Nicholas Purcell

Bio: Nicholas Purcell is an academic researcher. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 114 citations.

The early Roman Empire: consumption

Abstract: Roman society of the early empire presents a confusing and ambiguous image that we cannot easily situate in unidirectional accounts of European economic history. Clearly, public monuments in marble or other precious stone, military security, the urban food supply, roads, aqueducts and gladiatorial games testify to public consumption on a grand scale. On the other hand, the signs of poverty, misery, and destitution are no less obvious. Many inhabitants of the Roman empire only eked out a meager living, their skeletons grim testimonies to malnutrition and disease. Growth occurred because the wealth of the elite may have been a sign of effective exploitation of the poor. Roman National Income was indeed larger than that of any preindustrial European state. One of the requirements for an economy is to provide enough subsistence for its population to survive. The economic and social achievements of pre-industrial societies can be measured if standard of living of the masses exceeds bare subsistence levels.

Art and architecture

Abstract: Greek artefacts, craftsmen and artists had penetrated Rome since regal days; from the second century BC this trickle had become a continuing and influential flood, contributing together with Italic and Etruscan architecture and art, and the developing central Italian and Roman concrete architecture, to the rich tapestry of the art of the capital. Vespasian (69-79), founder of the Flavian dynasty, showed an astute pragmatism in his handling of architecture and art. In the provinces the architectural and art forms characteristic of the Flavian era continued to flourish. Dynamism returned to imperial commissions with the Romano-Spanish Trajan. The age of Hadrian (117-38) proved to be extraordinary, largely because of the extent to which he was able to impress upon it his own many-sided personality: ruler, philhellene, architect, dilettante, poet, traveller and romantic. The rich artistic harvest of the Flavian to the Antonine ages was not just an imperial, but a corporate achievement, one which offered a worthy inheritance to following generations.

Shaye J. Cohen. Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian

Abstract: By viewing Bellum Judaicum and the Vita in the greater context of Josephus's life and not in isolation from each other, Cohen traces Josephus's development as a historian, as an apologist, and as a Jew. Comprehensive and contextual, this work will be of general interest to students and scholars of ancient Judaism and classical antiquity. Please note that Josephus in Galilee and Rome was previously published by Brill in hardback (ISBN 90 04 05922 9, no longer available).