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23990 results in Ancient history

Page 809 of 1200

  • 3 - Maintaining resistance

  • Theresa Urbaincyzk, University College Dublin
  • Book:
    Slave Revolts in Antiquity
    Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 March 2008, pp 29-50

  • Summary

    As seen in the previous chapter, slaves might revolt at any time but the circumstances might not favour continued resistance for one reason or another. There was a good chance of a longer period of success when the slaves' masters were divided or at war. We do not know the circumstances of the breakout of the slaves on Chios, nor the exact date, although it seems probable that it was during the third century bce. We are told, however, that there were many slaves on Chios because Thucydides comments: “There were many slaves in Chios – more, in fact, than in any other city except Sparta”. Here, again, is one of the normal conditions for a successful breakout of slaves, that is, the presence of large numbers of them. It is more the maintenance of the revolt that concerns us here because, for once, we have some information about how the slaves maintained their rebellion. The slaves in Chios, unusually it would seem according to our evidence, entered into an agreement with their former masters to ensure their continued survival as a free group.

    Athenaeus preserves this episode. In the voice of his interlocutor Democritus, in Deipnosophistae Book 6, he quotes the fourth to third century bce Greek historian Timaeus of Tauromenium, who had commented that in ancient times (ancient to him, that is) Greeks did not have slaves at all, but used younger members of their families to work for them.

  • 4 - The role of the leader

  • Theresa Urbaincyzk, University College Dublin
  • Book:
    Slave Revolts in Antiquity
    Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 March 2008, pp 51-74

  • Summary

    The individuals who led the rebel slaves play a large role in the accounts of the better documented slave revolts from antiquity, so it is necessary to look at how these men are represented in our texts. I want to look at how they assumed their role, what kind of characters they had and how effective they were depicted as being. The descriptions we possess almost certainly reflect the prejudices and preconceptions, as well as the ideals, of the writers who portrayed them, but rather than dismiss all accounts as mere fiction, it is interesting to see why some of the individuals are presented as positively as they are. A heroic slave leader might be the norm for a modern writer but it is not what we might expect from ancient writers, who generally, as has often been noted, do not question the necessity of slavery, which is now regarded as unacceptable in a civilized society.

    For Spartacus, the most famous slave leader of them all, Plutarch and Appian give different accounts of the start of his command. Plutarch gives us the version that records how at first 200 gladiators had planned to escape but their plan was discovered and only seventy carried it out. Once free and seizing some gladiatorial weapons they chose three leaders, the most important of them being Spartacus.

The Cambridge Ancient History
  • Volume 13, The Late Empire, AD 337–425
  • Edited by Averil Cameron, Peter Garnsey
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    11 December 1997
  • With the publication of Volume 13 The Cambridge Ancient History moves into fresh territory. The first edition was completed by Volume 12 which closed in AD 324. The editors of the new edition have enlarged the scope of Volume 12 to include the foundation of Constantinople and the death of Constantine, and extended the series with two new volumes taking the history down to AD 600. Volume 13 covers the years 337–425, from the death of Constantine to the reign of Theodosius II. It begins with a series of narrative chapters, followed by a part on government and institutions. The economy and society of the Empire are grouped together, as are chapters on foreign relations and the barbarian world. A part on religion marks the importance of Christianity in the Roman Empire by this period. The volume concludes with chapters on the various literary cultures of the Empire, and on art.

The Cambridge Ancient History
  • Volume 7, Part 2, The Rise of Rome to 220 BC, 2nd edition
  • Edited by F. W. Walbank, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Assisted by A. Drummond
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 March 1990
  • This volume of the second edition of the Cambridge Ancient History traces the history of Rome from its origins to the eve of the Second Punic War. Although the period covered is essentially the same as in the undivided Volume VII of the first edition, the treatment of the material is completely fresh and is much more extensive. Account is taken of new scholarly insights and of the considerable amount of new evidence, much of it archaeological, which has become available since the first edition was published. After a survey of the sources of our information the origins of Rome are discussed, beginning with the first discernible traces of the bronze Age settlement and going on to an assessment of the regal period. The complex and often controversial history of the early Republic is examined with reference to its internal development, the evolution of its relationships with the Latins, and the remorseless, if occasionally erratic, advance of Roman power in parts of Italy less immediately adjacent to the city. These developments are traced further in relation to the intervention of Pyrrhus and its aftermath, leading to consideration of Rome's relationships with Carthage, the First Punic War, and the beginnings of overseas empire. Rome is considered from a different perspective in a chapter on society and religion.

