Here are 95 books that Galla Placidia Augusta fans have personally recommended if you like
Galla Placidia Augusta.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I wrote Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World: From the Palaeolithic to the Byzantines when my partner and I found out that we were having a daughter. I finished it just as daughter number two appeared! I wanted to write something they could connect with easily as young women to share my lifelong passion for Mediterranean history. I grew up inspired by my local landscape of castles and ruins, trips to Greece, Michael Wood documentaries, and lots of books. I studied ancient history and archaeology at Newcastle University and later got my PhD from Durham University. I’ve written on various aspects of the ancient world in journals, magazines, websites, and my previous books.
Hypatia was a pagan philosopher in Alexandria around AD 400.
As Maria Dzielska shows, she occupies a special place in western culture – her life, and more particularly her death in AD 415 at the hands of a Christian mob, became a metaphor for a clash of civilizations. In these terms, it signifies the death of the old Hellenic world of ideas and learning and the rise of a new Christian world based on faith.
Dzielska’s pithy book explores Hypatia the myth, as created in literature such as Charles Kingsley’s 1853 novel Hypatia or the New Foes with an Old Face, and presents and interprets the historical evidence for the real Hypatia. It’s a great read about a fascinating life. (Also watch the excellent 2009 film Agora, directed by Alejandro Amenábar!)
Hypatia-brilliant mathematician, eloquent Neoplatonist, and a woman renowned for her beauty-was brutally murdered by a mob of Christians in Alexandria in 415. She has been a legend ever since. In this engrossing book, Maria Dzielska searches behind the legend to bring us the real story of Hypatia's life and death, and new insight into her colorful world.
Historians and poets, Victorian novelists and contemporary feminists have seen Hypatia as a symbol-of the waning of classical culture and freedom of inquiry, of the rise of fanatical Christianity, or of sexual freedom. Dzielska shows us why versions of Hypatia's legend have served…
I’ve loved history since my grandfather told me tales about my ancestors and their exploits. I haunted libraries, reading up on whatever current era I had a passion for: Roman, medieval England, American Civil War, etc. but I was always disappointed that little or no space was given to women’s stories. They had to have existed or all those famous men wouldn’t have been born. It took some digging and a feminist revolution, but finally remarkable women’s lives began to surface in academia and I now turn their stories into popular fiction. I hope these recommendations help readers learn about awesome women who didn’t make it into the history books. Enjoy!
Who knew that women were such powerful figures during the transition from the Roman Empire to the Byzantine era? Hollum did. He chronicles the lives and contributions of three generations of Theodosian empresses. This book was the major source of information on the main characters in the second and third books in my Theodosian Women series.
Read about the remarkable Empress Pulcheria. Granddaughter of Theodosian the Great, she outwitted a whole court of experienced men to become Augusta and Regent for her minor brother at the age of fifteen! She ruled by his side for most of his life and laid the foundations for the dawn of the Byzantine Empire. What had you accomplished by age fifteen?
I’ve loved history since my grandfather told me tales about my ancestors and their exploits. I haunted libraries, reading up on whatever current era I had a passion for: Roman, medieval England, American Civil War, etc. but I was always disappointed that little or no space was given to women’s stories. They had to have existed or all those famous men wouldn’t have been born. It took some digging and a feminist revolution, but finally remarkable women’s lives began to surface in academia and I now turn their stories into popular fiction. I hope these recommendations help readers learn about awesome women who didn’t make it into the history books. Enjoy!
I metaphorically danced on the rooftop when I discovered this book. Do you know how likely it is that writing from the wild fifth century comes down to us? Much less writing by a woman? It had to survive barbarian incursions, fires, floods, and ravenous insects as well as “curators” of collections who decide which books get kept and which get used as fuel for the hypocaust.
This one features Empress Aelia Eudocia. Born Athenais, she was a pagan poetess who married the Most Christian Emperor Theodosius II and is the titular Rebel Empress in the third of my Theodosian Women series. Sowers not only provides us with Eudocia’s words translated from Greek, but fills in the history and politics of her life. A real find!
In Her Own Words: The Life and Poetry of Aelia Eudocia is the first full-length study to examine Eudocia's writings as a unified whole and to situate them within their wider fifth-century literary, social, and religious contexts. Responsible for over 3,000 lines of extant poetry, Eudocia is one of the best-preserved ancient female poets. Because she wrote in a literary mode frequently suppressed by proto-orthodox (male) leaders, much of her poetry does not survive, and what does survive remains understudied and underappreciated. This book represents a detailed investigation into Eudocia's works: her epigraphic poem in honor of the therapeutic bath…
I’ve loved history since my grandfather told me tales about my ancestors and their exploits. I haunted libraries, reading up on whatever current era I had a passion for: Roman, medieval England, American Civil War, etc. but I was always disappointed that little or no space was given to women’s stories. They had to have existed or all those famous men wouldn’t have been born. It took some digging and a feminist revolution, but finally remarkable women’s lives began to surface in academia and I now turn their stories into popular fiction. I hope these recommendations help readers learn about awesome women who didn’t make it into the history books. Enjoy!
