Michael Rostovtzeff

“Every revolution is a civil war.”

“The ancient world... was and remains a world of cities.”

“The main problem of the Roman Empire may be summed up in the words: the absorption of the proletariat.”

“The city was for the ancient world what the nation and the state are for us - its highest expression, the object of its deepest feelings of loyalty and devotion.”

“The crisis of the third century was not a crisis of this or that branch of the life of the state: it was a general crisis.”

“The ruin of the ancient city was the ruin of ancient civilization.”

“What happened was a slow and gradual change, a shifting of the centre of gravity in the life of the Empire.”

“The main feature of the social evolution of the early Empire was the gradual absorption of the higher classes of the provinces into the ruling aristocracy of the Roman state.”

“The decay of the creative forces in the bourgeoisie was due... to the fact that the state was becoming more and more the master of the economic and social life.”

“The whole life of the Hellenistic age was a struggle between two forces: the force of Greek civilization and the force of Oriental traditions.”

“The peasants, who formed the great majority of the population, remained passive and indifferent.”

“The Oriental world, though it formed part of the Roman Empire, was never truly Romanized.”