THE old or official religions of Greece and of Rome had lost most of their power long before Constantine first declared that Christianity was henceforth to be recognized as a religio licita and then proceeded to bestow the Imperial favor on the faith which his predecessors had persecuted. Hellenism had destroyed their influence over the cultivated classes, and other religions, coming from the East, had captivated the masses of the people. If temples, dedicated to the gods of Olympus, were ...

AT the accession of Clovis, who succeeded his father Childeric about the year 481, the Salian Franks had advanced as far as the Somme. Between the Somme and the Loire the suzerainty of the Roman Empire was still maintained. The various Gallo-Roman cities preserved a certain independence, while a Roman official, by name Syagrius, exercised a kind of protection over them. Syagrius was the son of Aegidius, the former magister militum, and he held the command by hereditary right. After the fal...

The movements within and without the Empire which, in the course of a few years at the beginning of the fifth century, altogether changed the face of Western Europe have never, as far as I know, been told in our own tongue, perhaps not in any other tongue, as a connected tale. The facts are recorded by Gibbon with his usual accuracy, clearness, and careful reference to authorities; but they are scattered over several chapters and are never brought together in their relation to one another....

Most of the great changes in the world's history come about gradually and wise men can see them coming, for it is very hard to run counter to the nature of average men, and all great advances and degradations of society are the result of persistent causes; but a few times, since our records have been kept, there has arisen a single genius, who has done what no number of lesser men could accomplish, who has upset theories as well as dominions, preached a new faith, discovered some new appli...

The Roman historian Velleius Paterculus lived during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, serving as a military tribune and later as a cavalry officer and legatus in Germany and Pannonia. Written in a highly rhetorical style, his ‘Compendium of Roman History’ is a summary of Roman history from the mythical fall of Troy to AD 29. As Paterculus approaches his own times, he becomes much fuller in his treatment of history, especially dealing with the years between the death of Julius Caesar in...

In a rude and primitive condition of mankind might constitute right and strength and daring give rank. The aristocracy, therefore, will consist of the warriors while the weak, the young, the old and the women will occupy an inferior position. An uncivilized race is always at war. A system of mutual fear, hatred and injury seems to be the normal condition of savage man, in all ages and in every part of the world. As civilization progressed in Europe and Asia, the use of the horse in battle ...

It was the misfortune of Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that, with most of the conditions requisite for the formation of national unity, she had no really national institutions. There was an emperor, who looked something like an English king, and a Diet, or General Assembly, which looked something like an English Parliament, but the resemblance was far greater in appearance than in reality.The Emperor was chosen by three ecclesiastical electors, the Archbishops ...

Mommsen's history of the Roman Republic in five volumes. These volumes cover from the founding of Rome up to the disintegration of the First Triumvirate (Caesar, Pompey, Crassus). The author cites dates in the Roman style, AUC, from the founding of the city in 753 BC. A table at the end shows modern-day equivalents. According to Wikipedia, Mommsen is "generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century." This work complements Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".

Chios Classics brings literature’s greatest works back to life for new generations. All our books contain a linked table of contents.The Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages is a history of the Knights Templar, Teutonic Knights, and more.

"The fortunes and misfortunes of a Charlemagne and Henry IV., of a Barbarossa, a Henry VI. and an Emperor Frederick II... The rise and fall of the mediæval German Empire is in itself a subject boundlessly interesting, boundlessly important. ...See how Europe has come to be what it is, and how near it came to being something quite different! If Italy had remained under the sway of Germany, if Frederick Barbarossa or his successors had done away with the papal power, as they...

*Includes Table of ContentsBurys The Rise of the Saracens and the Foundation of the Western Empire is an expansive history of the Dark Ages. Curated by the famous historian J.B. Bury, The Rise of the Saracens and the Foundation of the Western Empire chronicles the history of the former Western Roman Empire, and Eastern Empire from the 6th to 9th centuries A.D. A table of contents is included for easier navigation through the over 640 pages.

It was the misfortune of Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that, with most of the conditions requisite for the formation of national unity, she had no really national institutions. There was an emperor, who looked something like an English king, and a Diet, or General Assembly, which looked something like an English Parliament, but the resemblance was far greater in appearance than in reality. The Emperor was chosen by three ecclesiastical electors, the Archbishops of Ment...