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23971 results in Ancient history

Page 2 of 1199

A Narratological Commentary on Herodotus' Histories
  • Edited with Introduction and Notes by Irene J. F. de Jong
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    31 January 2026
  • The narrative art of Herodotus' Histories has always been greatly admired, but it has never received an in-depth and systematic analysis. This commentary lays bare the role of the narrator and his effective handling of time, focalization, and speech in all the famous and much-loved episodes, from Croesus, via the Ionian Revolt, to the climax of Xerxes' expedition against Greece. In paying close attention to the various ways in which Herodotus structures his story, it offers crucial help to get a grip on the at first sight bewildering structure of this long text. The detailed analysis of Herodotus' narration shows how his masterful adoption and expansion of the epic toolbox endowed the new genre of historiography with the same authority as its illustrious predecessor. The commentary is suitable for all readers of Herodotus' Greek text: students, teachers, and scholars.

The Cambridge Urban History of Europe
  • Volume 1, Ancient Europe
  • General editor Maarten Prak
  • Edited by Penelope J. E. Davies, Christina G. Williamson
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    20 November 2025
  • Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

Learning and Power in Late Antique Gaul
  • Classical Education and the End of Roman Rule
  • Alison John
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2025
    Print publication:
    31 December 2025
  • This book traces the changing political and social roles of classical education in late antique Gaul. It argues that the collapse of Roman political power in Gaul changed the way education was practiced and perceived by Gallo-Romans. Neither the barbarian kingdoms nor the Church directly caused the decline of classical schools, but these new structures of power did not encourage or support a cultural and political climate in which classical education mattered; while Latin remained the language of the Church, and literacy and knowledge of law were valued by barbarian courts, training in classical grammar and rhetoric was no longer seen as a prerequisite for political power and cultural prestige. This study demonstrates that these fundamental shifts in what education meant to individuals and power brokers resulted in the eventual end of the classical schools of grammar and rhetoric that had once defined Roman aristocratic public and private life.

The State, the Law, and the People in the Roman Empire
  • A Sourcebook
  • Edited and translated by Brian Campbell
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • This volume makes more widely available to students and teachers the treasure trove of evidence for the administrative, social, and economic history of Rome contained in the Digest and Codex of Justinian. What happened when people encountered the government exercising legal jurisdiction through governors, magistrates, and officials within the legal framework and laws sponsored by the state? How were the urban environment of Rome and Italy, the state's assets, and human relations managed? How did the mechanisms of control in the provinces affect local life and legal processes? How were contracts devised and enforced? How did banks operate? What was the experience of going to court like, and how did you deal with assault or insult or recover loss? How did you rent a farm or an apartment and protect ownership? The emperor loomed over everything, being the last resort in moderating relations between state and subject.

Personal Religion in the Ancient Greek World
  • A Cultural History
  • Edited by Julia Kindt
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2025
    Print publication:
    31 December 2025
  • Much is known about the manifold ways in which ancient Greek religious beliefs and practices map onto the social and political structures of the ancient Greek polis. The way in which the individual served as the basic unit of ancient Greek religion, and the personal dimension of ancient Greek religion associated with it, is much less well understood. This book offers the first comprehensive study of ancient Greek personal religion since the major paradigm changes that affected the study of ancient Greek religion in recent years. An international cast of scholars explores ancient Greek personal religion in all its different facets. They do not treat the personal dimension of ancient Greek religion as an antipode of civic religion but rather as a complementary perspective that evolves within, alongside, and occasionally in opposition to the civic dimension of ancient Greek religion.

