The Modern Cultural Myth of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The Modern Cultural Myth of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Author: Jonathan Theodore
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2016-08-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137569972

This book investigates the ‘decline and fall’ of Rome as perceived and imagined in aspects of British and American culture and thought from the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries. It explores the ways in which writers, filmmakers and the media have conceptualized this process and the parallels they have drawn, deliberately or unconsciously, to their contemporary world. Jonathan Theodore argues that the decline and fall of Rome is no straightforward historical fact, but a ‘myth’ in terms coined by Claude Lévi-Strauss, meaning not a ‘falsehood’ but a complex social and ideological construct. Instead, it represents the fears of European and American thinkers as they confront the perceived instability and pitfalls of the civilization to which they belonged. The material gathered in this book illustrates the value of this idea as a spatiotemporal concept, rather than a historical event – a narrative with its own unique moral purpose.

The Fall of Rome

The Fall of Rome
Author: Bryan Ward-Perkins
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2006-07-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191622362

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 Myths of Rome

The Myths of Rome
Author: Timothy Peter Wiseman
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780859897044

"It is often thought, for no good reason, that myth and history are mutually exclusive. But most mythic stories were believed by their tellers, and some of them were true. Was Lucretia a real woman, raped by the king's son? Did Horatius really hold the bridge alone against an army? Nobody knows; but figures like Spartacus, Cleopatra, Caligula and Nero were certainly real flesh and blood before they became figures of myth. The long history of the Roman People and their city - whether under the kings, the free republic, or the Caesars - generated countless stories, no less mythic than the tale of Troy." --Book Jacket.

The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome

The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome
Author: Edward J. Watts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2023-10-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197691951

The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome tells the story of 2200 years of the use and misuse of the idea of Roman decline by ambitious politicians, authors, and autocrats as well as the people scapegoated and victimized in the name of Roman renewal. It focuses on the long history of a way of describing change that might seem innocuous, but which has cost countless people their lives, liberty, or property across two millennia.

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome
Author: Enthralling History
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-09-19
Genre:
ISBN: 9781956296051

Rome

Rome
Author: Greg Woolf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199325189

A major new history of the spectacular rise and fall of the ancient world's greatest empire

Understanding Collapse

Understanding Collapse
Author: Guy D. Middleton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2017-06-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 110715149X

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.

Rome's Fall and After

Rome's Fall and After
Author: Walter Goffart
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 400
Release: 1989-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781852850012

This collection of articles displays Walter Goffart's ability both to illuminate the great events that reshaped Europe after the fall of Rome and to uncover new and significant details in texts ranging from tax records to tribal genealogies. Professor Goffart is especially concerned with the role of 'barbarian' neighbours who, he argues, weighed far less on the destiny of the Roman West than did Constantinople.

Escape from Rome

Escape from Rome
Author: Walter Scheidel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 698
Release: 2021-03-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691216738

The gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern world The fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome's dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe's economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world? In an absorbing narrative that begins with ancient Rome but stretches far beyond it, from Byzantium to China and from Genghis Khan to Napoleon, Scheidel shows how the demise of Rome and the enduring failure of empire-building on European soil launched an economic transformation that changed the continent and ultimately the world.

Life, Myth, and Art in Ancient Rome

Life, Myth, and Art in Ancient Rome
Author: Tony Allan
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2005
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780892368211

Inspired by the achievements of the ancient Greeks, the Romans made their city the center of an empire unsurpassed in size and influence for more than a thousand years. Its rich legacy shaped the medieval world and continues to amaze us today. Life, Myth, and Art in Ancient Rome celebrates the many achievements of Roman culture and delves into its fascinating dark side. Romans erected structures so well-built and engineered that they still stand millennia later, yet these same buildings also showcased blood sports as public entertainment. The Romans instituted just government, impartial legal and political institutions, and concepts of citizenship, yet its population included slaves as well as patricians and plebeians, and was often riven by intrigue, superstition, and savagery. This volume is a richly illustrated introduction to a fascinating, at times paradoxical, civilization and its art and architecture, ranging from magnificent temples and aqueducts, to exquisite mosaics and jewelry. Placing the art in its cultural context, the author covers themes that have long inspired the Western imagination, including the rise and fall of emperors, the life and death of the gladiator, the belief in omens and prophecy, and, ultimately, the establishment of Christianity.