viii Preface
held notions about the supposed oligarchic political character of the Roman
Republic. Most recently, based upon the Sather Lectures of Millar now
has produced his first work centrally focused upon late antiquity,A Greek
Roman Empire: Power, Belief and Reason under Theodosius II, –.
In the future Millar intends to return to the Roman Near East, for a study
to be entitledSociety and Religion in the Roman Near East from Constantine to
Mahomet. In this study Millar will bring the story of Greco-Roman culture
in the Near East from the early fourth century up to the Islamic invasions of
the seventh century..Apparently, the enormous task of writing a social
history of the Near East from Alexander to Mahomet will not be left com-
pletely to someone else after all, as Millar prophesied in (TheRomanNear
East, pp. xii–xiii).
During the same period when he has produced these ground-breaking
books, Millar also has published more than seventy essays on aspects of
Greco-Roman history, from the Hellenistic period until the middle of the
fifth century..These essays have laid the foundations for or supplemented
the ideas and arguments presented in Millar’s very well known books. Some
of these essays, such as ‘‘The Emperor, the Senate and the Provinces’’ (Jour-
nal of Roman Studies []: –), or ‘‘Emperors, Frontiers and For-
eign Relations, ..–..’’ (Britannia []: –), have appeared in
hitherto accessible journals and are widely regarded as classics of scholar-
ship. But other outstanding essays, such as Millar’s study ‘‘Polybius between
Greece and Rome’’ (published inGreek Connections: Essays on Culture and Di-
plomacy[], –), have been more difficult to locate, even for professional
historians doing research in the field.
Therefore, the primary goal of our collection,Rome, the Greek World, and
the East, is to bring together into three volumes the most significant of Mil-
lar’s essays published since for the widest audience possible. The collec-
tion includes many articles that clearly will be of great intellectual interest
and pedagogical use to scholars doing research and teaching in the different
fields of the volume headings: Volume ,The Roman Republic and the Augustan
Revolution;Volume,Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire;
and Volume ,The Greek World, the Jews, and the East.
At the same time, we have conceived and organized the three volumes of
Rome, the Greek World, and the Eastespecially in order to make Millar’s most
significant articles readily available to a new generation of students, who in-
creasingly may not have access to the specialty journals or edited volumes in
which many of Millar’s more recent articles have appeared.
The principle of arrangement of the essays in each of the three volumes
is broadly chronological by subject matter treated within the ancient world.