Mycenaean Civilization
  • Dora Vassilikou
  • Translated by Doniert Evely, Colin MacDonald
  • Foreword by Yannis Galanakis
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2025
    Print publication:
    31 December 2025
  • The Bronze Age of Greece was unknown until the end of the 19th century, when Heinrich Schliemann's excavations stunned the world by bringing to light the glamour of Mycenaean elite society. This book, by one of Greece's most distinguished archaeologists, provides a complete introduction to Mycenaean life and archaeology. Through both chronological and thematic chapters, it examines the main Mycenaean centres, the palaces and kingship, the social structure, writing, religion and its political implications, and the contacts and relations of the Mycenaeans with neighbouring countries, especially Asia Minor, Egypt, the coast of Syria-Palestine and Italy. Attention is paid to the distinctive Mycenaean art, including monumental architecture, gold and silver metalwork and jewellery, and the book is supported by over 300 illustrations. Dora Vassilikou concludes by examining the simultaneous catastrophes that brought the Bronze Age of the Eastern Aegean to its end and opened up a new era.

Veiling in the Late Antique World
  • Susanna Drake
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • Veiling meant many things to the ancients. On women, veils could signify virtue, beauty, piety, self-control, and status. On men, covering the head could signify piety or an emotion such as grief. Late Roman mosaics show people covering their hands with veils when receiving or giving something precious. They covered their altars, doorways, shrines, and temples; and many covered their heads when sacrificing to their gods. Early Christian intellectuals such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa used these everyday practices of veiling to interpret sacred texts. These writers understood the divine as veiled, and the notion of a veiled spiritual truth informed their interpretation of the bible. Veiling in the Late Antique World provides the first assessment of textual and material evidence for veiling in the late antique Mediterranean world. Susannah Drake here explores the relation between the social history of the veil and the intellectual history of the concept of truth as veiled/revealed.

Industry, Trade and the State in Ptolemaic Egypt
  • Nico Dogaer
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • This book provides a reassessment of Ptolemaic state intervention in industry and trade, an issue central to the economic and political history of Hellenistic Egypt. Based on a full survey of Greek and Demotic Egyptian sources, and drawing on theoretical perspectives, it challenges the prevailing interpretation of 'state monopolies'. While the Ptolemies displayed an impressive capacity to intervene in economic processes, their aims were purely fiscal, and the extent of their reach was limited. Every sector was characterised by significant market activity, either recognised and supported by the state, or illicit where the Ptolemies did make attempts to establish exclusive control. Nico Dogaer provides a full account of several key industries and presents new conclusions about the impact of Ptolemaic rule, including on economic performance. The book also makes an important contribution to broader debates about the relation between states and markets in historical societies.

Latin Texts on Papyrus and the Study of Classics
  • Edited by Maria Chiara Scappaticcio
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • This volume gathers 25 chapters focused on Latin texts on papyrus, exploring them from multi- and cross-disciplinary perspectives. It serves as a companion to the texts published in The Corpus of Latin Texts on Papyrus (Cambridge, forthcoming). The chapters provide in-depth analyses of the chosen texts from literary, philological, linguistic, and historical perspectives, or offer methodological reflections on Latin texts on papyrus, promoting innovative approaches. They cover topics ranging from palaeography and philology to Latin literature and from ancient law to ancient and medieval history, and brilliantly demonstrate the potential of Latin texts on papyrus to inspire and illuminate the field of Classics.

Premodern Economies
  • A Global Perspective
  • Edited by Kenneth Hirth, Timothy Earle
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • Economies are fundamental to all human societies by providing the material support for their populations and respective social institutions. This volume brings together scholars from archaeology, anthropology, and history in a collaborative examination of how premodern societies produced and mobilized resources to support social, political, and religious institutions. Thirteen societies from horticultural/pastoral groups to expansionistic states are used to develop a truly comparative view of economic development. Topics discussed include the nature of productive self-sufficiency, forms of economic specialization, the economics of labor and resource mobilization, economic inequality and stratification, commerce and the marketplace, and urban and ritual economies. The book's collective discussions have led to the construction of five generalizations and eighteen specific hypotheses about the way that ancient and premodern societies navigated the material worlds in which they lived. These hypotheses will serve as a basis for scholars exploring how societies in other times and places navigated their economic landscapes.

