DG311.O49

Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents Preface 00 Overture 00 Part I 00 1 Rome in 500¿Looking Backwards 00 2 The World that Might Have Been 00 Part II 00 3 Being Justinian 00 4 Opportunities Lost 00 5 Wars Worse than Civil 00 Part III 00 6 Learning to Live Again 00 7 Constantinople Deflated: The Debris of Empire 8 The Last Consul Epilogue 00 Credits and Permissions 00 Acknowledgments 00 Notes 00

The dream Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar shared of uniting Europe, the Medi-terranean, and the Middle East in a single community shuddered and then collapsed in the wars and disasters of the sixth century. Historian and classicist James J. O'Donnell—who last brought readers his masterful, disturbing, and revelatory biography of Saint Augustine—revisits this old story in a fresh way, bringing home its sometimes painful relevance to today's issues. With unexpected detail and in his hauntingly vivid style, O'Donnell begins at a time of apparent Roman revival and brings readers to the moment of imminent collapse that just preceded the rise of Islam. Illegal migrations of peoples, religious wars, global pandemics, and the temptations of empire: Rome's end foreshadows today's crises and offers hints how to navigate them—if present leaders will heed this story.