J. P Toner

"Marcus Sidonius Falx is just an average Roman citizen. Born of a relatively well-off noble family, he lives on a palatial estate in Campania, dines with senators and generals, and, like all of his ancestors before him, owns countless slaves"--

This introduction to the ancient world covers all its different cultures, from the million people crammed into Rome to the Jews and Syrians who refused to be Romanised. Jerry Toner shows what can be learnt from new approaches to ancient history, from analysing the bones of the dead in Pompeii or assessing the impact of environmental change, and considers how we can discover what it was like to live back then. He looks at every period, not just classical...