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Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives
By Plutarch. 1958
Dramatic artist, natural scientist and philosopher, Plutarch is widely regarded as the most significant historian of his era, writing sharp…
and succinct accounts of the greatest politicians and statesman of the classical period. Taken from the Lives, a series of biographies spanning the Graeco-Roman age, this collection illuminates the twilight of the old Roman Republic from 157-43 bc. Whether describing the would-be dictators Marius and Sulla, the battle between Crassus and Spartacus, the death of political idealist Crato, Julius Caesar's harrowing triumph in Gaul or the eloquent oratory of Cicero, all offer a fascinating insight into an empire wracked by political divisions. Deeply influential on Shakespeare and many other later writers, they continue to fascinate today with their exploration of corruption, decadence and the struggle for ultimate power.Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt
By Joyce Tyldesley. 1994
In ancient Egypt women enjoyed a legal, social and sexual independence unrivalled by their Greek or Roman sisters, or in…
fact by most women until the late nineteenth century. They could own and trade in property, work outside the home, marry foreigners and live alone without the protection of a male guardian. Some of them even rose to rule Egypt as ‘female kings’. Joyce Tyldesley’s vivid history of how women lived in ancient Egypt weaves a fascinating picture of daily life – marriage and the home, work and play, grooming and religion – viewed from a female perspective, in a work that is engaging, original and constantly surprising.The Digest of Roman Law: Theft, Rapine, Damage and Insult
By Justinian. 1979
Dialogues and Letters
By Seneca. 2005
A major writer and a leading figure in the public life of Rome, Seneca (c. 4BC-AD 65) ranks among the…
most eloquent and influential masters of Latin prose. This selection explores his thoughts on philosophy and the trials of life. In the Consolation to Helvia he strives to offer solace to his mother, following his exile in AD 41, while On the Shortness of Life and On Tranquillity of Mind are lucid and compelling explorations of Stoic thought. Witty and self-critical, the Letters - written to his young friend Lucilius - explore Seneca's struggle to acquire philosophical wisdom. A fascinating insight into one of the greatest minds of Ancient Rome, these works inspired writers and thinkers including Montaigne, Rousseau, and Bacon, and continue to intrigue and enlighten.The Conquest of Gaul
By Julius Caesar. 1951
Between 58 and 50BC Caesar conquered most of the area now covered by France, Belgium and Switzerland, and twice invaded…
Britain. This is the record of his campaigns.Caesar's narrative offers insights into his military strategy & paints a fascinating picture of his encounters with the inhabitant of Gaul and Britain, as well as offering lively portraits of a number of key characters such as the rebel leaders and Gallic chieftains. This can also be read as a piece of political propaganda, as Caesar sets down his version of events for the Roman public, knowing that he faces civil war on his return to Rome.The Civil Wars
By Appian. 1996
Taken from Appian's Roman History, the five books collected here form the sole surviving continuous historical narrative of the era…
between 133-35 BC - a time of anarchy and instability for the Roman Empire. A masterly account of a turbulent epoch, they describe the Catiline conspiracy; the rise and fall of the First Triumvirate; the murder of Julius Caesar; the formation of the Second Triumvirate by Antonius, Octavian, and Lepidus; and brutal civil war. A compelling depiction of the decline of the Roman state into brutality and violence, The Civil Wars portrays political discontent, selfishness and the struggle for power - a struggle that was to culminate in a titanic battle for mastery over the Roman Empire, and the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra by Octavian in 31 BCThe Civil War
By Julius Caesar. 1967
A military leader of legendary genius, Caesar was also a great writer, recording the events of his life with incomparable…
immediacy and power. The Civil War is a tense and gripping depiction of his struggle with Pompey over the leadership of Republican Rome - a conflict that spanned the entire Roman world, from Gaul and Spain to Asia and Africa. Where Caesar's own account leaves off in 48 BC, his lieutenants take up the history, describing the vital battles of Munda, Spain and Thapsus, and the installation of Cleopatra, later Caesar's mistress, as Queen of Egypt. Together these narratives paint a full picture of the events that brought Caesar supreme power - and paved the way for his assassination only months later.Cities of the Classical World: An Atlas and Gazetteer of 120 Centres of Ancient Civilization
By Colin McEvedy. 2011
