For the reader’s convenience I give below a list of standard labels, some of which are used in this book, together with the approximate historical periods to which they refer.
1 Antiquity: used loosely to cover the entire period of ancient Greek and Roman history.
Pre-classical or Homeric Greece: before 800 BC. Classical Greece: c. 800 BC to 323 BC (death of Alexander the Great). The Hellenistic Period: 322 BC to 30 BC (conquest of Egypt by Rome).
Republican Rome: 753 BC (traditional date of foundation of Rome) to 30 BC (triumph of Octavian, later Augustus). The Roman Empire: 27 BC (government of Augustus) to AD 410 (sack of Rome) or 476 (last emperor of western empire deposed).
2 The Middle Ages: used loosely to cover the period from the supremacy of Christianity in the Roman empire (the first ecumenical council of the Church was held at Nicaea 325) or the fall of Rome in the fifth century to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. The close of the Middle Ages is dated differently for individual countries. The Early Middle Ages: the fifth to the eleventh centuries (the earlier part of this period used to be referred to as the Dark Ages). The High Middle Ages: the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. The Later Middle Ages: the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in northern Europe; in Italy this period is designated as the Renaissance.
3 The Renaissance: used differently according to which country (e.g. Italy, France, England) or which field (e.g. literature, art, diplomacy, economics) is being discussed. At its broadest it can cover the late thirteenth to the late seventeenth centuries. The term is also applied to two earlier periods, the Carolingian Renaissance (ninth century) and the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century in France. In Italy, the Early Renaissance refers to the fourteenth century, the High Renaissance to the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries. In this book the Renaissance in England refers to the sixteenth and first three-quarters of the seventeenth century.