Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars (Oxford, 2000)
For Cassius Dio’s account of Nero’s reign see Loeb Classical Library edition:
Cassius Dio, Roman History, Volume 8 (Cambridge Mass., 1925)
Seneca’s The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius can be found in:
Petronius and Seneca, The Satyricon, The Apocolocyntosis (The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius) (London, 1977)
IV REBELLION
The most authoritative accounts of the origins and context to the Roman war against the Jews in AD 66–70 are:
Goodman, Martin, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome, AD 66–70 (Cambridge, 1987)
Goodman, Martin, The Roman World 44 BC–AD 180 (London, 1997)
A new history of the Romans and Jews between the first and the fourth centuries aimed at a general readership and by the same author was published in January 2007:
Goodman, Martin, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (London, 2007)
Other key works are:
Millar, Fergus, The Roman Near East, 31 BC–AD 337 (Cambridge, Mass.; London, 1993)
Levick, Barbara, Vespasian (London, 1999)
Sanders, E. P., Judaism: Practice and Belief (S.C.M.P., 1992)
Faulkner, Neil, Apocalypse: The Great Jewish Revolt Against Rome AD 66–73 (Stroud, 2002.)
Woolf, G. (ed), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Roman World (Cambridge, 2003)
For the military aspect of the Jewish Revolt (and the Roman army in general) see:
Peddie, John, The Roman War Machine (Stroud, 1994)
Gilliver, Catherine, The Roman Art of War (Stroud, 1999)
Goldsworthy, Adrian, The Complete Roman Army (London, 2003)
Connolly, Peter, Greece and Rome At War (London, 1998)
ANCIENT SOURCES
For the key primary source see:
Josephus, The Jewish War (London, 1981)
For Josephus’s own account of his life see in Loeb Classical Library:
Josephus, The Life and Against Apion (Cambridge Mass., 1926)
For the account of the Roman civil war AD 68–69 (the ‘year of the four emperors’) see:
Tacitus, The Histories, (London, 1972)
For Suetonius’s lives of Vespasian and Titus as well as the emperors of AD 68–69, Galba, Otho and Vitellius, see:
Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars (Oxford, 2000)
HADRIAN
An auhoritative and accessible new history of Hadrian’s rule is:
Danziger, Danny and Purcell, Nicholas, Hadrian’s Empire, When Rome Ruled the World (London, 2005)
Other useful works for this period,
Birley, Anthony, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor (London, 1997)
Salway, Peter, A History of Roman Britain (Oxford, 2001)
Bowman, A. K., Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier: Vindolanda and its People (London, 2003)
Lane Fox, Robin, The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian (London, 2005)
Scarre, Christopher, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome (London, 1995)
Jones, Peter and Sidwell, Keith (eds), The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, (Cambridge, 1997)
The Vindolanda tablets are also available online at:
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk
ANCIENT SOURCES
For Pliny’s letters see:
The Letters of the Younger Pliny (London, 1963)
For Pliny’s Panegyric of Trajan, see Loeb Classical Library edition:
Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus (Cambridge, Mass., 1969)
For Cassius Dio’s account of the reign of Hadrian see Loeb Classical Library edition:
Cassius Dio, Roman History, Volume 8 (Cambridge Mass., 1925)
For the Imperial History, Life of Hadrian, see:
Lives of the Later Caesars (London, 1976)
For Tacitus’s account of Roman Britain, see:
Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania (London, 2003)
V CONSTANTINE
A good, authoritative introduction to this period of Roman history can be found in:
Cameron, Averil, The Later Roman Empire, AD 284–430 (London, 1993)
Other key works are:
Brown, Peter, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity AD 200–1000 (Oxford, 2002.)
Brown, Peter, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, Wis.; London, 1992)
Odahl, Charles, Constantine and the Christian Empire (London, 2004)
Barnes, Timothy, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass.; London, 1981)
Drake, H. A., Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore, Md.; London, 2000)
Digeser, Elizabeth DePalma, The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome (Ithaca, N.Y.; London, 1999)
Southern, Pat, The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine (London, 2001)
Beard, Mary; North, John; Price, Simon, Religions of Rome: Volume 1: A History (Cambridge, 1998)
Lenski, Noel (ed), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (Cambridge, 2006)
Cambridge Ancient History, Volume Bowman, Alan; Cameron, Averil; Garnsey, Peter (eds), 12: ‘The Crisis of Empire, AD 193–337’, (ed) (Cambridge, 2005)
ANCIENT SOURCES
For Eusebius’s works see:
Eusebius, Life of Constantine, (ed) Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall (Oxford, 1999) which has introduction, translation and commentary.
Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine (London, 1989)
For Lactantius’s works see:
Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum (On the Deaths of the Persecutors), (ed) J. L. Creed (Oxford, 1984) which has parallel Latin and English text.
Lactantius, Divine Institutes, ( ed) Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey (Liverpool, 2003) which has original text, translation and commentary.
For Zosimus’s New History see:
Zosimus, Historia Nova, The Decline of Rome (San Antonio, 1967)
VI FALL
The most up-to-date, accessible and authoritative history of Rome’s decline is:
Heather, Peter, The Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 2005)
Other key works are:
Heather, Peter: Goths and Romans 332–489 (Oxford, 1991)
Heather, Peter, The Goths (Oxford, 1996)
Matthews, John, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, AD 364–425 (Oxford, 1975)
Ward-Perkins, Bryan, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford, 2005)
Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 13: ‘The Late Empire, AD 337–425’ Cameron, Averil; Garnsey, Peter (eds), (Cambridge, 1997)
ANCIENT SOURCES
For Ammianus Marcellinus’s history see:
Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire: AD 354–378 (London, 1986)
For Zosimus’s New History see:
Zosimus, Historia Nova, The Decline of Rome (San Antonio, 1967)