The Afterword (“Works and Days and Then Some”) is a miscellany consisting of anecdotes and observations about sustainable living and systems dynamics based on the author's own experiences of raising a family and building a house and a farm from scratch in the midst of intellectual pursuits. It also contains some concluding thoughts on presentisms old and new, and on the enduring ecological value of studying the Classics in an age dominated by the STEM disciplines.

Heraclitus’s doctrine of a cosmogonic unity of opposites held together in harmoniēis the topic of “Heraclitus and the Quantum.” Like Anaximander, Heraclitus posits a self-organizing universe in which objects and agents interact to form relational wholes. It is argued that Heraclitus’s ideas anticipate physicist Niels Bohr’s atomic theory of complementarity and the systems thinking of early cyberneticists. Extended from a description of the cosmos to a prescription for living, Heraclitean harmoniē, it is argued, is tantamount to sustainability, and provides a profounder, more durable alternative to some modern prescriptions circulating under the same conceptual umbrella.

Taking its cue from Thoreau’s Walden, the Introduction characterizes the book’s subject matter and approach as “environmental philology.” This newly minted method of studying issues related to the natural world springs from the better-established, more familiar labels “environmental philosophy” and “environmental humanities.” By philology is meant simply the methods and materials that comprise the multidisciplinary field of Classics, which is the study of ancient Greek and Roman literature and culture in all its facets.

“Roman Revolutions” (the title is an allusion to the classic study by Sir Ronald Syme) celebrates the working landscapes of ancient Italy and Roman agrarian values. Romans in an age of decadence and excess are portrayed in this chapter as the first back-to-the-landers and trust-fund farmers—affluent urbanists yearning, like us, for a simpler, more “sustainable” way of life. Based on personal autopsy and field research at an unusual organic olive grove in the Sabine Hills, at which are preserved substantial remains of a villa rustica connected to Pompey the Great (10648 BCE), the author proposes that the establishment and growth of agriturismi in modern Italy re-instantiates early Roman farm culture and land-use policies, and that the agriturismo movement aligns closely, too, with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals regarding agriculture.

“Mutual Coercion, Mutually Agreed Upon” (the phrase comes from Garrett Hardin's classic essay "Tragedy of the Commons") sees the democratic reforms and social reorganization of Attica by the Athenian statesman Cleisthenes in 508 BCE as a case study in systems leveraging. Cleisthenes’s reforms are situated in a nexus of Presocratic (Pythagorean) thinking about limit (peras) and in the context of ideas that circulated at the time under the banners of isonomy (isonomia) and harmony (harmonia). The ancient Athenians, newly freed from political tyranny and the social upheaval of 508, recognized the intrinsic value of limits and restraint and built them into the structures of democratic life. Their example, I argue further, stands as a challenge to environmental and social problems faced by democratic regimes today.

“Community Rule” considers the reception of Classical ideas about systems and sustainability in Late Antique and early Christian thought with a particular focus on The Rule of St. Benedict. It also probes some of the Rule’s surprising modern legacies, including Scott and Helen Nearing’s homesteading experiments in Vermont and Maine and Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change and inequality, Laudato Si’.

This chapter sets the intellectual context of the volume within other studies of the Etruscans and the historical development of the field. This is a volume about the organisation of the spatial patterns of the Etruscans and not of art and material culture which is complementary to other approaches to the subject. A particular emphasis is given to the themes of literacy and settlement, since these can be expressed spatially. The Anno Etrusco of 1985 is one moment in the historiography of the Etruscans given especial emphasis as a time of reflection to provide a comparison with the present. The traditions of settlement recovery at that time can be broken down into three traditions: the topographic archive, predictive work and regional survey. Careful filtering of these data now allows the presentation of a synthesis of which this volume is one first stage.

In antiquity, Rome was the City while imperium Romanum the power of Rome. However, after the Constitutio Antoniniana of 212 CE and the nearly universal extension of Roman citizenship, the legal status of its citizen was accompanied by an adherence to the civic and imperial models set out by Tertullian (De pallio IV.1) under the term Romanitas. The term Romania first came to be used for all Roman territory around 330 CE.1 This explains why today the word “Rome” is used for both the city and the Empire. Nonetheless, we need to distinguish between the two when discussing its future. In effect, when historians speak about the end of Rome, they are referring mainly to the end of the Roman Empire in the West. However, as John Bury pointed out over a century ago, such a thing did not exist.2 What existed was only the pars occidentalis of the Roman Empire, but when that disappeared at the end of the fifth century, the Roman Empire continued to survive in and around Constantinople.

Cicero is often perceived as someone who lived intensely in the present moment, as he did during the Catilinarian conspiracy, for example, or the outbreak of the civil war. He is also said to have had a knack for nostalgia. While in exile and during the civil war, he spent a great deal of time deploring his former glory. He is less known for his contemplation on Rome’s future. Yet, as Girardet brilliantly demonstrates,1 De legibus is one of the most powerful prefigurations of the Roman Empire. The texts we present and analyze here are for the most part less well known than his treatise on laws, which is of Platonic inspiration. Nonetheless they reveal the complexity of Cicero’s concerns about the future of Rome. We need not insist here on Cicero’s importance as both a major witness and actor in a century in which Rome became the foremost power in the Mediterranean world. This also happened to be the moment of a terrible crisis that led to a civil war that most Romans perceived as absolute nefas, that is to say, the abomination of desolation.

King Agrippa II’s address to the people of Jerusalem (Josephus, BJ II.342–404) is one of the most impressive and outstanding rhetorical statements from classical antiquity to have survived. Scholars have been dealing with this well-known passage, so central to our understanding of Josephus’s Jewish War, since early in the last century. Until quite recently, most studies focused on the central part of the address – the description of the Roman Empire – extracting information on the political, economic, and, above all, the military situation of the Roman Empire between the final years of Nero’s reign and the early years of Vespasian’s rule.1 A notable exception is M. Rostovzeff. By the early twentieth century, this Russian-American scholar already understood the importance of Josephus’ use of rhetoric and quoted the aforementioned address in an article on the history of political speeches in the Roman Empire.

The concluding chapter highlights the salient features of Etruscan spatial organisation. The study has identified distinctive and varied trajectories between city territories and identified different types of frontiers between them. Questions are also posed and answers proposed as to why nucleation took place. Broad comparisons are also made with examples of state formation outside Etruria. Further work is merited to get properly to grips with the rural settlement patterns, specifically the comparative use of the extensive field surveys which have been practised in Central Italy. A further challenge is to write one book which brings the cultural riches of the Etruscans together with their lived landscape, building on previous attempts by the current author with Nigel Spivey and Graeme Barker with Tom Rasmussen. This is work for the future.

Virgil’s fourth Eclogue was written in or around 40 BC. It honors the birth of a miraculous child and prophesies the salvation of Rome in his lifetime. In the fall of that year Rome was celebrating concordia between the triumvirs Octavian and Mark Antony, a hopeful moment in the midst of the larger civil crisis that would eventually see Octavian victorious over Antony and able to consolidate power in himself as Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Such was Rome’s future. Before there was an Augustus, before what Augustus would represent for Rome could be appreciated, Eclogue 4 is nevertheless a key Augustan text, important for the development of Augustan ideology. That is to say, Eclogue 4 influenced how people might think about who Augustus was and how they could interpret messages the princeps broadcast about himself.