Britain and the End of the Roman Empire

Britain and the End of the Roman Empire PDF Author: Ken Dark
Publisher: Tempus Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780752425320
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The end of the Roman period and the early development of Post-Roman Kingdoms are two of the most important - and most debated - subjects for archaeologists and historians. Questioning many current assumptions, this book presents a radical reinterpretation of Britain in the period 400-600. Drawing attention to far greater similarities between immediately post-Roman Britain and the rest of Europe than previously thought possible, it highlights the importance of fifth-sixth-century Britain in understanding wider themes regarding the end of the Western roman empire as a whole. A very wide range of archaeological and written evidence from the whole of Britain is discussed, rather than focusing on either Anglo-Saxon or Celtic archaeology alone. Burials, settlements and religious centres are brought into the discussion, alongside new material and more obscure data from scattered sources. The final occupation of Roman towns, forts and villas is examined, and post-Roman hill-forts such as Tintagel, Dinas Powys and Cadbury Congresbury is evaluated. Anglo-Saxon and early Christian cemeteries such as Spong Hill and Cannington are considered, and evidence for the earliest British monasteries explored. This book not only offers an exciting new interpretation of Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries AD but is probably the most comprehensive survey of the archaeological and written evidence for the period. It will be indispensable for professional and amateurs archaeologists alike and invaluable for students of British, Roman or Medieval archaeology and history at all levels.

Britain and the End of the Roman Empire

Britain and the End of the Roman Empire PDF Author: Ken Dark
Publisher: Tempus Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780752425320
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book

Book Description
The end of the Roman period and the early development of Post-Roman Kingdoms are two of the most important - and most debated - subjects for archaeologists and historians. Questioning many current assumptions, this book presents a radical reinterpretation of Britain in the period 400-600. Drawing attention to far greater similarities between immediately post-Roman Britain and the rest of Europe than previously thought possible, it highlights the importance of fifth-sixth-century Britain in understanding wider themes regarding the end of the Western roman empire as a whole. A very wide range of archaeological and written evidence from the whole of Britain is discussed, rather than focusing on either Anglo-Saxon or Celtic archaeology alone. Burials, settlements and religious centres are brought into the discussion, alongside new material and more obscure data from scattered sources. The final occupation of Roman towns, forts and villas is examined, and post-Roman hill-forts such as Tintagel, Dinas Powys and Cadbury Congresbury is evaluated. Anglo-Saxon and early Christian cemeteries such as Spong Hill and Cannington are considered, and evidence for the earliest British monasteries explored. This book not only offers an exciting new interpretation of Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries AD but is probably the most comprehensive survey of the archaeological and written evidence for the period. It will be indispensable for professional and amateurs archaeologists alike and invaluable for students of British, Roman or Medieval archaeology and history at all levels.

428 AD

428 AD PDF Author: Giusto Traina
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400832861
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
This is a sweeping tour of the Mediterranean world from the Atlantic to Persia during the last half-century of the Roman Empire. By focusing on a single year not overshadowed by an epochal event, 428 AD provides a truly fresh look at a civilization in the midst of enormous change--as Christianity takes hold in rural areas across the empire, as western Roman provinces fall away from those in the Byzantine east, and as power shifts from Rome to Constantinople. Taking readers on a journey through the region, Giusto Traina describes the empires' people, places, and events in all their simultaneous richness and variety. The result is an original snapshot of a fraying Roman world on the edge of the medieval era. The result is an original snapshot of a fraying Roman world on the edge of the medieval era. Readers meet many important figures, including the Roman general Flavius Dionysius as he encounters a delegation from Persia after the Sassanids annex Armenia; the Christian ascetic Simeon Stylites as he stands and preaches atop his column near Antioch; the eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II as he prepares to commission his legal code; and Genseric as he is elected king of the Vandals and begins to turn his people into a formidable power. We are also introduced to Pulcheria, the powerful sister of Theodosius, and Galla Placidia, the queen mother of the western empire, as well as Augustine, Pope Celestine I, and nine-year-old Roman emperor Valentinian III. Full of telling details, 428 AD illustrates the uneven march of history. As the west unravels, the east remains intact. As Christianity spreads, pagan ideas and schools persist. And, despite the presence of the forces that will eventually tear the classical world apart, Rome remains at the center, exerting a powerful unifying force over disparate peoples stretched across the Mediterranean.

The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Fall of the Roman Empire PDF Author: Peter Heather
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195325419
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 605

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Book Description
Shows how Europe's barbarians, strengthened by centuries of contact with Rome on many levels, turned into an enemy capable of overturning and dismantling the mighty Empire.

