Ancient Rome: An Anthology of Sources

by R. Scott Smith

"Terrific . . . exactly the sort of collection we have long needed: one offering a wide range of texts, both literary and documentary, and that--with the inclusion of Sulpicia and Perpetua--allows students to hear the voices of actual women from the ancient world. The translations themselves are fluid; the inclusion of long extracts allows students to sink their teeth into material in ways not possible with traditional source books. The anonymous texts, inscriptions, and other non-literary material topically arranged in the 'Documentary' section will enable students to see how the documentary evidence supplements or undermines the views advanced in the literary texts. This is a book that should be of great use to anyone teaching a survey of the history of Ancient Rome or a Roman Civilization course. I look forward to teaching with this book which is, I think, the best source book I have seen for the way we teach these days." --David Potter, University of Michigan

Genres: History, Nonfiction

584 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2014

About the author

R. Scott Smith is Assistant Professor of Ethics and Christian Apologetics at Biola University in California. He is the author of Virtue Ethics and Moral Knowledge. Dr. Smith has lectured and presented numerous times on his specialty, postmodernism, and he is also the secretary-treasurer of the Evangelical Philosophical Society.

Reviews

[Quinn]

free me

[Ellis Morning]

This one will keep you busy for a while because it offers so much! Poems, epitaphs, plays, essays, letters, and stories on a myriad of subjects, all translated into clear and unpretentious English. Cicero, Horace, Ovid, Seneca—even rare female sources like Sulpicia and Perpetua the Christian martyr. The maps, indices, and glossaries are also full of information about ancient Rome.

It’s amazing how both everything and nothing has changed in 2,000 years!

[Steven Andersson]

Pleased to have read this collection, published my former office mate in graduate school, Chris Francese. This source book cuts and slices the ancient Roman world into many, many, insightful topics. Valuable for Latin and history teachers, as well as for the general interest reader.