In what follows, we do not list the sources or the works of scholarship, in many languages, which underpin what we have written. Instead, we offer a guide to relevant works in English, including some modern historical novels, that we hope will interest and excite readers. We also include translations of some key ancient texts, and give pointers to memorable places to visit. Where possible, we have included online resources.
INTRODUCTION
How societies think about and use their pasts has been explored in a number of important works. Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), and James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) are pioneering general studies. The place of monuments in the construction of social memory has been explored by Susan E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments and Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Ruth M. Van Dyke and Susan E. Alcock (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003); and Lucia F. Nixon, ‘Chronologies of Desire and the Uses of Monuments: Eflatunpınar to Çatalhöyük and Beyond’, in David Shankland (ed.),Anthropology, Archaeology and Heritage in the Balkans and Anatolia, or The Life and Times of F. W. Hasluck (1878–1920) (Istanbul: Isis, 2004; freely available online at: http://tinyurl.com/qo87mc).
Stimulating introductions to the various uses of the classical past in more recent epochs are offered by: Mary Beard and John Henderson, Classics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Simon Goldhill, Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), and his Love, Sex and Tragedy: How the Ancient World Shapes our Lives (London: John Murray, 2004). Richard Jenkyns, The Victorians and Ancient Greece (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), and Dignity and Decadence: Victorian Art and the Classical Inheritance (London: HarperCollins, 1991), explore Victorian literature and art. Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Idea of Europe from Antiquity to the European Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) examines changing ideas of Europe down to the present.
CHAPTER 1: THE AEGEAN WORLD: MINOANS,
MYCENAEANS AND TROJANS: c. 1750–1100 BC
Barry Cunliffe, Europe Between the Oceans: 9000 BC–AD 1000 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), ch. 7, outlines the Bronze Age, from Britain to the Near East, with great lucidity. For clear histories of the discovery of the Greek Bronze Age, see William A. MacDonald and Carol G. Thomas, Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of the Mycenaean Civilisation, 2nd edn. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); and J. Lesley Fitton, The Discovery of the Greek Bronze Age (London: British Museum Press, 1995; Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1996). Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), is the best single volume covering Crete and mainland Greece in this period.
The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Troy are described by Hervé Duchêne, The Golden Treasures of Troy: The Dream of Heinrich Schliemann (London: Thames and Hudson, 1996). The work of Sir Arthur Evans is best approached in the well-illustrated, brief account by Ann Brown, Arthur Evans and the Palace of Minos (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1983); Alexandre Farnoux, Knossos: Unearthing a Legend (London: Thames and Hudson, 1996), is also attractively produced. J. A. MacGillivray, Minotaur: Sir Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth (London: Jonathan Cape, 2000), offers more details.
Modern responses to Knossos can be approached through Pierre Vidal-Naquet, The Atlantis Story: A Short History of Plato’s Myth (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2007), a critical analysis of responses to Plato’s myth of Atlantis, and Theodore Ziolkowski,Minos and the Moderns: Cretan Myth in Twentieth-Century Literature and Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Two online resources offer introductions to the Aegean Bronze Age: Jeremy B. Rutter, Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean, http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/ (2000), is a systematic introduction to the whole of Bronze Age Greece; Lucia Nixon and Simon Price, Archaeology for Amateurs: The Mysteries of Crete, http://crete.classics.ox.ac.uk/ (2002: created for an online course, but now freely available), covers the whole history of Crete from the Bronze Age to the end of the nineteenth century.
For the Near Eastern context, Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 BC, 2nd edn. (Malden, Mass., and Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), chs. 6–9, provides an excellent introductory account of the whole Near East. John Baines and Jaromir Málek, Atlas of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Phaidon, 1980), is an illustrated and authoritative history of Egypt. Trevor R. Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), is the best starting point on the Hittite kingdom of Asia Minor. William L. Moran, The Amarna Letters (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), translates the letters between the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten and various rulers in the Near East. The late director of the current excavations at Troy, Manfred Korfmann, outlines his views on an old question, ‘Was there a Trojan War?’, Archaeology, 57 (2004), online at http://www.archaeology.org/0405/etc/troy.html.