This one is just for fun. I regularly pick up these modern collections of brief biographies of ancient warrior women, doomed queens, she captains, etc. I like to see if “my” characters are included and how they fare with a non-scholarly author. Also, I like to see if any catch my eye for further research and possibly(?) a novel.
Like its sister books, this one is written in a breezy modern style with a certain amount of snark. Leon gives two pages each to about one hundred women who lived from 2500 BC to AD 450 around the Mediterranean and the western Roman provinces. All are real women who made a difference and their names survived, but you’ve probably never heard of most of them. Check it out!
Foreign cultures have always intrigued me. I am a Midwesterner who lived for several years in Latin America, teaching English and later doing field work in anthropology. As a young woman, I lived through a violent coup d’état in Chile, and I drew on that experience when I later wrote about political upheaval in Guatemala. A Ph.D. in anthropology gave me the opportunity to spend time in Guatemala and Mexico, some of it in Mayan towns. My love of historical fiction stems from my desire to enter and understand other worlds, and I am grateful to authors who spin their magic to bring far-off places and times to life.
Nobilissimaswept me into a time of historical upheaval--the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire. And I watched events unfold through the eyes of a real historical figure, Placidia, sister to the outrageously incompetent Roman emperor, and an influential leader in her own right. This fast-paced, well-researched novel begins with the city of Rome encircled by Germanic invaders. Soon, Placidia is abducted by the Goths, with astonishing consequences. Bedford portrays Placidia as a warm person, loyal to her friends and followers, but also as a leader capable of making hard decisions, and I cheered for her as she steered a survival course for her beloved Roman Empire. By the end, I couldn’t help wishing that history might have turned out differently.
Placidia seems destined to live in the shadow of her brother, the Emperor, until the night in 410AD when the Visigoths launch a vicious attack on Rome and she is taken hostage. Forced to march with the enemy on a perilous journey through Italy and the far reaches of the Roman Empire, she relies on her wits and determination to survive. Overcoming imprisonment, violence, and the treacherous quicksands of Roman politics, Placidia proves to be a skillful diplomat and leader, building alliances with generals, kings and popes.
This exciting, heart-stirring story celebrates a woman’s unbreakable will and rise to power…
Born and raised in New Zealand, about as far from the Roman world as one can get, I got hooked on history as a child and began university life as an ancient and medieval double major, studying everything from the classical Greeks and Romans to Charlemagne and the Crusades. By the time I came to Oxford to write my PhD, I decided that my greatest interest lay in the dramatic transformation which saw classical antiquity evolve into medieval Christendom. I've been fortunate enough to write and teach about many different aspects of that transformation and I'm currently Associate Professor in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway, in the University of London.
The early history of the Goths is a complicated and controversial subject, with difficult sources and large gaps in our literary and archaeological evidence. Heather provides an excellent guide to those problems and how they might be resolved. His book is particularly valuable for those interested in the only major source actually written by a Goth, the Geticaof Jordanes, and in how the Visigoths and Ostrogoths emerged as independent peoples. The dramatic events which Heather narrates include the first entrance of Gothic tribes into the Roman Empire, the Sack of Rome by Alaric in 410, and the creation of the original Visigothic kingdom in southern France, ending with the newly formed Ostrogoths poised to launch their conquest of Italy.
This is a scholarly study of the collision of Goths and Romans in the fourth and fifth centuries. Gothic tribes played a major role in the destruction of the western half of the Roman Empire between 350 and 500, establishing successor kingdoms in southern France and Spain (the Visigoths), and in Italy (the Ostrogoths).
Our historical understanding of this `Migration Period' has been based upon the Gothic historian Jordanes, whose mid-sixth-century Getica suggests that the Visigoths and Ostrogoths entered the Empire already established as coherent groups and simply conquered new territories. Using the available contemporary sources, Peter Heather is able…
In my novels, I aim to present a different vision of early Post-Roman Britain than the one usually imagined in fiction – especially in the future Kingdom of Kent, where my books are set. To show these connections, and to present the greater background for the events in the novels, I first needed to gain knowledge of what Europe itself looked like in this period: a Gaul divided between Gothic, Frankish, and Roman administration, a complex interplay of Romans and Barbarians, a world in transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The story gleaned from the pages of these books proved as fascinating and intriguing as any I’ve ever read.
