Bøker av Lee Fratantuono

Pompey's career in command began at a young age, taking control of his deceased father's legions in support of Sulla during the civil war with Marius. A precocious and ambitious talent, he held repeated commands before he was the legal age. Sulla called him 'the teenage butcher'. He served in the Sertorian War in Spain (recovering from an early defeat), helped crush Spartacus' revolt then freed the Eastern Mediterranean from the depradations of Cilician pirates in a matter of weeks. He brought a victorious end to the long-running Third Mithridatic War and brought the whole of Asia Minor, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Judea under Roman influence by a mix of force and diplomacy. For good reason he was hailed even in his own lifetime as the 'Roman Alexander' and Lee Fratantuono gives these events the detailed coverage they deserve. All this came before the events for which he is usually remembered: his great civil war against Julius Caesar. There is detailed analysis of the opening moves in Italy, Pompey's victory over Caesar at Dyrrhachium and the climactic battle at Pharsalus in September 48 BC. Pompey was defeated, fled ignominiously and was assassinated, leaving his two sons to carry on the war.

A Reading of Petronius¿ Satyricon offers a detailed literary commentary on one of the surviving masterpieces of classical literature, with a complete guide to Petronian scholarship.

Detailed narrative and analysis of the campaigns of Diocletian's reign, including those of his three co-rulers in the tetrarchy.

A good argument could be made that the Battle of Actium was the most significant military engagement in Roman history.

Roman military adventures (and misadventures) in the ancient Middle East remain one of the less understood and appreciated facets of Roman conquest and imperial advance.

Lucretius' philosophical epic De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) is a lengthy didactic and narrative celebration of the universe and, in particular, the world of nature and creation in which humanity finds its abode. This earliest surviving full scale epic poem from ancient Rome was of immense influence and significance to the development of the Latin epic tradition, and continues to challenge and haunt its readers to the present day. A Reading of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura offers a comprehensive commentary on this great work of Roman poetry and philosophy. Lee Fratantuono reveals Lucretius to be a poet with deep and abiding interest in the nature of the Roman identity as the children of both Venus (through Aeneas) and Mars (through Romulus); the consequences (both positive and negative) of descent from the immortal powers of love and war are explored in vivid epic narrative, as the poet progresses from his invocation to the mother of the children of Aeneas through to the burning funeral pyres of the plague at Athens. Lucretius' epic offers the possibility of serenity and peaceful reflection on the mysteries of the nature of the world, even as it shatters any hope of immortality through its bleak vision of post mortem oblivion. And in the process of defining what it means both to be human and Roman, Lucretius offers a horrifying vision of the perils of excessive devotion both to the gods and our fellow men, a commentary on the nature of pietas that would serve as a warning for Virgil in his later depiction of the Trojan Aeneas.

This is a long overdue study of all aspects of Lucullus life but with heavy emphasis on his military career, strategy and tactics

Possibly the most important battle in Roman history, Actium drew the final curtain on the Roman Republic and ushered in the Roman Empire