The Cambridge History of Judaism
  • Volume 2, The Hellenistic Age
  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990
  • This is the second of four volumes covering the history of Judaism from the Persian period, roughly 539–322 BCE, to the Tannaitic period, which culminated in the codification of the Mishnah around 250 CE. It deals with the encounter of Judaism with the Hellenistic culture spread throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond by Alexander the Great and his successors. The volume describes both the rejection and adoption of Hellenism by Judaism. Religiously the rejection provoked new developments and politically the Maccabaean Revolt, which resulted in the creation of the independent Hasmonean state, 142–63 BCE. Culturally, the adoption of Hellenistic forms by Judaism led to a significant Jewish-Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic literature. At the same time, the tensions in the religious, intellectual, social and political life of Jews spawned apocalyptic thought and literature. In the light of the interpenetration of Judaism and Hellenism in this period the volume questions some established dichotomies.

The Cambridge Ancient History
  • Volume 8, Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 BC, 2nd edition
  • Edited by A. E. Astin, F. W. Walbank, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    07 December 1989
  • Volume VIII of the second edition of The Cambridge Ancient History, like its counterpart in the first edition, deals with the comparatively short but eventful period in which Rome acquired effective political mastery of the Mediterranean lands. From the Carthaginians in Spain, the Second Punic War and the first Roman involvement across the Adriatic, the advance of Roman power is traced through the conquests in Cisalpine Gaul, Spain and Africa in the west and through the conflicts in the east with Macedonia, the Seleucid empire, and finally the Greeks. Interspersed with these themes are chapters on the Seleucids and their rivals and on the Greeks of Batria and India, on the internal political life of Rome, and on developments in Rome's relationship with her allies and neighbours in Italy. In conclusion, two chapters explore the interaction between the Roman and Italian tradition and the Greek world, the first dealing mainly with intellectual and literary developments, the Second Punic War and the first Roman involvement across the Adriatic, the advance of Roman power is traced through the conflicts in the east with Macedonia, the Seleuid empire, and finally the Greeks. Interspersed with these themes are chapters on the Seleucids and their rivals and on the Greeks of Bactria and India, on developments in Rome's relationships with her allies and neighbours in Italy. In conclusion, two chapters explore the interaction between the Roman and Italian tradition and the Greek world, the first dealing mainly with intellectual and literary developments, the second with the material evidence for such interaction at many levels ranging from the basis of economic production to architecture and major works of art. This new edition has been completely replanned and rewritten in order to reflect the advances in scholarship and changes in perspective which have been achieved in the half-century since the publication of its predecessor.

The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
  • Volume 2, Rome from the Late Republic to the Late Empire
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, Hans van Wees, Michael Whitby
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007
  • Warfare was the single biggest preoccupation of historians in antiquity. In recent decades fresh textual interpretations, numerous new archaeological discoveries and a much broader analytical focus emphasising social, economic, political and cultural approaches have transformed our understanding of ancient warfare. Volume II of this two-volume History reflects these developments and provides a systematic account, written by a distinguished cast of contributors, of the various themes underlying the warfare of the Roman world from the Late Republic to the sixth-century empire of Justinian and his successors. For each broad period developments in troop-types, equipment, strategy and tactics are discussed. These are placed in the broader context of developments in international relations and the relationship of warfare to both the state and wider society. Numerous illustrations, a glossary and chronology, and information about the authors mentioned supplement the text. This will become the primary reference work for specialists and non-specialists alike.

The Cambridge Ancient History
  • Volume 11, The High Empire, AD 70–192, 2nd edition
  • Edited by Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, Dominic Rathbone
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    12 October 2000
  • Volume XI of the second edition of The Cambridge Ancient History covers the history of the Roman empire in the period from AD 70 to 192, from Vespasian to the Antonines. The volume begins with the political and military history of the period. Developments in the structure of the empire are then examined, including the organisation and personnel of the central government and province-based institutions and practices. A series of provincial studies follows, and the society, economy and culture of the empire as a whole are reviewed in a group of thematic chapters. This edition is entirely rewritten from the 1936 edition. There is much more extensive discussion of social, economic and cultural issues, reflecting trends in modern scholarship, and the increase of archaeological evidence and development of new approaches to it. New documentary evidence, from texts on stone, wood and papyrus, has advanced knowledge in every chapter.

