Rome History English

From an award-winning historian of ancient Rome, a concise and comprehensive history of the fighting forces that created the Roman Empire Roman warfare was relentless in its pursuit of victory. A ruthless approach to combat played a major part in Rome's history, creating an empire that...

The lives of Hannibal and his Roman enemies are the stuff of legend. But these classic stories contain truths with relevance today: The seeds of our successes lie in our failures, and within our successes are the kernels of our failure. Knowing how to recognize these paradoxes will help us to be more effective at work, at school, at home, and with others. A big new idea book that springs from ancient history, Hannibal and Me explores these exciting ideas by analyzing the experiences of Hannibal and others who made their mark on history.

Attila is a household name. But his true character and impact on the Roman Empire have always remained elusive. Until now. In the first major work written about Attila in decades, Nick Holmes rewrites the story of Attila and Rome. Contrary to his brutal legend, Attila was a complex and captivating personality. A great warlord who despised ostentation, admired bravery, and valued loyalty.

A new age has dawned for Rome. Following the brief reign of Emperor Nerva, Marcus Ulpius Trajan inherits the mantle of Caesar. A revered general and statesman, the senate a people of Rome greet his rise with an optimism not seen since the reign of Vespasian.

Julius Caesar was nothing if not bold. When, in the wake of his defeat of Pompey at Pharsalus his victorious legions refused to march another step under his command, he pursued his fleeing rival into Egypt with an impossibly small force of Gallic and German cavalry, raw Italian recruits, and nine hundred Spanish prisoners of war - tough veterans of Pompey's Sixth Legion. Cleopatra's Kidnappers tells the epic saga of Caesar's adventures in Egypt through the eyes of these captured, but never defeated, legionaries.

The 14th Gemina Martia Victrix Legion was the most celebrated unit of the early Roman Empire - a force that had been wiped out under Julius Caesar, reformed, and almost wiped out again. After participating in the a.d. 43 invasion of Britain, the 14th Legion achieved its greatest glory when it put down the famous rebellion of the Britons under Boudicca.

Scipio Africanus (236-183 BC) was one of the most exciting and dynamic leaders in history. As commander, he never lost a battle. Yet it is his adversary, Hannibal, who has lived on in public memory. As B. H. Liddell Hart writes, "Scipio's battles are richer in stratagems and ruses - many still feasible today - than those of any other commander in history." Any military enthusiast or historian will find this to be an absorbing, gripping portrait.

The Secret History, written by the sixth-century Byzantine historian Procopius, is one of the most extraordinary and scandalous documents to have survived from the early Byzantine period. Procopius, the leading official historian of his time, lived during the testing and indulgent time of Emperor Justinian the Great and wrote the official records of the successful wars and the grand building projects of his ruler. These were words of aggrandisement. But covertly, Procopius kept a very different record....

A deeply reflective primer on creating meaningful connections, rebuilding abundant communities, and living in a way that engages our full humanity in an age of unprecedented anxiety and loneliness—from the author of The Tech-Wise Family “A unique exploration of tech’s effect on...

This is a three-in-one combo with everything you need to know about the Roman empire. The books will help you become familiar with the time of the Romans, beginning of the Roman empire, its expansion, and shrinkage, and you will learn all about the Roman emperors.

The year is AD 66, and the Roman province of Judea has exploded in rebellion. Far from being a revolution of unified peoples, the various Jewish factions of Sadducees, Zealots, Sicarii, and Edomites are in a state of civil war; as anxious to spill the blood of each other as they are to fight the Romans. The Judeans find hope when the Romans commit a serious tactical blunder and allow their forces to be ambushed and nearly destroyed in the mountain pass of Beth Horon.

In the minds of most people today, Gaul equates to modern France. However, the vast geographical area that Caesar named Gaul, in fact, was made up of a number of very distinct regions and covered, in addition to modern-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and Northern Italy. The Romans called the northern area of the Italian peninsula, which is now part of modern Italy, Cisalpine Gaul, or Gaul on this side of the Alps.

This spirited retelling brings us Shakespeare’s cast of immortal characters with excerpts from the original dialogue told in a way that young listeners can grasp....

In 89 A.D., following a failed insurrection by the governor of Upper Germania, the disgraced Legio XXI Rapax is dispatched to Pannonia, on the River Danube. The legion is purged of its senior officers and Emperor Domitian appoints the venerable Lucius Flavius Silva as the new commanding legate. A revered general, Silva famously captured the Herodian Fortress of Masada at the end of the Great Jewish Revolt, twenty years earlier.

"The Five Good Emperors", a reference to the five emperors who ruled the Roman Empire between 96 and 180 CE (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius), was a term first coined by Machiavelli and later adopted and popularized by historian Edward Gibbon. This period of 84 years is generally regarded as the high point of the Roman Empire, at least after Augustus. According to some academics, the success these rulers had in centralizing the empire's administration, while undoubtedly bringing huge benefits, also sowed the seeds for later problems.

The Roman army is one of the most famous fighting forces in history. Through its power and prowess, a once obscure Italian city forged an empire that encircled the Mediterranean and covered half of Europe. The physical remains of its presence can be traced from the mountainous borders of Scotland to the arid deserts of Egypt, but its legacy is far greater and more enduring, as Rome's influence continues to shape the political, legal, and cultural landscape of Europe to this very day.

On 8 June 218 AD, a fourteen-year-old Syrian boy, egged on by his grandmother, led an army to battle in a Roman civil war. Against all expectations, he was victorious. Varius Avitus Bassianus, known to the modern world as Heliogabalus, was proclaimed emperor. The next four years were to be the strangest in the history of the empire.

The influence of the Roman Empire has been widespread and profound, perhaps more so than that of any other empire or civilization. Rome laid the foundation for many of the institutions and ideas in the modern Western world, including the common political and legal systems. Roman ruins can still be found in distant England, and Roman aqueducts still bring fresh drinking water to modern Rome.

As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius had access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts) to produce one of the most colorful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome, from the foundation of the empire under Julius Caesar and Augustus, to the decline into depravity and civil war under Nero and the recovery that came with his successors.

Procopius appeared to be a loyal part of the Byzantine establishment, his official writing glorifying the deeds of the Emperor Justinian (d. AD 565). However, he also produced a work that he knew could never be published within the Emperor’s lifetime: The Secret History, a vitriolic indictment of the rule of Justinian and his wife Theodora. In The Secret History, the general Belisarius is presented as an idiot who is manipulated by his conniving wife Antonina, while the Emperor is depicted as a demon king, a dishonest and autocratic destroyer of established institutions.