The Octavia is the only surviving historical drama from ancient Rome. With a plot rich in sex, dynastic intrigue, riots, and murder, the play's characters include the philosopher Seneca, the emperor Nero, the ghost of his murdered mother, his wife Octavia, and his mistress and empress-to-be Poppaea.[...]

The Roman Law of Obligations presents a series of lectures delivered by the late Peter Birks as an introductory course in Roman law. Discovered in complete manuscript form following his death, the lectures are published here for the first time. The lectures present a clear conceptual map of the Rom[...]

This volume explores the pervasive influence exerted by some prehistoric monuments on European social life over thousands of years, and reveals how they can act as a node linking people through time, possessing huge ideological and political significance. Through the advancement of theoretical appro[...]

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a new interpretation of the development of German-speaking central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire or German Reich, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to its dissolution in 1806 after the turmoil of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Going agains[...]

This volume, featuring sixteen contributions from leading Roman historians and archaeologists, sheds new light on approaches to the economic history of urban craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, with a particular emphasis on the imperial period. Combining a wide range of research traditions fro[...]

Provincial governance under the Roman republic has long been notorious for its corrupt officials and greedy tax-farmers, though this is far from being the whole story. This book challenges the traditional picture, contending that leading late republican citizens were more concerned about the problem[...]

This volume collects twenty-six previously unpublished studies on Republican history by the late Sir Ronald Syme (1903-1989), drawn from the archive of Syme's papers at the Bodleian Library. This set of papers sheds light on aspects of Republican history that were either overlooked or tangentially d[...]

Tabernae were ubiquitous in all Roman cities, lining the busiest streets and dominating their most crowded intersections. This volume focuses on food and drink outlets in particular, combining analysis of both archaeological material and textual sources to offer a thorough investigation into the soc[...]

In this book, Ellen Swift uses design theory, previously neglected in Roman archaeology, to investigate Roman artifacts in a new way, making a significant contribution to both Roman social history and our understanding of the relationships that exist between artefacts and people. Based on extensive [...]

This volume presents eighteen papers by leading Roman historians and archaeologists discussing trade in the Roman Empire during the period c.100 BC to AD 350. It focuses especially on the role of the Roman state in shaping the institutional framework for trade within and outside the empire, in taxin[...]

In the eyes of posterity, ancient Rome is deeply flawed. The list of censures is long and varied, from political corruption and the practice of slavery, to religious intolerance and sexual immorality, yet for centuries the Romans' "errors" have not only provoked opprobrium, but also inspired wayward[...]

Examines the complex thirteenth-century poem Roman de la rose in the light of the philosophical ideas of its time and shows the range and scope of the poem's dialogue with pressing philosophical questions at the time it was written.[...]