Ancient Literature

A bit of everything and also great for any teenage kids you may have ....
A Little History of the World [E. H. Gombrich, Clifford Harper]

 

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I'll second this recommendation and particularly like the fact that it can be taken in small doses.

I am, however, not a big fan of historical fiction. When the real stories are so interesting, I see no reason for changing the story so readers will be confused as to what is real and what is fiction. I have no problem if a story is set in ancient Rome but does not involve historical figures but, when the story involves the Imperial Family, I'd rather they made up a world that was entirely fictional.

Having said that, it is hard to say I like Ammianus Marcellianus or any of the Roman historians who wrote either long after the period covered or had such an ax to grind that we can't know whether we should believe them or not. The difference is that we know that historical fiction authors lie while historians only probably do.

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/book.html#cmax
I enjoyed Jones, A. H. M., Constantine and the Conversion of Europe, (Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching, 4, U. of Toronto Press, 1978) enough that I reviewed it for my website. Whether it is any more accurate on what happened during that period or not I can not say.

 

If you are interested in the later Roman Empire, I must recommend Ian Hughes' excellent set of books:

Stilicho:

Aetius:

Belisarius:


As you, these are three poorly documented, but important figures in late Roman / early Byzantine history. These books are possibly essential reading for anyone interested in this period. (For full disclosure: I've interacted over the internet a few times with Ian at another site. Although we may not always agree, Ian is the consummate gentleman and Ancient Roman enthusiast.) Recommend highly.


guy

 

Great suggestions Guy. I agree all three are huge, often overlooked figures. Especially by us since they didn't make coins. I have always been a fan of Aetius, often called the last western roman. After Valentinian III had him murdered, the west was doomed.

 

Bart, I shall investigate those for sure!

 

For me, the question remains where the line is drawn between history and historical fiction. In recent years, we have seen a particularly great example in the Dan Brown books (DaVinci Code and sequels) that were presented as fiction and mistaken by many people as an expose of hidden history. If we are writing about a subject on which concrete information is scanty it would be easy to confuse the matter by presenting thoughts as facts. The Roman historians were bad enough with their biased reportage but I am unclear how I am to know where research stopped and holes in the text were fantasied. Are Mr. Hughes' biographies non-fiction or in that gray area we call historical fiction?

It is an unfortunate fact of ancient history that there are subjects of interest about which we know next to nothing. In some cases what we know is that there is a coin (or a thousand coins) naming someone (Domitian II, Marius) about whom there are fewer lines of history than there are coins. In some cases these people are dated by the style of their coins. For example: If your coins look like Philip's, have the metal quality and weight of Philip's, perhaps you were a usurper in the time of Philip.

 

Ian Hughes' books are biogaphies, not historical fiction.


guy