Roman Antiquities, Volume I: Books 1-2

by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Earnest Cary

Overview

Roman history for a Greek audience.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was born before 53 BC and went to Italy before 29 BC. He taught rhetoric in Rome while studying the Latin language, collecting material for a history of Rome, and writing. His Roman Antiquities began to appear in 7 BC.

Dionysius states that his objects in writing history were to please lovers of noble deeds and to repay the benefits he had enjoyed in Rome. But he wrote also to reconcile Greeks to Roman rule. Of the twenty books of Roman Antiquities (from the earliest times to 264 BC) we have the first nine complete; most of Books 10 and 11; and later extracts and an epitome of the whole. Dionysius studied the best available literary sources (mainly annalistic and other historians) and possibly some public documents. His work and that of Livy are our only continuous and detailed independent narratives of early Roman history.

Dionysius was author also of essays on literature covering rhetoric, Greek oratory, Thucydides, and how to imitate the best models in literature.

The Loeb Classical Library publishes a two-volume edition of the critical essays; the edition of Roman Antiquities is in seven volumes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674993525
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1937
Series:	Loeb Classical Library , #319
Edition description:	5th printing/1st pub.1937
Pages:	608
Product dimensions:	4.25(w) x 6.38(h) x 1.20(d)
Language:	Greek, Ancient (to 1453)

About the Author

Earnest Cary (b. 1879) taught classics at Harvard and Princeton.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Roman Antiquities


Book I


Book II

Index