1985, ISBN: 0416011519

[EAN: 9780416011517], Gebraucht, sehr guter Zustand, [SC: 12.84], [PU: New York: Methuen], Jacket, 264 p., w/ pictutres and maps. From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time edito… Mehr…

[EAN: 9780416011517], Gebraucht, sehr guter Zustand, [SC: 12.84], [PU: New York: Methuen], Jacket, 264 p., w/ pictutres and maps. From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Soiled dust jacket with crease on back. - Content: When the young Marcus Aurelius became Emperor of the Roman world in the spring of 161, he had never even seen a real army, far less commanded one in the field.1 The long reign of his predecessor and adoptive father Antoninus (‘the Pious’) had been one of almost unbroken peace and internal tranquillity: on the far-flung frontiers the static garrisons had continued their careful and orderly routine, legionary commanders had been appointed, served their time and been replaced without once leading their forces into battle. It was well over a generation since an Emperor had conducted a serious war in person. The Empire of the second century was a supreme achievement of statecraft, never since repeated, in which all the diverse nationalities of the Mediterranean world from the Atlantic coast to the Euphrates were ruled by a single state which ensured that peace and security were the normal conditions of existence. Antoninus Pius had been a patient, urbane Emperor without military experience, and while he had taken great care over the education of Marcus as his chosen successor, he had not felt the need to give him a military apprenticeship. Rather, the young prince was steeped in philosophy and rhetoric and introduced to public responsibility through holding the various civil magistracies at Rome, including a consulship at the very early age of 19. Marcus was naturally aware of the honourable position of the soldier in Rome’s history and greatness, but his awareness was of an academic, historical kind, half infused with the traditional view of the Roman soldier as a citizen in arms. His only concrete acquaintance with professional military force was in the shape of the plumed and privileged Praetorian Guard who attended the imperial family everywhere, decorated the palace and public places of Rome, and upheld imperial authority there by their mere presence. Marcus and his adoptive brother Lucius Verus were duly invested by the Senate with all the traditional powers of Emperors — powers that were still republican in style and carefully avoided any mention of kingship. Then they went in solemn procession through the Porta Viminalis to the Guards camp to the north of the City, where the National Library now stands. They addressed the assembled troops with the conventional formulae and received in reply the oath of loyalty, after which every man received a donative of 5,000 denarii, equal to several years’ pay. The transfer of power went off smoothly and legally, as it had done for the last four reigns. Marcus and Lucius had been nominated joint successors by the long-dead Hadrian, and although it was clear to everyone that in practice Marcus would be the senior partner, he scrupulously carried out the bequest to the letter. The successful Antonine dynasty, which had presided over nearly a century of political stability and toleration, was not a hereditary one at all, but a mixture of accident and wise expedient which, if anything, concealed the lack of a settled method of imperial succession. Lacking male blood relations to follow them, each ruler had chosen a successor early on, adopted him into the imperial family and carefully devolved powers on him in preparation for eventual supremacy. The arrangement had worked well, but it was not an established system: it was a substitute for hereditary I succession rather than an alternative to it. Marcus was to be the last in this adoptive I line, and to later generations he would represent in so many ways the end of an epoch which would never return. So severe and prolonged were the convulsions that followed, so sharp the contrast in the manner of government, that the historian Dio Cassius understandably describes the change as a degeneration from an age of gold to an age of iron and rust.’ Like the vanished world before 1914, perhaps, it is easy to invest this golden age with a mythical quality, or to ask: golden for whom? To the senatorial aristocracy, f Marcus, due to his Stoic upbringing, would always be a model Emperor. This was not just because of his self-conscious devotion to duty, nor even his outstanding justice and humanity, but above all because of his civilitas, because he behaved publicly as their fellow-citizen and not as a monarch at all. In the imperial council he once agreed to be outvoted because, he said, it was right that one man should bow to the opinion of so many friends. In allocating money from the treasury he asked the Senate to grant it him, maintaining the pious fiction that all public money and property still belonged to the Senate and People. In his meditations he told himself, ‘Take care you do not become dyed in purple’, and followed this precept most conscientiously in his public style. To outward appearances it might almost have seemed that the Empire was still ruled by the cultured elite of senators and upper equestrians at Rome, and that Marcus was merely the first among them, acting with their consent: so, at least, a visitor from China might have concluded. As one admirer sums it up, the virtue of his reign was that he ruled as if it were a free state? Now the reality was very different, and when the realities of power become too removed from the formal procedures, a state becomes very brittle in coping with new kinds of challenge. Whether he liked it or not, Marcus Aurelius was virtually an absolute monarch. He was the sole source of laws, and the supreme judge and interpreter of them; he controlled all armed force, all important public appointments, all public finance and taxation, and decided on peace and war and relations with foreign peoples. He was irremovable except by death, and limited by no constitutional checks beyond his respect for the law and his own self-restraint. The real basis of his, Books<

