From the search for Rome’s lost gold to death in the ancient city

Two new books look at deaths and Rome. Daniel Costa looks at the death of the Gothic leader Alaric, and the lost treasure he left behind, while Catharine Edwards looks at all aspects of Roman attitudes towards death.

Plague and the End of Antiquity

The Black Death and the Plague of 1665 are justly famous and form part of the “history that is memorable” of 1066 and all that, forever part of the nation's psyche. But a pandemic of at least similar proportions swept Europe between 541-750, bringing with it massive changes in the structure of society – the transition from ancient to medieval.

Of all the new books that have passed over the desks of the Oxbow staff this month, these, for whatever reason, are the ones that grabbed their attention.

New Releases

Quality Management in Archaeology
edited by Willem Willems and Monique van den Dries
Paperback. GB £28.00, GB £6.95

Quality Management in Archaeology deals with the effects of the profound changes that have had an impact on the discipline of archaeology all over the world. In North America, in Europe and increasingly in other parts of the world, new legislation and international treaties have changed its position in society. What was once a university based research activity by a limited number of academics has become a socially relevant field with many practitioners that are mostly employed in some branch of archaeological resource management. Archaeology has been successful in persuading governments and the general public that more should be done to preserve archaeological heritage and to investigate it where it will be irretrievably lost. The scale and frequency of archaeological work has increased vastly, at considerable cost to society. Consequently, there is pressure to do the work efficiently and economically. At the same time, academic standards have to be maintained to assure that the end result will be the relevant knowledge about the past that society pays for. Different countries have found different approaches and solutions to deal with this dilemma. Sometimes commercial archaeology is allowed, sometimes it is not, but in every national context quality has to be managed in some way. This book presents a survey by specialists from the US, Canada, and several European countries on how this is done, what the principles are, and also the priorities. It will be useful for anyone interested in archaeological resource management.

Calderon: The Physician of his Honour, second edition
Translated with an introduction, notes and appendix by Dian Fox with Donald Hindley, Second Edition by Dian Fox
Paperback. GB £18.00

One of the most intellectually and emotionally engaging of the Spanish Golden Age (seventeenth century) plays, as well as the most controversial. Taking place during the reign of King Pedro of Castile (1350­1369), it is one of the spectacular 'honour dramas', in which the main characters confront compelling yet conflicting imperatives. The Physician of His Honour is beautiful in its poetry and unsettling in its resolution. For more than 350 years the play and its author have been as fiercely reviled as they have been enthusiastically acclaimed by audiences and readers. First published in 1997, for the second edition the translation has been extensively revised, with the aim of simplifying the English, whilst continuing to respect and acknowledge as much as possible the beauties and challenges of the original Spanish.

Plato: Republic I and II (-368c)~
edited by C Emlyn-Jones~
Paperback. GB £18.00

Republic, Plato's best known and most frequently read dialogue, although receiving a flood of translations and philosophical analysis over the last 100 years, has in recent times been quite short of detailed commentaries. In particular, a full edition of the introductory sections of the dialogue, representing, probably, a single papyrus roll in the original text (the division into our 'Books' came later), has not been attempted for more than fifty years. In that period scholarship has moved on, and this edition aims to take into account recent developments in the study of Plato's literary style as well as of his ideas. The arguments have always been of great interest to philosophers, especially the sophist Thrasymachus' clash with Socrates in defending injustice as the most profitable life-choice (which of them wins the argument?). But there is a great deal more to this introduction than abstract ideas; Plato chooses to begin his great work by staging a dramatic debate, arising out of a social meeting between Socrates and friends in the Athenian port of the Piraeus during a religious festival. The case against justice as a state of affairs leading to eudaimonia ('happiness') is put with great force and humour, not to mention bad temper, and in the cut-and-thrust of argument and the clash of personalities, Plato brings vividly to life the cultural and social world of his times and the crucial issues at stake for his contemporaries. He also puts as effectively as possible the adversarial case which Socrates has to answer in the rest of Republic. This edition is aimed principally at readers without Greek; however, following the main purpose of the Series, a spectrum of needs is catered for, ranging from those studying through the original text to those working with the translation.

Who Travels Sees More: Artists, Architects and Archaeologists Discover Egypt and the Near East
edited by Diane Fortenberry
Hardback. GB £45.00, GB £9.95

"Who lives sees much, who travels sees more". The Arab proverb is an appropriate title for this latest collection of essays published by the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East on its tenth anniversary. The desire to see what lay beyond the familiar landscapes of home shaped the lives of all the travellers discussed here. Their backgrounds and training as artists of one sort or another mean that they responded to what they saw in visual ways - in many cases taking the revelations of their travels home with them to inspire their own work.

Euphrates River Valley Settlement: The Carchemish Sector in the Third Millennium BC
edited by Edgar Peltenburg
Hardback. GB £55.00

Pre-state ceremonial monuments, rich mortuary arrangements, forts, walled settlements and temples: all these occur in a narrow stretch of the Euphrates River valley prior to the rise of Carchemish, one of the major capital cities of the Ancient Near East. This well-illustrated book examines recently discovered evidence from the hinterlands of archaeologically inaccessible Carchemish in its regional context. Amongst the 18 contributors Tony Wilkinson characterizes the neighbouring regions of Carchemish, Guy Bunnens elaborates on a site hierarchy within the valley and Gioacchino Falsone appraises unpublished records from excavations at Carchemish itself. These material culture studies are important for those interested in the emergence of complex societies that do not conform to the Mesopotamian paradigm.

Beyond Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges: Essays in Honour of Brian Spencer
edited by Sarah Blick
Hardback. GB £40.00

Brian Spencer, former Keeper of the Museum of London, was a major scholar of medieval popular culture. He almost single-handedly established the study of pilgrim souvenirs and secular badges. He defined what these objects were and ascertained their function, manufacture, style, and iconography with a careful use of primary documents and intricate stylistic analysis. He identified every major souvenir and badge discovered in Great Britain during the last few decades. He also made prominent contributions to the field of seal matrices, gaming pieces, and horse paraphernalia. What bound all of these interests together was his understanding that the study of these artefacts could shed light on the beliefs and practices of a large number of people. This is reflected in the frequency with which his work is cited. This volume is a collection of essays written by those who worked with Brian directly and those with whom he corresponded.

Travel, Geography and Culture in Ancient Greece and the Near East
edited by Colin Adams and Jim Roy
Hardback. GB £40.00, GB £9.95

This collection of essays looks beyond the focus of existing works on ancient travel and its documentation, to examine its social and cultural implications. For travel (and the reasons behind it) offers a window on to many features of ancient societies - sense of place, perceptions of space, administration, relations with foreign powers, engagement with other cultures, and representation of homelands. Also of import is the study of ancient geographical knowledge, as well as ancient travel writing (an increasingly popular genre today), its popularity and purpose. All of the papers presented here show that ancient travel was considerably more widespread than is often assumed.