Keith Hopkins

“Evokes the sights and sounds of the ancient world with daring and imagination… An intellectual tour-de-force that challenges us to see the history of Christianity through the eyes of those who actually lived it.”—Los Angeles Times In this provocative, irresistibly entertaining book, Keith Hopkins takes readers back in time to explore the roots of Christianity in ancient Rome. Combining exacting scholarship with dazzling invention, Hopkins challenges our perceptions about religion, the historical Jesus, and the way history is written. He puts us in touch with what he calls "empathetic wonder"—imagining what Romans, pagans, Jews, and Christians thought, felt, experienced, and believed-by employing a series of engaging literary devices. These include a TV drama about the Dead Sea Scrolls; the first-person testimony of a pair of time-travelers to Pompeii; a meditation on Jesus' apocryphal twin brother; and an unusual letter on God, demons, and angels.

The Strange Triumph of Christianity

A World Full of Gods

Mary Beard

Byron and Hitler were equally entranced by RomeÕs most famous monument, the Colosseum. Mid-Victorians admired the hundreds of varieties of flowers in its crannies and occasionally shuddered at its reputation for contagion, danger, and sexual temptation. Today it is the highlight of a tour of Italy for more than three million visitors a year, a concert arena for the likes of Paul McCartney, and a national symbol of opposition to the death penalty. Its ancient history is chock full of romantic but erroneous myths. There is no evidence that any gladiator ever said ÒHail Caesar, those about to die...Ó and we know of not one single Christian martyr who met his finish here. Yet the reality is much stranger than the legend as the authors, two prominent classical historians, explain in this absorbing account. We learn the details of how the arena was built and at what cost; we are introduced to the emperors who sometimes fought in gladiatorial games staged at the Colosseum; and we take measure of the audience who reveled in, or opposed, these games. The authors also trace the strange afterlife of the monumentÑas fortress, shrine of martyrs, church, and glue factory. Why are we so fascinated with this arena of death?

The Colosseum

The enormous size of the Roman empire and the length of time it endured call for an understanding of the institutions which sustained it. In this book, Keith Hopkins, who is both classicist and sociologist, uses various sociological concepts and methods to gain new insights into how traditional Roman institutions changed as the Romans acquired their empire. He examines the chain reactions resulting from increased wealth; various aspects of slavery, especially manumission and the cost of freedom; the curious phenomenon of the political power wielded by eunuchs at court; and in the final chapter he discusses the Roman emperor's divinity and the circulation of untrue stories, which were a currency of the political system. Professor Hopkins has developed an exciting approach to social questions in antiquity and his book should be of interest to all students of ancient history and of historical sociology.

Conquerors and Slaves

The Colosseum was Imperial Rome's monument to warfare. Like a cathedral of death it towered over the city and invited its citizens, 50,000 at a time, to watch murderous gladiatorial games. It is now visited by two million visitors a year (Hitler was among them). Award winning classicist, Mary Beard with Keith Hopkins, tell the story of Rome's greatest arena: how it was built; the gladiatorial and other games that were held there; the training of the gladiators; the audiences who revelled in the games, the emperors who staged them and the critics. And the strange after story – the Colosseum has been fort, store, church, and glue factory.

The history of the Colosseum is, in reality, much stranger than the legend. In this engaging book, we learn the details of how the arena was built and at what cost; we meet the emperors who sometimes fought in gladiatorial games; and we take measure of the audience who reveled in, or opposed, these games. The authors also trace the strange afterlife of the monument.

The Roman Empire was a society full of gods. So how is it that Christianity come to predominate in this marketplace of competing religions? Why, in just three hundred years, did Christianity go from being an illegal minority faith to being the official religion of the Roman Empire?

Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire

Keith Hopkins was a sociologist and Professor of Ancient History at Cambridge from 1985 to 2001. He is widely recognised as one of the most radical, innovative and influential Roman historians of his generation. This volume presents fourteen of Hopkins' essays on an impressive range of subjects: contraception, demography, economic history, slavery, literacy, imperial power, Roman religion, Early Christianity, and the social and political structures of the ancient world. The papers have been re-edited and revised with accompanying essays by Hopkins' colleagues, friends and former students. This volume brings Hopkins' work up to date. It sets his distinctive and pioneering use of sociological approaches in a wider intellectual context and explores his lasting impact on the ways that ancient history is now written. This volume will interest all those fascinated by Rome and its empire, and particularly those eager to experience challenging and controversial ways of understanding the past.

Sociological Studies in Roman History

Collected essays by Cambridge sociologist Keith Hopkins - one of the most radical, innovative and influential Roman historians of his generation.

This is a book for Roman historians which will also be of interest to sociologists.

Death and Renewal: Volume 2

The Colosseum was Imperial Rome's monument to warfare. Like a cathedral of death it towered over the city and invited its citizens, 50,000 at a time, to watch murderous gladiatorial games. It is now visited by two million visitors a year (Hitler was among them). Award winning classicist, Mary Beard with Keith Hopkins, tell the story of Rome's greatest arena: how it was built; the gladiatorial and other games that were held there; the training of the gladiators; the audiences who revelled in the games, the emperors who staged them and the critics. And the strange after story - the Colosseum has been fort, store, church, and glue factory.

Keith Hopkins

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