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“Please forgive my brother for being a bore, Tribune,” she said with a dazzling smile. “Word of how you stopped the whole army of Narses before Antioch has reached us, so naturally he is...

Through the crowdlined streets of the city, many of whose people had never even seen the Senior Augustus, the procession moved at a majestic slow pace. At the Temple of Jupiter, Diocletian dismounted from...

The triumph of Diocletian and Maximian could hardly bear comparison with previous ceremonials marking the entry of Rome’s great heroes into the city after some of their spectacular victories. Aurelian, for example, had forced...

“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...

Justinian I (b.483- r.527-d.565): Novel 137,Regulating Church RitualThe concept of a free and independent Church was unacceptable to Justinian. He regarded himself as head of the Church and insisted on his right and duty...

And one of the Jews, seeing these things, approached one of those known to the emperor and said: “These treasures I think it inexpedient to carry into the palace in Byzantium. Indeed, it is...

Procopius: The Reconquest of Africa, 534On the Wars IV.9Justinian’s program of renovatio of the Roman Empire, expressed by his building program, his re-organization of the Law, was perhaps clearest in his wars. Directed ar...

So there grows up in them against their fellow men a hostility which has no cause, and at no time does it cease or disappear, for it gives place neither to the ties of...