There are many wonderful Bronze Ages sites to visit. The ‘Blue Guide’ to Crete is the most detailed guidebook on the Bronze Age archaeology of the island (7th edn., London: A. & C. Black, 2003). For Sphakia in particular, see the website by Lucia Nixon, Jennifer Moody, Simon Price and Oliver Rackham, The Sphakia Survey: Internet Edition, http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk (2000). For mainland Greece, including Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos, the best guidebook is Christopher Mee and Antony Spawforth, Greece: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). For Troy, there is an official excavation website: http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/eng/index.html. The director and staff of the excavations, Manfred Korfmann and Dietrich Mannsperger, have written their own guidebook: A Guide to Troia (Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, 1999).
CHAPTER 2: THE MEDITERRANEAN, THE LEVANT AND
MIDDLE EUROPE: 1100–800 BC
For the Near East in this period, see Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 BC, 2nd edn. (Malden, Mass., and Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), chs. 11–12. The best modern introduction to the Phoenicians is Maria Eugenia Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). The history and archaeology of Israel are highly controversial topics. Kathleen M. Kenyon, The Bible and Recent Archaeology, revised edn. by Roger Moorey (London: British Museum Publications, 1987), chs. 4–5, is a classic, older account. A clear analysis of the biblical texts is offered by J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah, 2nd edn. (London: SCM, 1999). William G. Dever, What did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, Mich., and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2001), uses archaeological evidence in a very well-informed way, in support of the biblical outlines of early Israelite history. Israel Finkelstein and Neil A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Stories (New York and London: Simon and Schuster, 2001), are also well informed on archaeological evidence, but argue that it does not support the biblical narratives; their claim that the strata of some key sites should be down-dated from the period of Solomon (on the basis of new radiocarbon dates) has not yet been supported.
The best introductions to the Greek world in this period are: Robin Osborne, Greece in the Making, 1200–479 BC (London and New York: Routledge, 1996; 2nd edn. 2009), ch. 2, and Jonathan M. Hall, A History of the Archaic Greek World ca. 1200–479BCE(Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), ch. 3. On Lefkandi, the first publication of the ‘Toumba’ excavation remains informative: Mervyn Popham, E. Touloupa, and L. H. Sackett, ‘The Hero of Lefkandi’, Antiquity, 56 (1981), pp. 169–74, available as free pdf file at:http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/056/Ant0560169.htm. The site as a whole is presented by Christopher Mee and Antony Spawforth, Greece: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 337–41.
On Italy, Rome and the Etruscans, see: T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC) (London: Routledge, 1995), ch. 2, and Graeme Barker and Tom Rasmussen, The Etruscans (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), ch. 2. There are two excellent introductions to middle Europe: Anthony Harding, ‘Reformation in Barbarian Europe, 1300–600 BC’, in Barry Cunliffe (ed.), Prehistoric Europe: An Illustrated History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 304–35; and Barry Cunliffe, Europe Between the Oceans: 9000 BC–AD 1000 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 228–69.
The fine remains of Ugarit, just outside modern Lattakia in northern Syria, are well worth visiting. Within Israel there are many notable sites. An excellent guidebook is Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700, 5th edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). On the subsequent history of the Temple at Jerusalem, see Simon Goldhill, The Temple of Jerusalem (London: Profile, 2004). Goldhill explores memories of the whole city in Jerusalem: City of Longing (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), ch. 2. The relevant books of the Bible are Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings.
For Etruria, including Veii, see under Chapter 3. Sardinia has many Nuraghic sites; Nora, a Phoenician site, is also worth visiting.
CHAPTER 3: GREEKS, PHOENICIANS AND THE
WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN: 800–480 BC
The best starting point for the history and archaeology of the Greek world in this period is Robin Osborne’s Greece in the Making, 1200–479 BC (London and New York: Routledge, 1996; 2nd edn., 2009); for another good recent overview, see Jonathan Hall, A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479 BCE (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007). The Orientalizing culture of the eighth and seventh centuries BC is discussed by Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992).
On the Greek and Phoenician adventure in the western Mediterranean, the classic studies are John Boardman, The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and Trade, 4th edn. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999), and Maria Eugenia Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies, and Trade, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
The most famous guide to ancient Etruria is that by George Dennis, The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (1848); it was edited in 1985 by Pamela Hemphill (Princeton: Princeton University Press). D. H. Lawrence, Etruscan Places (1932, often reprinted) is also evocative. The impact of the Greeks on Etruscan civilization is well traced by Graeme Barker and Tom Rasmussen, The Etruscans (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), with good practical advice on locating sites (pp. 297–328).