Hubris, Ancient and Modern
  • Concepts, Comparisons, Connections
  • Edited by Douglas Cairns, Nick Bouras
  • With Eugene Sadler-Smith
  • Foreword by David Owen
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • Ancient Greek terminology continues to shape contemporary discourse; hubris is a case in point. Typically seen as the catastrophic yet common tendency to reach too high, only to fall, it remains a fixture in the contemporary discourse of business and politics. But hubris has also become a term of art for researchers in a number of academic disciplines; and it remains a hotly contested topic in Classics. This unique volume of essays explores the connections, continuities and differences between ancient hubris and its modern counterparts. Its distinguished multidisciplinary cast of experts in Classics, Business and Management Studies and Psychology explores what modern researchers can learn from the theorisation and deployment of hubris in ancient sources and how modern approaches to hubris can help us understand the ancient concept.

  • Chapter Four - Sanctuaries and Churches

  • Rebecca Sweetman, University of St. Andrews
  • Book:
    The Archaeology of the Cyclades in the Roman and Late Antique Periods
    Published online:
    23 October 2025
    Print publication:
    06 November 2025, pp 85-112

  • Summary

    It is striking that while ancient writers described the Cyclades largely in negative terms relating to their image of remoteness, the islands’ sanctuaries and churches were commonly ascribed as ‘worth seeing’. This suggests that religious places were successfully maintaining their own reputations irrespective of the impression of the islands’ declines as we have seen already in Strabo’s description of a lack of significant urban space on Tenos but having a well-visited sanctuary (Strabo (Geography, 10.5.11)). Study of the religious places of the Cyclades enables a range of insights into behaviours on a community level as well as within the wider Mediterranean world. Religion is persistent and permeates private and public life. It is cross-cultural while being a fundamental element of group identity. As such, it is an ideal aspect of society by which to understand the impact of socio-economic and political variations as well as resilience in the islands as a result of becoming part of the Roman Empire and later Christianization. The spread and establishment of cult, as well as the evidence of visitors through their offerings and dedications, is indicative of the vitality of the sanctuaries and the range of network connections the islands had over the diachronic period under discussion.

  • Chapter Two - Life, Death and Settlement Patterns

  • Rebecca Sweetman, University of St. Andrews
  • Book:
    The Archaeology of the Cyclades in the Roman and Late Antique Periods
    Published online:
    23 October 2025
    Print publication:
    06 November 2025, pp 28-56

  • Summary

    Before the last ice age, the islands of Andros, Tenos, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Syros, Ios, Sikinos and Folegandros formed one large land mass; Keos, Kythnos, Seriphos, Siphnos and Melos were all separate islands (Map 1.1). The three largest mountains are on Naxos, Andros and Amorgos. In the case of Naxos and Andros, the mountains slope gently down to the plains, in parts at least. Amorgos, on the other hand, has high, steep coasts on the east side with small coastal plains on the west and some plateaus in the mountains. The underlying bedrock of the islands is primarily metamorphic rocks including mica shists and marbles (Gaki-Papanastassiou et al., 2010, 299). Thera, Therasia, Melos, Kimolos and Anaphe (Figure A.2) have volcanic soils while the remaining islands primarily have limestone soils, which do not provide much cover over the jagged bedrock. Although soil on the majority of islands is not luxurious, it was good enough to sustain barley, pulses and olives (Berg, 2007, 33). Some of the islands, like Naxos and Keos, had good ground water but others like Melos did not (Berg, 2007, 34). For all the islands, fishing was a staple resource along with the meat of wild and domesticated animals. The Cyclades have different natural resources, available at different periods, including silver (Siphnos and Seriphos), marble (Paros, Naxos, Tenos), alum and minerals (Melos and Kimolos) as well as good agricultural potential on some, such as Naxos, Andros and Thera.

Page 2 of 1199