The Cambridge Ancient History
  • Volume 4, Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean, c.525 to 479 BC, 2nd edition
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988
  • The years covered by this volume saw events and developments of major significance in the Mediterranean world. The first section of the book examines the Persian empire, the regions it comprised and its expansion during the reigns of Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes. In Greece, Sparta was attending maturity as the leader of a military coalition and Athens passed through a period of enlightened tyranny to a moderate democracy of dynamic energy and clear-sighted intelligence. Given the contrast between Greek ideas and Persian absolutism a clash between Greece and Persia became inevitable, and important chapters deal with the revolt of the Ionian Greeks against the Persians, and the two Persian invasions of Greece including the epic battles of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis. The third part of the volume turns to the Western Mediterranean. Italy now becomes a significant factor in the history of the area and this section covers the Italic peoples and their languages from the Bronze to the Iron age, and examines the Etruscans and their culture. Sicily is the subject of the final chapter. There the Greek city-states under Gelon of Syracuse and Theron ruler of Acragas repelled a Carthaginian onslaught at the battle of Himera. This new edition has been completely replanned and rewritten in order to reflect the advances in scholarship and changes in perspective which have been taking place in the sixty years since the publication of its predecessor.

The Cambridge Ancient History
  • Volume 6, The Fourth Century BC, 2nd edition
  • Edited by D. M. Lewis, John Boardman, Simon Hornblower, M. Ostwald
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    13 October 1994
  • Volume VI of the new edition of The Cambridge Ancient History begins with Sparta attempting to consolidate its leadership of mainland Greece and ends with the death of Alexander the Great after he had conquered the Persian Empire and marched far into India. It is correspondingly wide-ranging in its treatment of the politics and economy, not only of old Greece, but of the Near East and the western Mediterranean. The century also saw the continued development of Classical Greek art and the moulding of Greek prose as an uniquely flexible means of expression. The formation of the great philosophical schools assured to Athens in her political decline a long future as a cultural centre, and established patterns of thought which dominated western civilization for two thousand years.

The Cambridge History of Judaism
  • Volume 1, Introduction: The Persian Period
  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    16 February 1984
  • The first three volumes of The Cambridge History of Judaism cover the history of the Jews from the Exile in 587 BCE to the early Roman period extending into the third century CE. A comprehensive examination is made of all the relevant literary and archeological sources, and special attention is given to the interaction of Iranian, Semitic, Hellenistic and Roman cultures. The contributors include both Jewish and Gentile scholars from many countries, and this History thus helps to deliver the study of Jewish history and Christian origins from geographical and religious limitations, and contributes to a deeper understanding and a broader tolerance. This first volume opens with three introductory chapters to the work as a whole dealing with the geographical background, the chronology and the numismatic history of Judaism. The remainder of this volume concentrates on the Persian period, the two and a half centuries following the Babylonian Exile.

The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, Richard P. Saller
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007
  • In this, the first comprehensive one-volume survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. The approach taken is both thematic, with chapters on the underlying determinants of economic performance, and chronological, with coverage of the whole of the Greek and Roman worlds extending from the Aegean Bronze Age to Late Antiquity. The contributors move beyond the substantivist-formalist debates that dominated twentieth-century scholarship and display a new interest in economic growth in antiquity. New methods for measuring economic development are explored, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately. Fully accessible to non-specialist, the volume represents a major advance in our understanding of the economic expansion that made the civilisation of the classical Mediterranean world possible.

