The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans

Download or read book The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans written by Carlin A. Barton and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This inquiry into the collective psychology of the ancient Romans speaks not about military conquest, sober law, and practical politics, but about extremes of despair, desire, and envy. Carlin Barton makes us uncomfortably familiar with a society struggling at or beyond the limits of human endurance. To probe the tensions of the Roman world in the period from the first century b.c.e. through the first two centuries c.e., Barton picks two images: the gladiator and the "monster."