1993, ISBN: 9780416011517

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good in Good dust jacket. Octavo (standard size). Slight wear to edges and corners of boards, more so to dj. … Mehr…

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good in Good dust jacket. Octavo (standard size). Slight wear to edges and corners of boards, more so to dj. Dj has two small closed tears to front. Name and address of former owner on flyleaf. Small pen mark on last free endpaper. 213 p. w/ maps, select bibliography, lists of Roman and Sasanian rulers, and indices of sources and subjects. A detailed look at the intelligence apparatus and its function from the early 3rd to the early 7th centuries c. e., Cambridge University Press, 1993, 2.75, New York, New York, U.S.A.: Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1985. Hard Back. Near Fine/Near Fine. 6 1/2" X 9 1/2. 264 Pages Indexe. Blue boards with gold spine lettering. There is light evidence of moisture exposure to the ack inside of dust jacket and barely noticeable wrinkling to the last four pages of indexing. There is one very small blue stain at the top of the back endpaper. No other defects noted to this otherwise As New book. Interior text pages are faultless. During the third century the Roman empire almost foundered in prolonged convulsions of barbarian invasions, incessant civil wars and worsening economic crisis. It was saved by the drastic and heroic efforts of a generation of Balkan soldier-emperors, of whom the dominant figure was Diocletian. A superb organizer and innovator, he ended the anarchy by the novel experiment of fourfold sharing of imperial power, the Tetrarchy, which succeeded in crushing every revolt and stabilising the frontiers. During twenty years his unflagging energies wrought the most far-reaching reforms since Augustus, bringing order out of chaos by harnessing every important area of life-military, administrative, fiscal, economic, social, religious - to serve the strategic needs of the State. There were failures, such as his attempt to halt inflation by price laws, and his great persecution of Christianity, but his overall construction proved remarkably sound. The result was not the restoration of the old Roman order, but a new one: autocratic, centralized and regimented, a fortress empire designed for indefinite siege, which was to survive as the later Byzantine state. Although this period has been widely studied, Stephen Williams' book is the first biography of Diocletian in English. It combines the historical narrative of his remarkable reign and those of his fellow-emperors, with a chapter-by-chapter study of each of the great problems he faced, the interlocking solutions he evolved to meet them, and the longer term results. It is both a portrait of one of Rome's greatest and most original rulers, and a political study in the emergence of Absolutism. Contents in Five Parts; Crisis, Emergence, The New Order, Triumphs and Defeats, and Aftermath. Plus porologue, Four Appendices, Bibliography, and References., Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1985, 4<

ISBN: 9780416011517

Stephen Williamss book is the first biography of Diocletian to appear in English. It combines the historical narrative of his remarkable reign and those of his fellow-emperors, with a cha… Mehr…

Stephen Williamss book is the first biography of Diocletian to appear in English. It combines the historical narrative of his remarkable reign and those of his fellow-emperors, with a chapter-by-chapter study of each of the great problems he faced, the interlocking solutions he evolved to meet them, and the longer term results. It is both a portrait of one of Romes greatest and most original rulers, and a political study in the emergence of Absolutism., Gut, Festpreisangebot, [LT: FixedPrice], Edition Description: 1st, Format: Hardcover, Publication Date: 1985-05-29, Language: English, Publication Year: 1985-05-29, Country of Origin: USA, United States, Manufacturer/Packer/Importer Details: ERGODE, Net Quantity/Number of Units: 1, Dimensions (LxWxH) - Cms: 10X2X8, ISBN-10: 0416011519, ISBN-13: 9780416011517, SKU: SONG0416011519, Methuen<