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Document Details :

Title: Single Combat and Being Roman
Author(s): WIEDEMANN, Th.
Journal: Ancient Society
Volume: 27    Date: 1996   
Pages: 91-103
DOI: 10.2143/AS.27.0.632399

Abstract :
During the 1970s, historians found the study of imperialism particularly attractive. That applied to Roman historians too: Keith Hopkins’ Conquerors and Slaves came out in 1978. It systematically examined the economic advantages which successful imperialism brought to the Romans, especially (but not exclusively) to the Roman elite. W.V. Harris’ War and Imperialism in Republican Rome 327-70 BC appeared in the following year; between them, these two books have influenced the attitudes of a generation of Roman historians in the English-speaking world, and beyond. The earlier consensus, shared by historians of the Left as well as of the Right, that the Roman empire was the result of largely undirected, and perhaps even unintended, expansion (much like the British empire in India was supposed to have been) has been aban- doned.

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