Herwig Wolfram is the Grand Master of Germanic history. His mighty History of the Goths is a work cited perhaps more than any other by any author writing about this period, and its influence of study of Early Middle Ages is unparalleled. But History of the Goths is a heavy, dense, scholarly work, and not easy to find these days. The Roman Empire is a more popular synthesis, focusing not just on Goths, but on all Late Antiquity Germanic tribes – Franks, Burgundians, Saxons, and others – providing a rich view of the barbarians from the perspective of their Roman neighbours.
The names of early Germanic warrior tribes and leaders resound in songs and legends; the real story of the part they played in reshaping the ancient world is no less gripping. Herwig Wolfram's panoramic history spans the great migrations of the Germanic peoples and the rise and fall of their kingdoms between the third and eighth centuries, as they invaded, settled in, and ultimately transformed the Roman Empire. As Germanic military kings and their fighting bands created kingdoms, and won political and military recognition from imperial governments through alternating confrontation and accommodation, the 'tribes' lost their shared culture and social…
Patrick Geary is Professor of History Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at UCLA. He is the author of some fifteen books and many articles and edited volumes on a broad range of topics including barbarian migrations, religious history, ethnicity, nationalism, genetic history, and the modern misuse of ancient and medieval history in the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. Currently he co-directs an international, interdisciplinary project funded by an ERC Synergy Grant that uses genomic, historical, and archaeological data to understand population structures during the so-called Migration period at the end of the Roman Empire in the West.
Guy Halsall has a comprehensive knowledge of the history and archaeology of the early Middle Ages as well as a firm control of all of the centuries of debates and controversies about this period.
He cuts through a lot of the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of this crucial period of history. Often opinionated but never dull, he provides the best general narrative guide to date in English on the transformation of Western Europe.
This is a major survey of the barbarian migrations and their role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the creation of early medieval Europe, one of the key events in European history. Unlike previous studies it integrates historical and archaeological evidence and discusses Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and North Africa, demonstrating that the Roman Empire and its neighbours were inextricably linked. A narrative account of the turbulent fifth and early sixth centuries is followed by a description of society and politics during the migration period and an analysis of the mechanisms of settlement and the changes of identity.…
Born and raised in New Zealand, about as far from the Roman world as one can get, I got hooked on history as a child and began university life as an ancient and medieval double major, studying everything from the classical Greeks and Romans to Charlemagne and the Crusades. By the time I came to Oxford to write my PhD, I decided that my greatest interest lay in the dramatic transformation which saw classical antiquity evolve into medieval Christendom. I've been fortunate enough to write and teach about many different aspects of that transformation and I'm currently Associate Professor in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway, in the University of London.
The Gothic is a vast subject, ranging from medieval architecture and debates over the origins of English democracy to literature and cinema, music, and fashion. Groom does superbly to introduce all these highly diverse elements in an accessible and engaging manner, opening up a variety of avenues for those who wish to explore further. The relationship between what is now called ‘Gothic’ and the original Goths ranges from tenuous to almost non-existent, which explains the limited attention paid here to the Goths of history—indeed, I wrote my own book on the Goths in part to provide that historical framework, while drawing gratefully on Groom’s work for many of the themes which have shaped how Goths and the Gothic are understood today.
The Gothic is wildly diverse. It can refer to ecclesiastical architecture, supernatural fiction, cult horror films, and a distinctive style of rock music. It has influenced political theorists and social reformers, as well as Victorian home decor and contemporary fashion. Nick Groom shows how the Gothic has come to encompass so many meanings by telling the story of the Gothic from the ancient tribe who sacked Rome to the alternative subculture of the present day.
This unique Very Short Introduction reveals that the Gothic has predominantly been a way of understanding and responding to the past. Time after time, the…
Charles M. Odahl earned a doctorate in Ancient and Medieval History and
Classical Languages at the University of California, San Diego, with an
emphasis on Roman imperial and early Christian studies. He has spent his
life and career traveling, living, and researching at sites relevant to his
interests, especially in Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey Israel, Egypt, and
Tunisia. He has taught at universities in Britain, France, Idaho, and Oregon, and
published 5 books and 50 articles and reviews on Roman and early Christian topics.
Dr. Stephenson, an excellent Byzantine historian, provides a thorough and well-written narrative of Constantine's life and career set accurately within the late 3rd and early 4th century Roman Empire (A.D. 273-337). He focuses on the military abilities and the religious beliefs of his subject and reveals how he changed the Roman Empire and Christian Church with his policies. A good read.
This “knowledgeable account” of the emperor who brought Christianity to Rome “provides valuable insight into Constantine’s era” (Kirkus Reviews).
“By this sign conquer.” So began the reign of Constantine. In 312 A.D. a cross appeared in the sky above his army as he marched on Rome. In answer, Constantine bade his soldiers to inscribe the cross on their shield, and so fortified, they drove their rivals into the Tiber and claimed Rome for themselves.
Constantine led Christianity and its adherents out of the shadow of persecution. He united the western and eastern halves of the Roman Empire, raising a new…
