Tag: Roman

Free Download The Roman Agricultural Economy: Organization, Investment, and Production (Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy) By Alan Bowman (editor), Andrew Wilson (editor)
2013 | 352 Pages | ISBN: 0199665729 | PDF | 8 MB
This volume is a collection of studies which presents new analyses of the nature and scale of Roman agriculture in the Mediterranean world from c. 100 BC to AD 350. It provides a clear understanding of the fundamental features of Roman agricultural production through studying the documentary and archaeological evidence for the modes of land exploitation and the organization, development of, and investment in this sector of the Roman economy. Moving substantially beyond the simple assumption that agriculture was the dominant sector of the ancient economy, the volume explores what was special and distinctive about it, especially with a view of its development and integration during a period of expansion and prosperity across the empire. The papers exemplify a range of possible approaches to studying and, within limits, quantifying aspects of Roman agricultural production, marshalling a large quantity of evidence, chiefly archaeological and papyrological, to address important questions of the organization and performance of this sector in the Roman world.

Free Download Josh Levithan, "Roman Siege Warfare"
English | ISBN: 0472118986 | 2013 | 264 pages | EPUB | 672 KB
Roman siege warfare had its own structure and customs, and expectations both by the besieged and by the attacking army. Sieges are typically sorted by the techniques and technologies that attackers used, but the more fruitful approach offered in Roman Siege Warfare examines the way a siege follows or diverges from typical narrative and operational Descriptionlines. Author Josh Levithan emphasizes the human elements-morale and motivation-rather than the engineering, and he recaptures the sense of a siege as an event in progress that offers numerous attitudes, methods, and outcomes. Sieges involved a concentration of violent effort in space and the practical challenge posed by a high wall: unlike field battles they were sharply defined in time, in space, and in operational terms.

Free Download Alan Sumler, "Intoxication in the Ancient Greek and Roman World"
English | ISBN: 1666920142 | 2023 | 172 pages | EPUB, PDF | 338 KB + 1470 KB
Intoxication in the Ancient Greek and Roman World considers the psychotropic plants used in the ancient world and ancient attitudes towards intoxication. Alan Sumler surveys primary Greek and Roman sources for noteworthy mentions of ancient intoxicants like hellebore, mandrake, deadly nightshade, thorn apple, opium poppy, cannabis, wine, and other substances and reveals how psychoactive drugs were used in ancient Greek and Roman religion, medicine, magic, artistic inspiration, and recreation. Interpreted through the lens of modern-day scholarship from Classics, philosophy, and ethnobotany, the primary sources illuminate how commonplace psychotropic plants and drugs were in the ancient Greek and Roman world and-given different contexts for psychotropic drug usage-what attitudes these societies held about the appropriateness of intoxication.

Free Download Neil Christie, "The Fall of the Western Roman Empire: Archaeology, History and the Decline of Rome"
English | 2012 | ISBN: 0340759666, 1849663378 | PDF | pages: 320 | 19.8 mb
The decline of the Roman Empire has been a subject of fascination and debate for centuries. In this original new work, Neil Christie draws on numerous sources, interweaving the latest archaeological evidence, to reconstruct the period’s landscape and events. In the process, he rethinks some of historians’ most widely held and long-established views: Was the Empire’s disintegration caused primarily by external or internal factors? Why did the Eternal City of Old Rome collapse in the West, while the ‘New Rome’ of Constantinople endured in the East? What was destroyed and what remained of Roman culture after successive invasions by Vandals, Goths, Huns and other ‘barbarians’, and what was the impact of the new Christian religion? As Christie expertly demonstrates, the archaeology of the late Roman period reveals intriguing answers to these and other questions. Taking an innovative, interdisciplinary approach that combines traditional historical methods and a unique familiarity with the Empire’s physical remnants, he uncovers new aspects of Rome’s military struggles, its shifting geography, and the everyday lives of its subjects.

Free Download Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard
English | October 24, 2023 | ISBN: 0871404222 | 512 pages | PDF | 28 Mb
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Free Download Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs by J. Patout Burns Jr., Robin M. Jensen
English | November 30, 2014 | ISBN: 0802869319 | 736 pages | MOBI | 56 Mb
In-depth, illustrated exploration of how early North African Christians lived out their faith

Free Download Sophia Papaioannou Patricia A. Johnston, Attilio Mastrocinque, "Animals in Greek and Roman Religion and Myth"
English | ISBN: 1443894877 | 2016 | 545 pages | PDF | 4 MB
This volume brings together a variety of approaches to the different ways in which the role of animals was understood in ancient Greco-Roman myth and religion, across a period of several centuries, from Preclassical Greece to Late Antique Rome. Animals in Greco-Roman antiquity were thought to be intermediaries between men and gods, and they played a pivotal role in sacrificial rituals and divination, the foundations of pagan religion. The studies in the first part of the volume examine the role of the animals in sacrifice and divination. The second part explores the similarities between animals, on the one hand, and men and gods, on the other. Indeed, in antiquity, the behaviour of several animals was perceived to mirror human behaviour, while the selection of the various animals as sacrificial victims to specific deities often was determined on account of some peculiar habit that echoed a special attribute of the particular deity. The last part of this volume is devoted to the study of animal metamorphosis, and to this end a number of myths that associate various animals with transformation are examined from a variety of perspectives.

Free Download Sophia Papaioannou Patricia A. Johnston, Attilio Mastrocinque, "Animals in Greek and Roman Religion and Myth"
English | ISBN: 1443894877 | 2016 | 545 pages | PDF | 4 MB
This volume brings together a variety of approaches to the different ways in which the role of animals was understood in ancient Greco-Roman myth and religion, across a period of several centuries, from Preclassical Greece to Late Antique Rome. Animals in Greco-Roman antiquity were thought to be intermediaries between men and gods, and they played a pivotal role in sacrificial rituals and divination, the foundations of pagan religion. The studies in the first part of the volume examine the role of the animals in sacrifice and divination. The second part explores the similarities between animals, on the one hand, and men and gods, on the other. Indeed, in antiquity, the behaviour of several animals was perceived to mirror human behaviour, while the selection of the various animals as sacrificial victims to specific deities often was determined on account of some peculiar habit that echoed a special attribute of the particular deity. The last part of this volume is devoted to the study of animal metamorphosis, and to this end a number of myths that associate various animals with transformation are examined from a variety of perspectives.

Free Download The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre by David Bomgardner
English | 2000 | ISBN: 0415165938 | 304 Pages | PDF | 8.9 MB
The Roman amphitheatre was a site both of bloody combat and marvellous spectacle, symbolic of the might of Empire; to understand the importance of the amphitheatre is to understand a key element in the social and political life of the Roman ruling classes.

Free Download The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought by Christopher Rowe, Malcolm Schofield
English | 2000 | ISBN: 0521481368 | 766 Pages | PDF | 46.7 MB
Beginning with Homer and ending in late antiquity with Christian and pagan reflections on divine and human order, this volume is the first general and comprehensive treatment of Rome ever to be published in English.