In Rome, after the fall of the Republic, women played a conspicuous, independent and sometimes ill-omened part. But it was on their follies and extravagances, rather than on their virtues, that masculine writers usually preferred to dwell, writes J.P.V.D. Balsdon.
Lord Kinross describes how, during the first half of the eighteenth century, gin-drinking became a serious social evil.
After centuries of masculine predominance, as the Republic neared its end, a host of notable women crossed the stage of Roman history—the devoted Porcia, the beautiful Julia, the Amazonian Fulvia, described here by J.P.V.D. Balsdon as “a Lady Macbeth of the Roman world”.
It is difficult to estimate how many English During the resplendent reign of Louis XIV, many English travellers explored Versailles—among them a philosopher, a famous bishop, a great architect and a gifted diplomatist-poet. Claire-Elaine Engel describes how each has left some vivid personal impressions of the court that revolved around the Sun King.
E. Badian writes that the efforts of Antiochus Epiphanes to Hellenize his dominions led to a revolt in Judaea under the leadership of the Hasmonaean house, known as the Maccabees, who succeeded in re-asserting Jewish law and the Jewish religion in traditional form.
Noel Goodwin remembers Joseph Haydn, who led a dedicated life of remarkable fertility and created “a method and style of musical architecture capable of such infinite variety that more than a century of orchestral music was directly based upon it.”
Dorothy Margaret Stuart introduces a grandee at the court of Edward IV, a warrior both on land and sea, and the first patron of English printing; Earl Rivers, who met his death in the sinister Castle of Pontefract at the orders of Richard III.
Meyrick H. Carré studies the reasons that led Francis Bacon, the distinguished philosopher and man of letters, to become in his political career a vehement upholder of absolute royal authority.
The monarchs of the East had developed an effective technique of establishing control of the Greek cities by volunteering to “liberate” them. This was a method, writes E. Badian, of which Roman statesmen quickly learned to take advantage.
C.R. Boxer describes how the Dutch East-India Company gave unity to the islands of Indonesia much as the English East-India Company laid the foundations of the British Raj—often unwittingly and by a series of gradual steps.
