Dr. Ward-Perkins

Thanks for this Viggen - I've enjoyed it a lot. I'm only sorry that a busy of our teaching term has meant I was rather slow in my replies!

Virgil61 Hello Professor Ward-Perkins and welcome to the forum. I

Viggen Hello Professor! What would be your advise to someone who is thinking of pursuing a career in "classical history"? thanks for your time viggen Not an easy question! And it very much depends which country you are in - and what sort of career you want - academic, I presume. In which case, it is always difficult - and, in many countries, is facing the added problem that jobs in Classics are shrinking in numbers. Best advice: get advice from someone in the profession in your country. You have, sadly, good reason to be concerned - and in Oz there is the added problem that the Classics seem too 'white western' and politically incorrect to be fashionable. I suspect the fashion will change - since the Classics underly so much in our culture - but I don't know when. I'm really sorry - early Rome is something I don't know enough about to give you any kind of sensible reply Again, I'm afraid I don't know. Roman Law, let alone English Common Law (though I am English) is rather beyond my limited knowledge I'm sceptical - if you read my book (which is very short), you'll see that I argue that people (not unnaturally) do notice when their city gets sacked - particularly when that city is Rome. I agree that the change was, in some ways surprisingly gradual - but adjusting to 'barbarians' in control was not easy. It couldn't be after centuries of Roman 'superiority' and pride. (Yes - for people at the bottom of the pile, things changed only slowly.) I very much like Robert Harris's Pompeii in terms of recent novels (and, amoingst older books, am extremely fond of Rosemary Sutcliffe's Eagle of the Ninth). In terms of History books Tom Holland's Rubicon I thought was excellent - readable, informative, atmospheric. Thanks Skarr - and I much appreciated your intelliget, full and sympathetic review. I don't actually think the Church was very important as a drain on resources (as Gibbon famously argued). The problem with this argument is that the Eastern Empire was 100% Christian too and became even more, and yet survived (indeed flourished in the fifth and early sixth centuries). For me it was a cocktail of events and bad luck: invasions, civil war, bad lea,dership, no natural frontiers, etc, that brought down the West. I agree that the successful resistance of the Britons is fascinating - and does suggest there are dangers in over-specialisation (a lesson we need to be aware of ourselves). Rather a big question, Zeke - I think it would take a book to answer it. It is certainly true that the Romans worked with the Celtic religion and the Celtic tribal structure when they conquered Gaul and Britain, rather than attempt to destroy them. So that, for instance, the godess worshipped at Bath is a Celtic one 'Sul', loosely identified as the Roman Minerva. This kind of adaptation was typical of Roman imperialism - and one of the reasons for its success. In my opinion (and you will find the same argument in the recent book by Peter Haether 'The Fall of the Romand Empire') it was external pressure that was decisive - on a powerful, but not all-powerful, empire. The arrival of the Huns in particular drove Germanic peoples over the frontier. The best thing to read is an excellent article by Wolf Liebeschuetz called 'The end of the ancient city' in a collection of articles (edited by John Rich) called 'The City in Late Antiquity' (published 1992). The picture hasn't changed enormously from the time of Jones - but Liebeschuetz puts it all very clearly and well, and is aware of a lot of archeological research. [in the new Cambridge Ancient History, Volume XIII, there is also a chapter on the Cities written my me - but Liebeschuetz is wider-ranging, and better!] Basically, city independence definitely declined everywhere - but some cities (in the east) flourished into the sixth century. Interesting question - but I don't see why we shouldn't study the Ancient Economy, because the ancients themselves didn't have a concept of it. If we lookd at the ancient world only through their eyes/concepts, we would have to attribute a very great deal to the fortune of the gods!