Part 1. Life in the later Roman world: Life at the end of the 'Lead Age' -- Family and faith -- An empire of cities -- Culture, communications, commerce -- Constantinople, the new Rome -- Part 2. Power and politics: The Theodosian Age, AD 395-451 -- Soldiers and civilians, AD 451-527 -- The Age of Justinian, AD 527-602 -- The Heraclians, AD 602-c. 700 -- Part 3: The end of antiquity: The end of ancient civilisation -- Apocalypse and the end of antiquity -- Emperors of New Rome

"In New Rome, Paul Stephenson looks beyond traditional texts and well-known artifacts to offer a novel, scientifically-minded interpretation of antiquity's end. It turns out that the descent of Rome is inscribed not only in parchments but also in ice cores and DNA. From these and other sources, we learn that pollution and pandemics influenced the fate of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire. During its final five centuries, the empire in the east survived devastation by natural disasters, the degradation of the human environment, and pathogens previously unknown to the empire's densely populated, unsanitary cities. Despite the Plague of Justinian, regular "barbarian" invasions, a war with Persia, and the rise of Islam, the empire endured as a political entity. However, Greco-Roman civilization, a world of interconnected cities that had shared a common material culture for a millennium, did not."--