Roman Social History: A Sourcebook (Routledge Sourcebooks for the Ancient World)

Editorial Reviews. About the Author. Tim G. Parkin is Professor of Ancient History at the Roman Social History: A Sourcebook (Routledge Sourcebooks for the Ancient World) - Kindle edition by Tim Parkin and Arthur Pomeroy, Tim Parkin.
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We all want to understand the world around us, and the ancient Greeks were the first to try and do so in a way we can properly call scientific. Their thought and writings laid the essential foundations for the revivals of science in medieval Baghdad and renaissance Europe. Now their work is This book reveals how an empire that stretched from Glasgow to Aswan in Egypt could be ruled from a single city and still survive more than a thousand years. The Government of the Roman Empire is the only sourcebook to concentrate on the administration of the empire, using the evidence of In this comprehensive and accessible sourcebook, Ilias Arnaoutoglou presents a collection of ancient Greek laws, which are situated in their legal and historical contexts and are elucidated with relevant selections from Greek literature and epigraphical testimonies.

A wide area of legislative Sherwood, Milo Nikolic, John W. Oleson November 27, In this volume the authors translate and annotate key passages from ancient authors to provide a history and an analysis of the origins and development of technology. Among the topics covered are: Warfare in Ancient Greece assembles a wide range of source material and introduces the latest scholarship on the Greek experience of war.


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The author has carefully selected key texts, many of them not previously available in English, and provided them with comprehensive commentaries. Kathryn Lomas, Kathryn Lomas January 29, This work gives students of all levels access to a comprehensive collection of primary sources on the early history of Italy, from the early expansion of Roman power to the first emmergence of Italy as a unified and cultural political unit. The sources, presented in translation, cover the Roman Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Death in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook 1st Edition. The Story of Athens: Sexuality in Greek and Roman Literature and Society: Sixteen Key Speeches 1st Edition. Greek Science of the Hellenistic Era: The Government of the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook 2nd Edition. Warfare in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook 1st Edition Tim Parkin, Arthur Pomeroy October 23, This Sourcebook contains a comprehensive collection of sources on the topic of the social history of the Roman world during the late Republic and the first two centuries AD.

A Sourcebook 1st Edition Marguerite Johnson, Terry Ryan December 17, This Sourcebook contains numerous original translations of ancient poetry, inscriptions and documents, all of which illuminate the multifaceted nature of sexuality in antiquity. References and suggestions for further reading are listed at the conclusion of each chapter and provide students with up-to-date and relevant works predominantly in English.

Supplementary materials include a map of the city of Rome and three maps of the empire that track travel times, olive and vine cultivation, trade routes and natural resources, plus a series of useful appendices on life expectancy, population figures for the early Imperial period, and Greek and Roman weights, measures, and coinage. The volume is designed to be "the complete introductory resource" for students of Roman social history.

Although many sourcebooks already exist on various aspects of Roman social history, including several useful ones in the Routledge sourcebooks series, it is the authors' expressed hope that, because of its extensive range of materials and reliable translations, the present collection "will be useful in popularising the field as a unified whole" 2 rather than remaining compartmentalized into several distinct subfields of study.

I am skeptical, though, how much this volume or any other can contribute to achieving this goal from a curricular perspective since relatively few departments seem to have the luxury of offering introductory courses on both ancient political history and social history. It is far more common to supplement introductory Roman history offerings with upper-level courses on specialized topics such as Roman slavery or the economy, for which Parkin and Pomeroy's volume could be a very good fit even though this was not their intent.

A course on the Roman economy, for example, could make substantial use of much of the content of the chapters on poverty and the legal system, in addition to the lengthy chapter on the economy itself. And for those who already teach a course specifically on Roman social history or are contemplating it, Parkin and Pomeroy have compiled a valuable resource that will serve both students and instructors well. The greatest strength of the collection is its diversity both in the topics addressed and the sources used for illustration.

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The chapter on poverty, for example, covers a range of pertinent matters from alimentary schemes for the upkeep of children and the perils of urban life, to the diet and employment opportunities of the poor. The sources on these subjects similarly range widely from the familiar, such as Pliny's Panegyric and Martial's Epigrams , to the lesser known including the speeches of Dio Chrysostom and epistolary fiction of Alciphron.

Parkin and Pomeroy have gathered together an impressive spectrum of texts on each major theme, blending the commonplace with the obscure to reveal the richness and vividness of the surviving evidence. The inclusion of a substantial amount of material from little-known literary authors and the corpora of inscriptions and papyri -- works that generally are not readily available in translation -- makes the collection especially useful for undergraduate students who likely would not otherwise have access to these items.

The inclusion of less conventional and familiar sources, such as the jokes about book-smart students from a fifth century CE anthology or a recipe for contraceptives from the PGM , introduce readers to new and interesting texts, and increase the collection's overall value and appeal. For the sake of consistency and reliability, all the translations are Parkin and Pomeroy's.

These very readable translations nicely convey to students with little or no Latin and Greek some qualities of the original languages, for instance in the terseness and formality of legal codes and decrees, or in the "rough and ready Latin" of a character in Petronius' Satyricon who is eager for upcoming gladiatorial games.

Routledge Sourcebooks for the Ancient World

The authors have also neatly captured the word play characteristic of some epigraphic texts in the funerary acrostics for a Sabine goat seller named L. Where it is essential for the meaning, Latin and Greek terms have been retained with an explanation conveniently placed in brackets afterwards, and a lengthy glossary of terms precedes the entries for the chapter on the family and household.

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The addition of a similar glossary, though one covering technical vocabulary for the entire volume, would have made it even more user-friendly. This book makes an important contribution to the teaching of Roman social history, yet there are aspects that detract to some extent from its overall utility and benefit to students, as well as areas that, despite the volume's comprehensiveness, are either absent or merited further attention.

CRC Press Online - Series: Routledge Sourcebooks for the Ancient World

It is hoped that if the opportunity should arise to issue a revised edition, some of the present considerations might be addressed in an effort to increase the volume's pedagogical worth even more so. Though few people read a sourcebook cover to cover, in doing so to complete this review I was struck by the lack of uniformity in the explanatory notes that precede entries.

Some are prefaced by a fairly thorough introduction that includes the date of the text if it can be ascertained , the context in which it was written if known , interesting or important points to note or be wary of, useful cross-references and comparanda , and one or two essential items of bibliography. Yet other entries contain only some of these elements and others none.

This inconsistency is frustrating and poses potential problems for students when utilizing sources for their own research, especially the absence of dates and information about the type of work from which a particular entry was excerpted. Although Parkin and Pomeroy aim to illustrate predominant themes in the study of Roman social life, surely there were changes over time in behaviour and attitudes about which students should be aware in part by being attentive to the date and context of authors' views.


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