To walk on remnants of the storied Appian Way today, from Rome to the heel of Italy, is to walk in the footsteps of ghosts. Our guide to those ghosts-and the layers of history they represent-is Robert A. Kaster. In The Appian Way, he brings a lifetime of studying Roman literature and history to his [...]
The Roman poet Statius called the Via Appia "the Queen of Roads," and for nearly a thousand years that description held true, as countless travelers trod its path from the center of Rome to the heel of Italy. Today, the road is all but gone, destroyed by time, neglect, and the incursions of modernit[...]
Appian (Appianus) was a Greek official of Alexandria. He saw the Jewish rebellion of 116 CE, and later became a Roman citizen and advocate and received the rank of "eques" (knight). In his older years he held a procuratorship. He died during the reign of Antoninus Pius who was emperor 138161 CE. Hon[...]
Appian (first second century CE), a Greek from Antioch, offers a history of the rise of Rome but often shows us events from the point of view of the conquered peoples. Books on the Spanish, Hannibalic, Punic, Illyrian, Syrian, Mythridatic, and Civil wars are extant.[...]
Appian's "Iberike", of which this is a translation with historical commentary in English, deals with the Romans' wars in the Iberian peninsula from the third to the first centuries BC. It is the only continuous source for much of the history of this period in Rome's imperial expansion.[...]
52 BC, and Rome is in turmoil. Rival gangs prowl the streets as Publius Clodius, a high-born populist politician, and his arch-enemy Titus Milo fight to control the consular elections. But when Clodius is murdered on the famed Appian Way and Milo is accused of the crime, the city explodes with riots[...]
Appian of Alexandria lived in the early-to-mid second century AD, a time when the pax Romana flourished. His Roman History traced, through a series of ethnographic histories, the growth of Roman power throughout Italy and the Mediterranean World. But Appian also told the story of the civil wars whic[...]