B71

The fourth and last piece of advice that even a contemporary might have given Justinian and that he should have heeded was straightforward—to take his religion a little less seriously. The natural wealth and...

For that boundary to remain hostile, armed, and simultaneously attractive and difficult (attractive to merchants, difficult for all) created and perpetuated exactly the weakness that cried out for exploitation by raiders from the north...

Finally, there were matters emperors were incapable of understanding, or understood but rarely. Chief among them were religion and economics. No one—unless we make an exception for the satirist Lucian, who came from the...

“No more killing!” he ordered. ‘The prophecy has been fulfilled! No more killing lest we offend the god.”“Carry the order to the troops ahead,” Constantine ordered the decurion who had been riding beside him....

With missiles raining upon it night and day even Alexandria could not hold out forever against the might of Rome. After some eight months of continuous siege, during which disease felled a considerable part...

Of the siege machines, the ballista, the onager and the catapulta the three most commonly used worked in much the same way. For a propulsive force, each utilized thick strands of cord twisted by...