Rome in the East ─ The Transformation of an Empire

Rome in the East is a lavishly illustrated and arresting study of the influence of Near Eastern culture on the Roman world, which overturns received wisdom about the spread of European culture to the East. It includes an exhaustive study of Roman archaeological and architectural remains in the Near East and a survey of the presence of Rome beyond the imperial frontiers eastwards as far as Iran, India, Central Asia and China. The Near Eastern client kingdoms under Roman rule are examined in turn, and each are shown to have affected Roman - and ultimately European - history in different but very fundamental ways. The highly visible presence of Rome in the east - mainly the architectural remains, some among the greatest monumental buildings in the Roman world - are examined from a Near Eastern perspective and demonstrated to be as much, if not more, a product of the Near East than of Rome, hidden under an increasingly thin Classical veneer.

Warwick Ball is a Near Eastern archaeologist, and Ball was formerly director of excavations at The British School of Archaeology in Iraq.