An attractive introduction to the history and culture of the Persians is provided by the British Museum exhibition catalogue edited by John Curtis and Nigel Tallis, Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia (London: British Museum, 2005).
There are numerous translations of the Iliad and Odyssey. Many readers find the verse translations of Richmond Lattimore and Robert Fagles most satisfying; there is a good prose translation of the Iliad by Martin Hammond in the Penguin Classics series (1987). The prose translations of both epics by E. V. Rieu, also in the Penguin Classics series, are the smoothest and most readable of all, but give little sense of Homer’s poetry.
A vivid sense of aristocratic Greek culture in the seventh and sixth centuries BC can be gained from the poetic fragments collected by M. L. West, Greek Lyric Poetry, in the Oxford World’s Classics series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), and from the remarkable novel by Mary Renault, The Praise Singer (London: John Murray, 1978). For the visual arts, see Robin Osborne, Archaic and Classical Greek Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Many of the sites mentioned in this chapter are well worth a visit. Eretria, on the island of Euboea, is easily accessible from Athens: there is an up-to-date guide to the site by Pierre Ducrey et al., Eretria: A Guide to the Ancient City (Fribourg: École Suisse d’Archéologie en Grèce, 2004). Both Eretria and the dramatic site of Corinth are covered in the excellent guidebook by Christopher Mee and Antony Spawforth, Greece: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). In Italy, the Etruscan sites of Tarquinii, Veii (Isola Farnese), Cerveteri (Caere) and Volsinii (Orvieto) are highly recommended: apart from the general books mentioned above, see Robert Leighton, Tarquinia: An Etruscan City (London: Duckworth, 2004). For the intrepid, the site of Persepolis, near Shiraz in south-western Iran, is one of the ancient world’s finest: the guidebook by A. Shapur Shahbazi, The Authoritative Guide to Persepolis (Tehran: Safiran, 2004) is widely available in Iranian bookshops.
CHAPTER 4: GREECE, EUROPE AND ASIA: 480–334 BC
The best one-volume history covering this period is Simon Hornblower’s The Greek World 479–323 BC, 3rd edn. (London: Routledge, 2002); Robin Osborne (ed.), Classical Greece: 500–323 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) is also helpful. For charm, wisdom and sheer readability, Herodotus’ Histories (spanning the entire Greek world, and far beyond) remain matchless: there is a good modern translation by Robin Waterfield in the Oxford World’s Classics series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, reprinted 2008). The Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński’s Travels with Herodotus (London: Allen Lane, 2007) is an absorbing and provocative personal response to Herodotus’ work. Tom Holland, Persian Fire (London: Abacus, 2005) is an up-to-date narrative history of the Persian Wars.
On Classical Athens, there is an accessible collection of papers in Deborah Boedecker and Kurt A. Raaflaub (eds.), Democracy, Empire, and the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1998). The Parthenon and the Acropolis are brilliantly dissected by Mary Beard, The Parthenon (London: Profile, 2002); more scholarly, but also very readable, is Jeffrey M. Hurwit, The Athenian Acropolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War can appear less immediately attractive than Herodotus’ Histories (as Thucydides himself acknowledges in the introduction to his work), but many readers ultimately find its intellectual rewards to be deeper and more satisfying. The best English translation, that of Richard Crawley in the Everyman series, is out of print, but widely available; the recent translation by Martin Hammond in the Oxford World’s Classics series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) is also recommended.
The most helpful introduction to the history of Sparta is Paul Cartledge, The Spartans: An Epic History (London: Channel Four Books, 2002); the afterlife of the Spartans is traced by Elizabeth Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969, reprinted 1991). On the Greeks’ northern neighbours, John Wilkes, The Illyrians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), is particularly good; the Thracians are discussed by R. F. Hoddinott, The Thracians (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981). Among numerous books on Classical Macedon, we would single out Eugene Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
A visit to the British Museum to see the Parthenon sculptures is a must. In Greece, although the Parthenon itself is currently undergoing an extensive programme of restoration, a visit to the Athenian Acropolis is still an overwhelming experience, and the Archaeological Museum and new Acropolis Museum at Athens are both superlative. The sacred island of Delos, the centre of the Delian League, is easily accessible from the Cycladic island of Mykonos; finally, Vergina, the old Macedonian capital of Aegae, is well worth a visit, primarily for the finds from the Macedonian royal tombs (including Tomb II, almost certainly the tomb of Philip II of Macedon).
