Roman Empire

Augustus and Nero also offered peace and security for those who fell in line. Paul critiques them in his epistle to the Romans.

Candida Moss argues that when early Christian texts were written, unpaid laborers were in the room where it happened.

When the Antonine Plague hit in 165, says historian Colin Elliott, the Roman Empire was already well on its way to failure.

Josephus was tight with the emperor. Guy MacLean Rogers trusts his account anyway.

Walter Scheidel’s tour de force of world history is based almost entirely on counterfactuals.

What brought down the Roman Empire? Kyle Harper says it was plague and cold climate.

The aqueduct. The roads. An enforced peace to allow a young faith to spread.

In the midst of a procession of well-known stories is an image marking what's been forgotten. That's most of history, isn't it?

Emily Wilson offers a carefully balanced narrative of Seneca's life that is derived, as it must be, from partial and often contradictory sources.

The "Fall of Rome...is not a historical event; it's more akin to a theological idea." So proclaims Douglas Boin, sacking the understanding of early Christian identity that has prevailed since at least the second century.