A History of Rome under the Emperors - Hardcover

Mommsen, Theodor

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415101131 ISBN 13: 9780415101134

Publisher: Routledge, 1996

Synopsis

This book caused a sensation when it was published in Germany in 1992, and was front page news in many newspapers. For readers of English, it will be an authoritative survey of four centuries of Roman history, and a unique window on the German tradition of the last century.
Theodor Mommsen (d. 1903) was one of the greatest Roman historians of the nineteenth century, and the only one ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His fame rests on his History of Rome as well as his work on Roman law and on the Roman provinces. But the work that would have concluded his history of Rome - which ran to the reign of Augustus - was never completed. This book represents that great lost work.
In 1980 Alexander Demandt discovered in an antiquarian bookshop a full and detailed handwritten transcript of the lectures on the Roman Empire, which Mommsen gave for many years from 1863 to 1886, made by two of his students. This transcript has been edited to provide the authoritative reconstruction of the book Mommsen never wrote, A History of Rome Under the Emperors.
Barbara and Alexander Demandt have carefully edited the text and provided detailed annotation and explanatory references. For the English edition, Professor Thomas Wiedemann has written an introduction which surveys Mommsen's position and influence in nineteenth century German scholarship and introduces his work for English speaking readers.

About this title

About the Author

Alexander Demandt is a Full professor of Ancient History at the Free University, Berlin. Barbara Demandt is a teacher at the Gymnasium for ancient languages in Berlin-Zehlendorf. Thomas Wiedemann is Reader in Ancient History at the University of Nottingham.

From the Back Cover

Theodor Mommsen's History of Rome, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1902, was never completed. The manuscript of the fourth volume, the History of Rome under the Emperors, was burnt in a fire in Mommsen's house in 1880, and subsequently never published. Even though Mommsen lectured on the topic extensively from 1863 to 1886, it was believed that the lost volume could never be reconstructed. Alexander Demandt's discovery of complete and detailed transcripts by two of Mommsen's students finally gives us access to Mommsen's interpretation of the age of the emperors. Barbara and Alexander Demandt have carefully edited the text and provided detailed notes. For the English edition, Thomas Wiedemann has written an introduction which surveys Mommsen's position and influence in nineteenth century German scholarship and introduces his work to English-speaking readers.

Reviews

Theodor Mommsen (1818^-1903), a great German historian, never completed his projected four-volume history of Rome; the manuscript for the final volume, covering the period from the fall of the republic to the collapse of imperial authority in the west, was destroyed by fire in 1880. A century later, Alexander Demandt discovered extensive notes compiled by two of Mommsen's students on his lectures between 1863 and 1886. The result is this "reconstruction," which serves as a faithful rendering of Mommsen's interpretation of the imperial age. Mommsen focuses almost exclusively on political and military history. Those readers wishing detailed examination of Roman struggles for territory or political power will not be disappointed. His analysis of the response to barbarian incursions in the fourth century is particularly compelling. However, his lectures were predictably lacking in analysis of social and cultural factors, and no effort was made to view the Roman world from a "bottom up" perspective. Still, the publishing of this great historian's views is an invaluable contribution to classical historiography. Jay Freeman

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415101131
• ISBN 13: 9780415101134
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 642
• Editor: Demandt Alexander