The Fate of Rome

The Fate of Rome PDF Author: Kyle Harper
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888913
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
How devastating viruses, pandemics, and other natural catastrophes swept through the far-flung Roman Empire and helped to bring down one of the mightiest civilizations of the ancient world Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome’s power—a story of nature’s triumph over human ambition. Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes readers from Rome’s pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted. Harper describes how the Romans were resilient in the face of enormous environmental stress, until the besieged empire could no longer withstand the combined challenges of a “little ice age” and recurrent outbreaks of bubonic plague. A poignant reflection on humanity’s intimate relationship with the environment, The Fate of Rome provides a sweeping account of how one of history’s greatest civilizations encountered and endured, yet ultimately succumbed to the cumulative burden of nature’s violence. The example of Rome is a timely reminder that climate change and germ evolution have shaped the world we inhabit—in ways that are surprising and profound.

End of the Roman Republic 146 to 44 BC

End of the Roman Republic 146 to 44 BC PDF Author: Catherine Steel
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748629025
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In 146 BC the armies of Rome destroyed Carthage and emerged as the decisive victors of the Third Punic War. The Carthaginian population was sold and its territory became the Roman province of Africa. In the same year and on the other side of the Mediterranean Roman troops sacked Corinth, the final blow in the defeat of the Achaean conspiracy: thereafter Greece was effectively administered by Rome. Rome was now supreme in Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Macedonia, Sicily, and North Africa, and its power and influence were advancing in all directions. However, not all was well. The unchecked seizure of huge tracts of land in Italy and its farming by vast numbers of newly imported slaves allowed an elite of usually absentee landlords to amass enormous and conspicuous fortunes. Insecurity and resentment fed the gulf between rich and poor in Rome and erupted in a series of violent upheavals in the politics and institutions of the Republic. These were exacerbated by slave revolts and invasions from the east.

The End of the Past

The End of the Past PDF Author: Aldo Schiavone
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674000629
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
THIS SEARCHING INTERPRETATION of past and present addresses fundamental questions about the fall of the Roman Empire. Why did ancient culture, once so strong and rich, come to an end? Was it destroyed by weaknesses inherent in its nature? Or were mistakes made that could have been avoided -- was there a point at which Greco-Roman society took a wrong turn? And in what ways is modern society different? Western history is split into two discontinuous eras, Aldo Schiavone tells us: the ancient world was fundamentally different from the modern one. He locates the essential difference in a series of economic factors: a slave-based economy, relative lack of mechanization and technology, the dominance of agriculture over urban industry. Also crucial are aspects of the ancient mentality: disdain for manual work, a preference for transcending (rather than transforming) nature, a basic belief in the permanence of limits. Schiavone's lively and provocative examination of the ancient world, "the eternal theater of history and power", offers a stimulating opportunity to view modern society in light of the experience of our forebears.

The Fall of Rome

The Fall of Rome PDF Author: Bryan Ward-Perkins
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191622362
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Why did Rome fall? Vicious barbarian invasions during the fifth century resulted in the cataclysmic end of the world's most powerful civilization, and a 'dark age' for its conquered peoples. Or did it? The dominant view of this period today is that the 'fall of Rome' was a largely peaceful transition to Germanic rule, and the start of a positive cultural transformation. Bryan Ward-Perkins encourages every reader to think again by reclaiming the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminding us of the very real horrors of barbarian occupation. Attacking new sources with relish and making use of a range of contemporary archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, in a world of economic collapse, marauding barbarians, and the rise of a new religious orthodoxy. He also looks at how and why successive generations have understood this period differently, and why the story is still so significant today.

The Ruin of the Roman Empire

The Ruin of the Roman Empire PDF Author: James J O'Donnell
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847653960
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 768

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Book Description
What really marked the end of the Roman Empire? James O'Donnell's magnificent new book takes us back to the sixth century and the last time the Empire could be regarded as a single community. Two figures dominate his narrative - Theodoric the 'barbarian', whose civilized rule in Italy with his philosopher minister Boethius might have been an inspiration, and in Constantinople Justinian, who destroyed the Empire with his rigid passion for orthodoxy and his restless inability to secure his frontiers with peace. The book closes with Pope Gregory the Great, the polished product of ancient Roman schools, presiding over a Rome in ruins.

The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Fall of the Roman Empire PDF Author: Michael Grant
Publisher: Scribner Paper Fiction
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description


Understanding Collapse

Understanding Collapse PDF Author: Guy D. Middleton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110715149X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 463

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Book Description
In this lively survey, Guy D. Middleton critically examines our ideas about collapse - how we explain it and how we have constructed potentially misleading myths around collapses - showing how and why collapse of societies was a much more complex phenomenon than is often admitted.