The Cambridge Ancient History
  • Volume 3, Part 1, The Prehistory of the Balkans, the Middle East and the Aegean World, Tenth to Eighth Centuries BC, 2nd edition
  • Edited by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    05 August 1982
  • Volume III of The Cambridge Ancient History was first published in 1925 in one volume. The new edition has expanded to such an extent, owing to the immense amount of new information now available, that it has had to be divided into three parts. Volume III Part 1 opens with a survey of the Balkans north of Greece in the Prehistoric period. This is the first time such a survey has been published of this area which besides its intrinsic interest is important for its influence on the cultures of the Aegean and Anatolia. The rest of the book is devoted to the tenth to the eighth centuries B. C. In Greece and the Aegean the main theme is the gradual regeneration from the Dark Age and the emergence of a society in which can be seen the beginnings of the city-state. During the same period in Western Asia and the Middle East the Kingdoms of Assyria and Babylonia rise to power, the Urartians appear, and in Palestine the kingdoms of Israel and Judah flourish. In Egypt the country's fortunes revive briefly under Shoshenq I. The final chapter in this part deals with the languages of Greece and the Balkans and with the invention and spread of alphabetic writing.

The Cambridge Ancient History
  • Volume 7, Part 1, The Hellenistic World, 2nd edition
  • Edited by F. W. Walbank, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 September 1984
  • Published in 1928, Volume VII of the Cambridge Ancient History orginally covered both the history of the Hellenistic world from the battle of Ipsus in 301 BC down to the Peace of Naupactus and the battle of Raphia in 217 BC and the history of Rome from its foundation down to the same date. In the new edition the Greek and Roman sections have been assigned to two separate volumes. Of these, VII part I opens after the death of Alexander, in 323 BC, as being a more logical starting-point for Hellenistic history; but 217 has been retained as the terminal date since, as Polybius noted, it is from then onwards that Rome begins to play a substantial role in Greek affairs. The volume has been completely rewritten by specialists from Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Canada, and takes full account of the vast amount of new material that has become available in the last fifty years. Separate chapters deal with the main kingdoms - Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Asia and Macedonia - and with mainland Greece, Sicily and the smaller states including Pergamum. Political events are fully described and assessed, but there is less emphasis on military detail than in the first edition. The space thus saved has been given over to chapters on the historical sources, on the institution of monarchy and the ideology surrounding it, on the main cultural, social and economic aspects of the Hellenistic world and on the development of Hellenistic science, especially in relation to its application in peace and war. This up-to-date and authoritative account of the early Hellenistic world is designed to serve both the student and the general reader of this and subsequent generations as the first edition has served those of the last fifty years.

The Cambridge Ancient History
  • Volume 2, Part 1, The Middle East and the Aegean Region, c.1800–1380 BC, 3rd edition
  • Edited by I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    03 May 1973
  • Volumes I and II of The Cambridge Ancient History have had to be entirely rewritten as a result of the very considerable additions to knowledge which have accrued in the past forty-five years. For the same reason it has also been necessary to increase the size of the volumes and to divide each of them into two separately published parts. The individual chapters have already appeared as fascicles, but without maps, indexes and chronological tables which, for practical reasons, have been reserved for these volumes. Some additions and corrections have also been made in order to bring the text, as far as possible, up to date. Together the new volumes provide a history of Egypt and the Ancient Orient (including Greece and the Aegean region) down to 1000 BC in a form suitable for both specialist and student. Volume II, Part I, deals with the history of the region from about 1800 to 1380 BC. This was the era of Hammurabi in Western Asia, the Hyksos and warrior-kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt, and the Minoan and early Mycenaean civilizations in Crete and mainland Greece.

The Cambridge History of Christianity
  • Volume 1, Origins to Constantine
  • Edited by Margaret M. Mitchell, Frances M. Young
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    19 January 2006
  • The first of the nine volume Cambridge History of Christianity series, Origins to Constantine provides a comprehensive overview of the essential events, persons, places and issues involved in the emergence of the Christian religion in the Mediterranean world in the first three centuries. Over thirty essays written by scholarly experts trace this dynamic history from the time of Jesus through to the rise of Imperial Christianity in the fourth century. It provides thoughtful and well-documented analyses of the diverse forms of Christian community, identity and practice that arose within decades of Jesus's death, and which through missionary efforts were soon implanted throughout the Roman Empire. Origins to Constantine examines the distinctive characteristics of Christian groups in each geographical region up to the end of the third century, while also exploring the development of the institutional forms, intellectual practices and theological formulations that would mark Christian history in subsequent centuries.

Page 809 of 1200