Anna Maria Liberati

Perhaps no other civilization has sparked as much interest than the great empire of Ancient Rome. The legacy of its architecture, politics, culture, and art has survived throughout the centuries and even in today's technological world continues to exert an irresistible appeal. Ancient Rome is a magnificent volume that traces the dramatic history of the Roman Empire, paying particular attention to the rise and fall and its lasting social, cultural, military, and political influence. From great feats and everyday customs, to works of art and household objects, this comprehensive account offers a fascinating insight into the highly complex and sophisticated society that once ruled the world.
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Authoritative text by Anna Maria Liberati and Fabio Bourbon analyzes the development of the Roman Empire by examining all aspects of the Eternal City including the economic, legal, and military system of the conquered regions; the organization of the most powerful army in the ancient world; the town-planning problems and successes; the construction systems used to erect the great Roman public monuments; and even the smallest curiosities of everyday life. The impressive pictorial documentation of Ancient Rome includes hundreds of full-color images, many of them never before published. Detailed maps, cross-sections, plans, and large reconstruction plates provide fascinating documentary support and present an engaging approach to discovering the world of Ancient Rome and to understanding the origins of Western society as we know it.

The cultural legacy of ancient Rome is made tangible in this extraordinary album, which combines hundreds of magnificent color photographs with an overview of Rome's political history, relentless expansion, daily life, artistic blossoming and decline. Liberati, a scholar at the Museum of Roman Civilization in Rome, and Bourbon, an Italian archeologist and art historian, have produced an album that will delight and reward both novices and specialists. Aided by color maps, dramatic aerial and on-site photographs and highly detailed color drawings, they chart the young republic's transformation into an unwieldy empire, its intensive exploitation of the lands it conquered, its architecture, literary and philosophical culture. A particularly valuable section documents the spread of Roman civilization from Gaul and Germany--cornerstones of the empire--to far-flung outposts like Britannia, the Danube provinces, Iberia, Syria and Armenia.… (meer)