Erudite and urbane, a scion of the Peripatos, Demetrius of Phalerum dominated Athenian political life for a decade (317-307 B.C.E.) with Macedonian support. Viewed by some as the embodiment of the longed-for 'philosopher-king', Demetrius has been seen a test case for the interplay of philosophical training and political praxis in antiquity. This book, through a close re-examination of the fragmentary and diffuse testimonia for Demetrius' decade, argues that such a view misunderstands his legislative, constitutional and financial reforms, which should rather be seen within the context of...

Providing a comprehensive examination of the capacity of ancient ships and seafarers to cope with seasonally changing sea conditions, this book draws on a wide range of ancient literary sources while also taking account of modern weather records, hydrological data, and recent archaeological discoveries. Taking a fresh look at the various ways in which seasonality affected maritime transport across the sea-lanes of the ancient world, this book offers new perspectives on the nature of seaborne trade, naval warfare and piratical operations. The result is a volume that questions many long-held...

Water and Roman Urbanism: Towns, Waterscapes, Land Transformation and Experience in Roman Britain offers a new perspective for investigating Roman settlement and how urban spaces were created and experienced by focusing on the relationship between settlement and water and the meanings attributed to these places. Rather than a descriptive approach to the urban fabric it emphasises social context and cultural meaning through interpretative frameworks of analysis. Central are the cultural and experiential implications of water forming part of towns, rather than economic and practical...

In Taxing Freedom Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz examines manumission inscriptions from Hellenistic and Roman Thessaly, which record payments made to the poleis by manumitted slaves. In this original study the author explores the purpose of and the motivation behind these payments, apparently exacted as a federal impost, and places them in a wider historical and economic context. Based on a close examination of the epigraphic and literary evidence, Taxing Freedom offers important insights into the nature and extent of slavery and manumission in Hellenistic and Roman Thessaly, the...

The Roman Empire may be properly described as a consortium of cities (and not as set of proto national states). From the late Republic and into the Principate, the Roman elite managed the empire through insititutional and personal ties to the communities of the Empire. Especially in the Latin West the emperors encouraged the adoption of the Latin language and urban amenities, and were generous in the award of citizenship. This process, and 'Romanization' is a reasonable label, was facilitated by civic patronage. The literary evidence provides a basis for understanding this transformation from...

Processes of Cultural Change and Integration in the Roman World is a collection of studies on the interaction between Rome and the peoples that became part of its Empire between c. 300 BC and AD 300. The book focuses on the mechanisms by which interaction between Rome and its subjects occurred, e.g. the settlements of colonies by the Romans, army service, economic and cultural interaction. In many cases Rome exploited the economic resources of the conquered territories without allowing the local inhabitants any legal autonomy. However, they usually maintained a great deal of cultural...

In The Policy of Darius and Xerxes towards Thrace and Macedonia Miroslav Vasilev analyses in detail the policy of the Persian kings towards their European possessions in the years 514-465 BC. The book examines the status of Macedonian rulers under the Persian kings, as well as the status of the Thracian territories conquered as a result of the campaigns of Darius and Megabazus. In addition, the author localizes many tribes, rivers, lakes, mountains, and other geographical features of primary importance in defining the territorial span of the European lands conquered by the Persians....

On the Agora traces the evolution of the main public square of the Greek polis for the six centuries from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the height of the Roman Empire and the Herulian invasion of Greece in 267 AD. Drawing on literary, epigraphic and, especially, archaeological evidence, the book takes a comparative approach to consider how the layout and function of agoras in cities throughout Greece changed during centuries that witnessed far reaching transformations in culture, society and political life. The book challenges the popular view of the post-Classical...

La Phrygie Paroree et la Pisidie septentrionale deals with the history, the historical geography and the cultural sociology of Phrygia Paroreios and Northern Pisidia during the Hellenistic and Roman periods (IVth cent. BC IVth cent. AD). This region of inner Anatolia, mostly inhabited by Pisidians and Phrygians, faced gradually the settlement of Greek, Macedonian, Jewish, Thracian, Lycian and Roman colonists who deeply modified the local cultures and geopolitics. With an approach based on epigraphic, archaeological, literary and numismatic sources, this work is the first historical...

Over the past decades, archaeological field surveys and excavations have greatly enriched our knowledge of the Roman countryside Drawing on such new data, the volume The Economic Integration of Roman Italy, edited by Tymon de Haas and Gijs Tol, presents a series of papers that explore the changes Rome's territorial and economic expansion brought about in the countryside of the Italian peninsula. By drawing on a variety of source materials (e.g. pottery, settlement patterns, environmental data), they shed light on the complexity of rural settlement and economies on the local, regional...