CHAPTER 5: ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE
HELLENISTIC WORLD: 334–146 BC
For the life and campaigns of Alexander the Great, there is still nothing to match the superb biography by Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (London: Allen Lane, 1973). The fictionalized ‘Alexander trilogy’ of Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven (1970), The Persian Boy (1973) and Funeral Games (1981), takes the story down into the early Successor period.
The best general account of the Hellenistic kingdoms is that of Frank Walbank, The Hellenistic World, 2nd edn. (London: Fontana, 1992), now complemented by the useful collection of essays in Andrew Erskine (ed.), A Companion to the Hellenistic World(Oxford: Blackwell, 2003). An accessible introduction to Hellenistic science and mathematics is provided by Geoffrey Lloyd, Greek Science after Aristotle (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1973).
Art and architecture are well treated (and lavishly illustrated) by Peter Green, Alexander to Actium: The Hellenistic Age (London: Thames & Hudson, 1990). The definitive study of ruler portraiture is R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); see also, more briefly, the same author’s Hellenistic Sculpture (London: Thames & Hudson, 1991).
The culture of the La Tène celts and the history of the Celtic migrations are discussed by Barry Cunliffe, The Ancient Celts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
The arrival of Rome in the Hellenistic east (which receives only brief treatment in Walbank’s Hellenistic World) is explored in more detail by Erich Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1984).
Of sites mentioned in the text, the most dramatic is undoubtedly the great fortress of Pergamum (modern Bergama), the Attalid royal capital, in western Turkey. There is a helpful guide to the site in George Bean, Aegean Turkey, 2nd edn. (London: John Murray, 1989), pp. 45–69. An excellent sense of the layout and fabric of a small Hellenistic city can be gained from a visit to the lovely site of Priene, also in western Turkey: see Frank Rumscheid and Wolf Koenigs, Priene: A Guide to the ‘Pompeii of Asia Minor’(Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, 1998).
CHAPTER 6: ROME, CARTHAGE AND THE WEST:
500–146 BC
There are various full narratives and analyses of the period. T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC) (London: Routledge, 1995), is the fullest modern account of the early history of Rome.The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn., vol. 8: Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 BC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), is especially valuable on the subsequent history. Harriet Flower (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), provides a good introduction to a wide variety of topics. For an analysis of Roman religion down to the mid-second century BC, see Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1, pp. 1–113. On the Latin language, see James Clackson and Geoffrey Horrocks, The Blackwell History of the Latin Language (Malden, Mass., and Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 37–76. On the ways that Romans in historic periods talked about Romulus, see Augusto Fraschetti, The Foundation of Rome (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005).
Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, Book 6 (translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert in the Penguin Classics series, 1979), is the classic account of the strengths of the Roman constitution. Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), is an attractive imagining of early Latium, through the eyes of Lavinia and a time-travelling Virgil.
On the Roman calendar, see Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 60–77 (some key documents in translation). Bonnie Blackburn and Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 669–92, and Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The History of Time: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), ch. 3, are masterly guides.
On the Etruscans, see under Chapter 3. For excellent introductions to middle Europe in this period, see Barry Cunliffe, ‘Iron Age Societies in Western Europe and Beyond, 800–140 BC’, in his Prehistoric Europe: An Illustrated History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 336–72, and the same author’s Europe Between the Oceans: 9000 BC–AD 1000 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 317–63.
On the city of Rome, Claudia Moatti, In Search of Ancient Rome (London: Thames and Hudson, and New York: Abrams, 1993), offers an illustrated introduction. The best guidebook is that by Amanda Claridge, Rome, Oxford Archaeological Guides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); pp. 3–9 specify the sites in Rome relating to this chapter. Key finds from Etruria, including the gold plaques from Pyrgi, are in Rome, in the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia; for good Etruscan sites to visit, see underChapter 3. At Carthage, UNESCO-sponsored international excavations have resulted in much to be seen (despite the modern city): http://www.municipalite-carthage.tn/en/visiter.htm.
CHAPTER 7: ROME, ITALY AND EMPIRE:
146 BC–AD 14
For authoritative narratives and analyses of the period, see The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn., vol. 9: The Last Age of the Roman Republic 146–43 BC, and vol. 10: The Augustan Empire 43 BC–AD 69 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 and 1996). On the religious history, see Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1, pp. 114–210. Denis Feeney, Caesar’s Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), brilliantly explores the Romans’ systems of chronology and hence sense of the past. Claude Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), is a pioneering account of the relations between Roman imperialism and concepts and organization of space. Andrew F. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), is a wonderful analysis of the ‘cultural bilingualism’ of the late Republic. For arguments concerning the deaths of Tiberius Gracchus and Caesar, see T. P. Wiseman, Remembering the Roman People: Essays on Late-Republican Politics and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 177–234.
