Postmodernism, multiculturalism, the alleged decline of the United States, deconstruction, leadership, and values--these topics have been at the forefront of contemporary intellectual and cultural debate and are likely to remain so for the near future. Participants in the debate can usefully enlarge the perspective to a comparison between the Greco-Roman world and contemporary society. In this thought-provoking work, a noted classics scholar tests the ancient-modern comparison, showing what it can add to the contemporary debates and what its limitations are.

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Augustus, Rome's first emperor, is one of the great figures of world history and one of the most fascinating. In this lively and concise biography Karl Galinsky examines Augustus' life from childhood to deification. He chronicles the mosaic of vicissitudes, challenges, setbacks, and successes that shaped Augustus' life, both public and private. How did he use his power? How did he manage to keep reinventing himself? What kind of man was he? A transformative leader, Augustus engineered profound change in Rome and throughout the Mediterranean world. No one would have expected such vast...

What and how do people remember? Who controls the process of what we call cultural or social memory? What is forgotten and why? People's memories are not the same as history written in retrospect; they are malleable and an ongoing process of construction and reconstruction. Ancient Rome provided much of the cultural framework for early Christianity, and in both, the role of memory was pervasive. Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity presents perspectives from an international and interdisciplinary range of contributors on the literature, history, archaeology, and religion of...