UNRV Ancient Roman Empire History

This is the first of what is to be a set of 5 volumes providing a comprehensive narrative of late Roman military history from 284-641. It provides a detailed description of the changes in organization, equipment, strategy and tactics among both the Roman forces and her enemies in the relevant period, while also giving a […]

The siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, the fall of Masada to the Romans – these dramatic episodes in the First Jewish War (AD 66-70) are well known to students of the ancient world. Hardly known at all to them are the subsequent uprisings in the Diaspora of AD 115-117 and the Second […]

The superhero is nothing new. Our modern day graphic novels descend directly from the American comic books that emerged in the thirties, as if the United States was seeking hope in a world that was threatened by economic woe and violent conflict. Perhaps oddly for that nation in particular we find the iconic Superman was […]

I will say from the outset that the reason I took on this review copy was because I found the concept interesting enough to draw me in to read, so I started on good terms. I am, for those who don’t know me, a historian and author with a solid bent towards the classical world […]

As you settle down into whatever chair you have chosen to sit in whilst reading this wonderful book, be prepared to linger a while, because in Brutus of Troy, Anthony Adolph is about to transport you to a world of intrigue, mystery, pageantry and daring-do. Set over continents the Brutus myth is one which is […]

Weighing in at 310 pages (including two appendices), this medium-sized book is an encyclopedia-in-brief of the backgrounds (social, historical, theological) of the books, writers and editors of the New Testament, with basic section-by-section summaries, with comments, of each book. The maps and charts are marvels of concision and completeness: typical of all the charts is […]

It seems obvious to modern perspectives that at the height of the Roman Empire anyone living within the bounds of the Empire was ‘Roman’. However, it is also obvious that on the boundaries the degree to which the inhabitants accepted their ‘Romanness’ is open to interpretation. Even more crucially, as the Empire decayed there arises […]

Christopher Matthew’s An Invincible Beast is a remarkable piece of military history. It is a comprehensive study of the Macedonian pike-phalanx, describing its origins, logistics, uses in battle, as well as its influence in the ancient world. A trained classicist, Matthew felt that even though the pike-phalanx was the dominant military formation for two centuries, […]

If one is fortunate enough to actually live and work in one of the most famous cities of the world, what does one do when not hunched over a desk or negotiating Rome’s notoriously bad traffic? Mott LL Groom was one such lucky individual who lived in Rome for not one or five or ten […]

Second part in our emperor series on Elagabalus` life. We know very little for certain about Elagabalus while he was emperor. There are two reasons for this. The first is that all palace politics are generally obscure, but when imperial policy is being made by women in an society deeply suspicious of women in politics, […]

Any biography of Vipsanius Agrippa has a huge obstacle to overcome, and that obstacle can be summarized in one word – Augustus. On the written page, just as in the reality, the life and deeds of Augustus tend to crowd Agrippa on to the sidelines. So closely were the fortunes of Agrippa tied to those […]

One of the major processes in the upsurge of interest in Late Antiquity is the translation of hard-to-access sources that are known only to specialists. One of the players in this process is Routledge’s Classical Translations Series. The latest in the series is this translation of the fragments of Peter the Patrician. Although little is […]

We won’t ever see the glorious structures of Palmyra again. ISIL/Daesh destroyed the Temple of Bel, the Temple of Baalshamin and the Arch of Triumph in 2015, and beheaded the elderly head of antiquities, Khaled al-Assaad. Thank whichever god you serve for the photographs, the museums that hold ancient reliefs and inscriptions, and books such […]