Acknowledgements

During the long gestation period of this book. I have received the help and advice of numerous colleagues and friends. I have had the opportunity to present chapters at the ICS in London and at the universities of Manchester, Princeton, Columbia, Dresden, Chemnitz, and Kyoto. I would like to thank my hosts at these institutions as well as the audiences for their constructive feedback. Maggie Robb, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Yasutaka Uchida, and William Fitzgerald kindly read and commented on the manuscript, which has also benefitted from discussions with Martin Jehne, Bernhard Linke, John North, Walter Scheidel, and Dominic Rathbone. My doctoral student Steven Cosnett accepted the onerous task of compiling the index and checking the references, for which I owe him many thanks. I am grateful to the editors of the Key Themes in Ancient History series, Paul Cartledge and Peter Garnsey, and to Michael Sharp at Cambridge University Press for their patience and understanding; I am particularly indebted to Peter for his unfailing encouragement and sound advice throughout the process. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and interest in my work.