Books in the Revealing Antiquity (HUP) series

In the past century, exploration and serendipity have uncovered mosaic after mosaic in the Near East-maps, historical images and religious scenes constituting a treasure of new testimony from antiquity. In them, Bowersock finds historical evidence, illustrations of literary and mythological tradition, religious icons, and monuments to civic pride.

The slave and gladiator Spartacus has been the subject of myth-making in his own time and of movie-making in ours. Aldo Schiavone brings him squarely into the arena of serious history. Spartacus emerges here as the commander of an army, whose aim was to incite Italy to revolt against Rome and to strike at the very heart of the imperial system.

The transformation of the Roman world from polytheistic to Christian is one of the most sweeping ideological changes of premodern history. At the center was sex. Kyle Harper examines how Christianity changed the ethics of sexual behavior from shame to sin, and shows how the roots of modern sexuality are grounded in an ancient religious revolution.