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Roman Perspectives: Studies
in the Social, Political and Cultural History of the First to Fifth
Centuries
by John Matthews
The fifteen papers in this volume discuss
issues of Roman social, cultural and political history from the foundation
of the Principate
to the age of barbarian settlements of the west. Working imaginatively
from within the diverse evidence, they show the institutional
continuity of the Roman empire between its early and later periods,
and reveal the roots of political behaviour in social practice.
Five of the papers, including three of the most substantial,
are previously unpublished; others have appeared in collections
which are now difficult to find. The author has edited the whole
to bring out thematic connections as well as for consistency
of presentation.
"the reader profits immensely
from Matthews’s
erudition and wide range of interests...The author is to be commended
for successfully uniting these essays around a common theme and
for presenting his arguments in clear and compelling prose. Indeed,
this
volume reveals a truly impressive level of learning..."
John F. Donahue - Bryn Mawr
Classical Review
Contents Preface
1. Gibbon and the Later Roman Empire: causes and circumstances
2. The nature of power in the ancient world - a three-cornered dialogue:
Thucydides, Thomas Hobbes, Tacitus
3. Ronald Syme, Constantine the Great and the Second Roman Revolution
4. Tacitus, Acta Senatus, and the inauguration of Tiberius
5. Six tales of the Equestrian Order
6. A Last Will and Testament
7. Travel, diplomacy and the diffusion of ideas in the Roman Mediterranean
and Near East
8. Reading the mind of a traveller; the cultural landscape of the
Bordeaux Itinerary
9. The Letters of Symmachus
10. Four weddings and a funeral: this world and the next in fourth-century
Rome
11. Roman law and Roman history
12. Ammianus on Roman law and lawyers
13. Interpreting the Interpretationes of the Breviarium of Alaric
14. Roman law and barbarian identity in the late Roman west
15. Macsen, Maximus, Constantine
Bibliography
Index