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The Fall of the Roman Empire: Film and History
Posted: July 25th, 2009, 7:22am CEST

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For over a century, epic cinema has significantly shaped popular interest in Roman history and culture. The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), the last of the silver-screen epics about ancient Rome before Gladiator, stands out as the only epic that attempted, and largely succeeded, to show the greatness of Roman civilization rather than to condemn it for luxury, debauchery, religious persecution, and imperialism.

The essays collected in this book present the first comprehensive appreciation of The Fall of the Roman Empire from historical, historiographical, and cinematic perspectives. The book also provides the principal classical sources on the period. It is a companion to Gladiator: Film and History (Blackwell, 2004) and Spartacus: Film and History (Blackwell, 2007) and completes a triad of scholarly studies on Hollywood’s greatest films about Roman history.

About the Author

Martin M. Winkler is Professor of Classics at George Mason University. He is the editor of Gladiator (Blackwell, 2004), Spartacus (Blackwell, 2007) and Troy (Blackwell, 2006) and the author of The Roman Salute (2009) and Cinema and Classical Texts (2009). He has also published numerous articles on Roman literature and filmic retellings of classical and medieval history and myth.