Roman Perspectives

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 Five of the papers, including three of the most substantial, are previously unpublished; others have appeared in collections which are now difficult to find.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 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 Five of the papers, including three of the most substantial, are previously unpublished; others have appeared in collections which are now difficult to find.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.

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