For contemporary analysis of the tensions that broke Rome apart, see Sallust, The Jugurthine War and Catiline’s War, translated by A. J. Woodman in the Penguin Classics series (2007). Virgil’s Aeneid has been translated countless times. Perhaps the best are the verse translations by John Dryden or Robert Fagles; there is also a recent prose translation by David West (all in Penguin Classics).
The political life of the early first century BC is splendidly evoked by Robert Harris, Imperium (London: Hutchinson, 2006), on the young Cicero and his prosecution of Verres, a corrupt governor of Sicily.
Visitors to Rome should use Amanda Claridge, Rome, Oxford Archaeological Guides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); pp. 9–14 specify the sites in Rome relevant to this chapter. Bibracte (Mont Beuvray, in southern Burgundy) is an evocative site, with a fine Museum of Celtic Civilization at the foot of the hill (http://www.bibracte.fr/en). There is also a good museum at Autun (ancient Augustodunum). Entremont (just north of Aix-en-Provence) and Mailhac (near Béziers) are fine oppida of the second centuryBC: Henry Cleere, Southern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 75, 126–9. The ‘Druid’ burial from Stanway can be seen in the Colchester Castle Museum (http://www.colchestermuseums.org.uk/), itself built on the foundations of the temple of the emperor Claudius. For Pompeii, there are several good archaeological and historical introductions to the site: Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007); Roger Ling, Pompeii: History, Life and Afterlife (Stroud: Tempus, 2005); Alison E. Cooley, Pompeii (London: Duckworth, 2003); and Filippo Coarelli (ed.), Pompeii (New York: Riverside, 2002), though the translation, from Italian, is poor. A useful website is: http://www.pompeiisites.org/. But the outstanding book is Mary Beard,Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2008).
On Virgil in the Middle Ages, Domenico Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages (London: Sonnenschein; New York: Macmillan, 1895; reprinted Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), which first appeared in Italian in 1872, remains exciting.
Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), emphasizes Machiavelli’s debt to classical humanism (not uncontroversially).
On Shakespeare’s Rome, the best books are by Robert S. Miola, Shakespeare’s Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), and Coppélia Kahn, Roman Shakespeare: Warriors, Wounds, and Women (London: Routledge, 1997).
Freud’s collection of antiquities can be explored in Lynn Gamwell and Richard Wells (eds.), Sigmund Freud and Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989). Even better, many of them can be seen in the Freud House in London (http://www.freud.org.uk/). His house in Vienna is also a museum (http://www.freud-museum.at/).
CHAPTER 8: THE ROMAN EMPIRE: AD 14–284
The best single-volume introduction to the Roman empire is that of Colin Wells, The Roman Empire, 2nd edn. (London: Fontana, 1992). Authoritative narratives and analysis will be found in the Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn., vol. 10: The Augustan Empire 43 BC–AD 69, vol. 11: The High Empire AD 70–192, and vol. 12: The Crisis of Empire AD 193–337 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 2000 and 2005). Fergus Millar, Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire (Chapel Hill, NC, and London: University of North Carolina, 2004), is a fine collection of essays on the administration and culture of the Roman provinces.
Tacitus’ Annals are available in two good modern translations, by A. J. Woodman (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004) and John Yardley in the Oxford World’s Classics series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). The Agricola and Germania are available in a single Oxford World’s Classics volume, translated by Anthony Birley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
The whole question of ‘Romanization’ in the western provinces is explored by Greg Woolf, Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). The problem of the survival of the native languages of the western provinces is studied in magisterial fashion by James Adams, Bilingualism and the Latin Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
There is an authoritative recent history of Roman Britain by David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire (London: Allen Lane, 2006). On Boudica and her posthumous reputation, Richard Hingley and Christina Unwin, Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen (London and New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2005) is a good starting point. The Vindolanda tablets from Hadrian’s Wall, on display in the British Museum, are also available online: http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/.
