"...the author does an admirable job of showing just how complicated and interconnected all the great patrician families were and how their jealousies and rivalries ultimately led to their undoing and the end of the great Roman Republic." — New York Journal of BooksThe political process that culminated in the transition from Republic to Empire in ancient Rome began with the military reform of Caius Marius in the last decades of the 2nd century BC. Following the Civil War and Sulla's...

This work puts a particular emphasis on the mixing and osmosis of the first Mediterranean civilizations, with particular reference to the Minoan, Cycladic, Mycenaean, and Trojan, and on the causes of their decline, which are to be identified in a jumble of natural and human causes, and in a long-lasting, slow, but irreversible crisis. It takes into account that the Mediterranean Dimension of the Bronze Age is a garden in which many legends flourished, clearly distinguishing between myth an...

A study of the two Late Republic slave revolts, exploring their social context, the nature of slavery at the time, and the causes of the conflicts.In 136 BC, in Sicily (which was then a Roman province), some four hundred slaves of Syrian origin rebelled against their masters and seized the city of Henna with much bloodshed. Their leader, a fortune-teller named Eunus, was declared king (taking the Syrian royal name Antiochus), and tens of thousands of runaway slaves ...

"Barca's treatment of the causes of the decline of the Roman Republic is of great value for readers unfamiliar with the period and with Roman institutions… provides clear explanations of the various political, religious, and military institutions, and a very detailed chronology." -The NYMAS Review "The entry of daggers into the Forum" is an expression that identifies two precise historical moments: when two tribunes of the plebs—brothers Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Caius Sempronius Gr...

This book shows how a military colony became a large, impressive and prosperous city. Legendary for its walls and port, it was able to play a basic role in the great strategy of ancient Rome between the Po and the Danube, spanning the centuries from its foundation (181 BC) to the fateful days of blood and violence of its fall (AD 452).Based on a study of ancient sources, contemporary literature and the latest archaeological research, and written in a fast-paced and accessible style...

"A very good read . . . and a reminder that the Romans were hardly the only imperialist warmongers of the ancient world." — StrategyPageCarthage was the western Mediterranean's first superpower, long before Rome, and her military history was powerful, eventful, and checkered even before her "Punic Wars" against Rome. Although characterized in the surviving sources and modern studies as a predominantly mercantile state, Carthage fought many wars, both aggre...

With a new foreword by Tim Cornell‘Can anyone be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means and under what kind of polity almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and bought under the dominion of a single city of Rome?’ – Polybius, Greek HistorianThe city of Rome created the foundations of an empire that would come to challenge and conquer the great civilizations of Europe and the Near East. H.H. Scullard’s d...

The two decades between the end of the First Punic War and the beginning of the Second represent a key period in the development of Romes imperial ambitions, both within Italy and beyond. Within Italy, Rome faced an invasion of Gauls from Northern Italy, which threatened the very existence of the Roman state. This war culminated at the Battle of Telamon and the final Roman victory against the Gauls of Italy, giving Rome control of the peninsula up to the Alps for the first time in her hist...

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE KANSAS CITY STARFrom Anthony Everitt, the bestselling author of acclaimed biographies of Cicero, Augustus, and Hadrian*,* comes a riveting, magisterial account of Rome and its remarkable ascent from an obscure agrarian backwater to the greatest empire the world has ever known.Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., Rome grew to become the anci...

The real history of the Amazons in war and loveAmazons—fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world—were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons.But just who were these bold barbaria...

He found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. As Rome’s first emperor, Augustus transformed the unruly Republic into the greatest empire the world had ever seen. His consolidation and expansion of Roman power two thousand years ago laid the foundations, for all of Western history to follow. Yet, despite Augustus’s accomplishments, very few biographers have concentrated on the man himself, instead choosing to chronicle the age in which he lived. Here, Anthony Everitt, the bestselli...

"His keen understanding of history and legend...illuminate[s] his visits." —Publishers Weekly"A vivid picture of the island." —Associated Press"It is hard to think of anywhere on earth where so many firsts and mosts are crammed into a space so small," Barry Unsworth writes of the isle of Crete. Birthplace of the Greek god Zeus, the Greek alphabet, and the first Greek laws, as well as the home of 15 mountain ranges and the longest gorge in Europe, this land is indisputably u...