Géza Alföldy provides a succinct chronological introduction to Roman social history from the time of Romulus and Remus to the "last Emperor," Romulus Augustulus. Expanding the focus of some approaches to this subject, Alföldy examines Rome's social structure against the broader and more familiar background of its political history.
This book treats such topics as the structure of archaic Roman society; social changes from the beginning of Roman expansion to the Second Punic War; slave uprisings and other conflicts in the society of the Late Republic; the social system of the early Empire; the crisis of the Roman Empire; and late Roman society to the fall of the Empire.