The history of Rome’s wars with the Jews is traced by Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (London: Allen Lane, 2007). On the Parthians and Sasanians, there is much of interest in Maria Brosius, The Persians: An Introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
The most imposing Roman monument in Britain is of course Hadrian’s Wall (http://www.hadrians-wall.org/). A visit to Fishbourne is also highly recommended (http://www.sussexpast.co.uk/); see Barry Cunliffe, Fishbourne Roman Palace (Stroud: Tempus, 1998). In France, Bibracte and Autun are well worth a visit (see under Chapter 7); the Roman remains at Reims are described in J. Bromwich, The Roman Remains of Northern and Eastern France: A Guidebook (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 312–23, and there is a short guide to the site at La Graufesenque in Henry Cleere, Southern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 45–7. The finds from Himlingøje are in the National Museum in Copenhagen (http://www.nationalmuseet.dk). Finally, the beautiful site of Aphrodisias (with its extraordinary sculpture museum, including the relief sculptures from the Sebasteion) is unmissable: see http://www.nyu.edu/projects/aphrodisias/.
CHAPTER 9: THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE: AD 284–425
The study of late antiquity was pioneered by Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity: From Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971; reprinted in 2004 as The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150–750), which remains a stimulating (and beautifully illustrated) essay. The best short introduction is Averil Cameron, The Later Roman Empire: AD 284–430 (London: Fontana, 1993). For full documentation of this period, see the Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn., vol. 12: The Crisis of Empire: AD193–337, and vol. 13: The Late Empire: AD 337–425 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005 and 1998). For a sketch of the religious changes in the fourth century AD, see Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1, pp. 364–88.
For the importance of Eusebius as chronographer and historian, see A. D. Momigliano, The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography (Berkeley: California University Press, 1990), ch. 6, and Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006). On chronological eras more generally, see the excellent works by Bonnie Blackburn and Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 762–90, and Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The History of Time: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (New York: Dorset Press, London: Faber and Faber, 1967; reprinted with epilogue 2000), is the classic biography. It would be hard to praise too highly Augustine, Confessions, translated by Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), or Augustine, City of God, translated by Henry Bettenson (Penguin Classics series, 1984).
On the transmission of texts, L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature, 3rd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), is a lucid account of how ancient texts survived antiquity. For the Codex Sinaiticus: http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/; this website makes available online images of the 800 surviving pages of this bible, physically dispersed between the British Library, the National Library of Russia, St Catherine’s Monastery Sinai and Leipzig University Library.
For Rome, once again we recommend Amanda Claridge, Rome, Oxford Archaeological Guides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); pp. 22–7 specify the sites in Rome relating to this chapter. In Germany, Trier is the best-preserved Roman city: Edith M. Wightman, Roman Trier and the Treveri (London: Hart-Davis, 1970), pp. 71–123. For sites in northern Germany, see Joachim von Elbe, The Romans in Cologne and Lower Germany (Düsseldorf: Ursula Preis Verlag, 1995). In France, there are some grand rural villas: Montaurin (Midi-Pyrénées); Loupian (south-west of Montpellier); see Henry Cleere, Southern France, Oxford Archaeological Guides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). On Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, see the short guide by Frédérique Barbut, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert (Rennes: Éditions Ouest-France, 2001); for practical information, see the website of the commune: http://www.saint-guilhem-le-desert.com. In Spain, some cities have important early Christian buildings: Tarragona, Mérida, Ampurias; and there is a grand rural villa at Carranque; see Roger Collins, Spain, Oxford Archaeological Guides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). On the Lullingstone villa, see Michael Fulford, Lullingstone Roman Villa, Kent (London: English Heritage, 2003); for information on how to visit the site, see: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.14714; the paintings are in the British Museum.
For Constantinople/Istanbul, see Hilary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely, Strolling through Istanbul: A Guide to the City (London: Kegan Paul, 2003); the remains of the serpent column are visible to this day. For Palestine, see under Chapter 2; and also Oleg Grabar, The Dome of the Rock (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap, 2006). On the wonderful late mosaics in the Levant, see the imaginative book by Glen W. Bowersock, Mosaics as History: The Near East from Late Antiquity to Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006).
For the next part of the story there are several excellent books. On the east, see Mark Whittow, The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600–1025 (London: Macmillan, 1996). On the west, see Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity,AD 200–1000, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003). Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), argues for major disruption in this period. Julia Smith, Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500–1000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), stresses the dynamism of the Early Middle Ages. Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (London: Allen Lane, 2009), ranging from Ireland to the Levant, explores both the turbulence and the achievements of this period.