Product Description

The Emperor Hadrian was arguably the first classicist, captivated by a classical past and society he could already identify as something apart. In this one-volume history of the ancient world up to his death, Robin Lane Fox traces the development of classical civilisation from its origins in the 9th century BC to the height of the Roman Empire. Over this period the classical world bore witness to many dramatic changes, and this is a lively introduction to its highest points and a riveting exploration of evolving views of luxury, justice and freedom. This book would have been an invaluable guide for the Roman Emperor as he toured his domains, as it is now for the many who share his fascination with the ancient world, its history, culture, and civilisation. Few historians are able to write about the broad sweep of ancient history with such depth of sympathetic understanding, or to communicate its appeal and significance so vividly, but with this book Lane Fox succeeds brilliantly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #269938 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 720 pages

The Economist
'more epic that any toga-clad celluloid epic to date... [a] brilliant book...a story that is never cluttered and always stimulating'

Mary Beard, The Independent
'witty, ferociously learned, enormously well read'

Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday
'an ambitious and exhilirating volume...so replete with insight that I would love to see it in every school library'

Customer Reviews

Classical History - Short, Sweet, Elegant
This is an outstanding sweep across hundreds of years of Classical Greek and Roman history by a very fine scholar with a well-tuned popular touch.

Ranging from the poet Homer in the 7th century BCE, to the Roman 'First Citizen' Hadrian surveying his empire from the Tyne to the Euphrates, Lane Fox communicates a lifetime experience of teaching the Classics in one compact volume, deliciously divided into chapters which can capture an era or event in one pre-sleep bite! His view is even handed, but his enthusiasm for figures such as Pliny and Cicero shine out. He also has a soft spot for gardeners...

This is an excellent starting point for further reading, with excellent and easily usable notes and bibliographies. The illustrations are fascinatingly discussed in an appendix. I especially enjoyed the careful modern nuances that alluded to 'spin' and 'regime change' - these can be clumsy in lesser writers, but they were revealing and apposite here.

A very very fine book covering a vital aspect of human history, and essential to fully understand the Western World with all its achievements, weaknesses and cruelties.

Olympian in every sense
Robin Lane Fox, well known for his books on Alexander, has here produced one of the best overviews of classical Greek and Roman history, from the emergence of preclassical Greece to its second coming, so to speak, under Hadrian, that most philhellenic of Romans. Urbane but enthusiastic, revealing an immense learning very lightly, Lane Fox is unashamedly narrative in his approach. Essentially a Hellenist, he is perhaps unfair to some of the Romans - especially to the emperor Augustus whose achievements as a ruler surely atone for his lack of appeal as a man. Both Homer's world at the book's start, and that of the emperor Hadrian at the book's end, were aristocratic. Although Lane Fox treats the rise and fall of Athenian democracy very favourably, his general viewpoint is also elevated, unfashionably. He concentrates on political and military events, rather ignoring cultural factors. For Greece especially, this is an omission. But overall, while his Olympian narrative may not impress some specialists, it will probably still be read with fascination and appreciation long after more reductionist works have been forgotten. Lane Fox stands firmly and deservedly in the grand narrative tradition of Gibbon.

A real tour de force
If you've ever wanted to delve into Classical history but have always felt put off by the kind of high-brow, donnish aura that surrounds the subject, then this is the book for you.
I don't mean by this that the book is "dumbed-down", far from it; Lane Fox has written a gripping, accessible account of the great Greek and Roman civilisations upon which Western society still stands. He is an absolute master of sources and stories, and weaves them together into a cogent whole. This is a book not just about the princes, philosophers and Emperors but about the entire classical societies of Greece and Rome. It feels like you're there yourself.