as diverse as letters, poetry, coins, and mosaics, Hans-Ulrich Wiemer brings readers into the world of Theoderic’s court, from Gothic warriors and their families to the notables, artisans, and shopkeepers of Rome and Ravenna to the peasants and enslaved people who tilled the soil on grand rural estates. This book offers a fascinating history of the leader who brought peace to Italy after the disintegration of the Roman Empire.

Denied citizenship by the Roman Empire, a soldier named Alaric changed history by unleashing a surprise attack on the capital city of an unjust empire. Stigmatized and relegated to the margins of Roman society, the Goths were violent “barbarians” who destroyed “civilization,” at least in the conventional story of Rome’s collapse. But a slight shift of perspective brings their history, and ours, shockingly alive. Alaric grew up near the river border that separated Gothic territory from Roman. He survived a border policy that separated migrant children from their parents, and he was denied benefits he likely expected from military service. Romans were deeply conflicted over who should enjoy the privileges of citizenship. They wanted to buttress their global power, but were insecure about Roman identity; they depended on foreign goods, but scoffed at and denied foreigners their own voices and humanity. In stark contrast to the rising bigotry, intolerance, and zealotry among Romans during Alaric’s lifetime, the Goths, as practicing Christians, valued religious pluralism and tolerance. The marginalized Goths, marked by history as frightening harbingers of destruction and of the Dark Ages, preserved virtues of the ancient world that we take for granted. The three nights of riots Alaric and the Goths brought to the capital struck fear into the hearts of the powerful, but the riots were not without cause. Combining vivid storytelling and historical analysis, Douglas Boin reveals the Goths’ complex and fascinating legacy in shaping our world.

The extensive writings of the Jewish philosopher and exegete Philo of Alexandria (15 BCE to 50 CE) were preserved through the efforts of early Christians, who decided that these works could assist them in developing their own distinctive kind of thought. The present collection of papers, written from 1989 to 1994, is published as a companion volume to the author's monograph Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey (1993). The papers deal with various aspects of the process of reception that Philo received at the hands of the Church Fathers. Authors who are given particular attention are Athenagoras, Clement, Origen, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Isidore of Pelusium and Augustine. The papers also include a hitherto unpublished English translation of the author's inaugural lecture held at Utrecht in April 1992.