Joanne Berry – författare

The legions of Rome were among the greatest fighting forces in history. For almost half a millennium they secured the known world under the power of the Caesars. This pioneering account gathers together the stories of each and every imperial legion, telling the tales of their triumphs and defeats as they policed the empire and enlarged its borders. Focusing on the legions as the core of the Roman army, and chronicling their individual histories in detail, this volume builds on the thematic account of the Roman military force given by its companion The Complete Roman Army , and is vital reading for anyone who has enjoyed that book.

Pompeii is the most famous archaeological site in the world, and arguably where the modern discipline of archaeology began. Excavations here began over 250 years ago, and discoveries are still being made, both as the result of excavation and because of the ongoing reassessment of previously discovered material. The Oxford Handbook to Pompeii and its Environs presents an up-to-date assessment of our current state of knowledge, not just about the city of Pompeii but including its hinterland and the neighbouring archaeological sites of Herculaneum, Stabiae, Boscoreale and others. This Handbook is at once historiographical and cutting-edge, covering how scholarship has evolved over the long history of excavation and the current developments in fieldwork and scholarship.

This provocative and often controversial volume examines concepts of ethnicity, citizenship and nationhood, to determine what constituted cultural identity in the Roman Empire. The contributors draw together the most recent research and use diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives from archaeology, classical studies and ancient history to challenge our basic assumptions of Romanization and how parts of Europe became incorporated into a Roman culture.Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire breaks new ground, arguing that the idea of a unified and easily defined Roman culture is over-simplistic, and offering alternative theories and models. This well-documented and timely book presents cultural identity throughout the Roman empire as a complex and diverse issue, far removed from the previous notion of a dichotomy between the Roman invaders and the Barbarian conquered.

This provocative and often controversial volume examines concepts of ethnicity, citizenship and nationhood, to determine what constituted cultural identity in the Roman Empire. The contributors draw together the most recent research and use diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives from archaeology, classical studies and ancient history to challenge our basic assumptions of Romanization and how parts of Europe became incorporated into a Roman culture.Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire breaks new ground, arguing that the idea of a unified and easily defined Roman culture is over-simplistic, and offering alternative theories and models. This well-documented and timely book presents cultural identity throughout the Roman empire as a complex and diverse issue, far removed from the previous notion of a dichotomy between the Roman invaders and the Barbarian conquered.

Pompeii is the best known and probably the most important archaeological site in the world. This book, now available in paperback, is the most up-to-date, authoritative and comprehensive account for the general reader of its rise, splendour and fall. The drama of Pompeii’s end has been handed down by Roman writers, its paintings and mosaics have astonished visitors since their discovery, and its houses and public buildings still present a vivid picture of life, disaster and death in a Roman town.

Discover the lives of the ancient Romans, pieced together from inscriptions, discarded letters, biographies and myth over two thousand years of history. The Roman empire witnessed a huge diversity of human experience over its history. At its pinnacle, it exerted its rule across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, from Britannia to the Black Sea. In this collection of 100 lives, Philip Matyszak and Joanne Berry give voice not only to famed rulers and generals whose names and deeds have been enshrined in classical texts but also to the ordinary citizens – centurions, scholars, Christian martyrs and civil servants – who made up the fabric of Roman society. The biographies of these individuals, whose stories range from the happy and uneventful to the tragic and dramatic, are pieced together from ancient art, artefacts and myths. Matyszak and Berry illuminate the sometimes surprising exploits of Rome’s women, such as Amazonia, a sword-swinging gladiator, and Metila, a priestess of the cult of Cymbele. Romans of every class and creed are represented, from Faustulus, a shepherd said to have adopted the infant Romulus and Remus, to the poet Virgil, whose words still echo down the ages. Each of these lives forms part of a larger picture, together making up a rich mosaic that gives us a glimpse of what it meant to be a Roman.

‘Home’ is a powerful idea throughout antiquity, from Odysseus’ epic journey to recover his own home, nostalgically longed-for through his long absence, to the implanting of Christianity in the domestic sphere in late antiquity. We can recognise the idea even if there is no word for it that quite corresponds to our own: the Greek oikos and the Latin domus mean both house and family, the essential components of home. To attempt a history of ‘the home’ in antiquity means bringing together two separate, if closely related, fields of study. On the one hand, study of the family, both in the legal frameworks that define it as institution and the literary representations of it in daily life; on the other, archaeological study of the domestic setting, within which such relationships are played out. Ranging across a period of over a millennium, this collection looks at the home as a force of integration: of the worlds of family and of the outsider in hospitality; of the worlds of leisure and work; of the worlds of public and private life; of the world of practical structures and furnishings and the world of religion.