From Alexandria to York, this unique illustrated guide allows us to see the great centres of classical civilization afresh. The…
key feature of Cities of the Classical World is 120 specially drawn maps tracing each city's thoroughfares and defences, monuments and places of worship. Every map is to the same scale, allowing readers for the first time to appreciate visually the relative sizes of Babylon and Paris, London and Constantinople. There is also a clear, incisive commentary on each city's development, strategic importance, rulers and ordinary inhabitants. This compelling and elegant atlas opens a new window on to the ancient world, and will transform the way we see it.The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (7th Edition)
By Geza Vermes. 2011
'Probably the most important archaeological find in history ... Vermes' translations are a standard in the field' Los Angeles TimesThe…
discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Judaean desert between 1947 and 1956 was one of the greatest finds of all time. These extraordinary manuscripts appear to have been hidden in the caves at Qumran by the Essenes, a Jewish sect in existence before and during the time of Jesus. Written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, the scrolls have transformed our understanding of the Hebrew Bible, early Judaism and the origins of Christianity. This acclaimed translation by Geza Vermes has established itself as the classic version of these texts. Translated and edited with an Introduction and Notes by Geza VermesThe Celts
By Barry Cunliffe, Nora Chadwick. 1971
The Celtic period was one of tremendous expansion, the last phase of European material and intellectual development before the Mediterranean…
world spread northwards over the Continent and linked it to modern times. Nora Chadwick's classic survey traces the rise and spread of the Celts, from their arrival in the British Isles in about the eighth century BC to the gradual transformation of their culture, initially under the Romans and later the Saxons.Catiline's War, The Jugurthine War, Histories
By Sallust. 2007
Sallust (86–c. 35 bc) is the earliest Roman historian of whom complete works survive, a senator of the Roman Republic…
and younger contemporary of Cicero, Pompey and Julius Caesar. His Catiline’s War tells of the conspiracy in 63 bc led by L. Sergius Catilina, who plotted to assassinate numerous senators and take control of the government, but was thwarted by Cicero. Sallust’s vivid account of Roman public life shows a Republic in decline, prey to moral corruption and internal strife. In The Jugurthine War he describes Rome’s fight in Africa against the king of the Numidians from 111 to 105 bc, and provides a damning picture of the Roman aristocracy. Also included in this volume are the major surviving extracts from Sallust’s now fragmentary Histories, depicting Rome after the death of the dictator Sulla.The Campaigns of Alexander
By Arrian. 1958
Although written over four hundred years after Alexander's death, Arrian's account of the man and his achievements is the most…
reliable we have. Arrian's own experience as a military commander gave him unique insights into the life of the world's greatest conqueror. He tells of Alexander's violent suppression of the Theban rebellion, his defeat of Persia and campaigns through Egypt and Babylon - establishing new cities and destroying others in his path. While Alexander emerges as a charismatic leader, Arrian succeeds brilliantly in creating an objective portrait of a man of boundless ambition, who was exposed to the temptations of power.The Book Of The Eclipse
By David Ovason. 2013
As David Ovason shows, eclipse have always marked turning points in history and in the lives of individuals: the foundation…
of Rome, the crucifixion, the saving of the live of Christopher Columbus, the foundation of Washington DC, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and even the future fall from grace of President Clinton are among Ovason's many examples. Ovason also shows how stone circles were linked to eclipses and how these events have always been supposed by initiates to create shadow-tunnels into the spiritual world, allowing special possibilities of communication with the spiritual world.Emperor of Rome: Ruling The Ancient Roman World
By Mary Beard. 2023
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Best Books of 2023: New Yorker, The Economist, Smithsonian Most Anticipated Books of Fall: Washington…
Post, Los Angeles Times, TODAY, Literary Hub, and Publishers Weekly "A vivid way to re-examine what we know, and don’t, about life at the top.... Emperor of Rome is a masterly group portrait, an invitation to think skeptically but not contemptuously of a familiar civilization." —Kyle Harper, Wall Street Journal A sweeping account of the social and political world of the Roman emperors by “the world’s most famous classicist” (Guardian). In her international bestseller SPQR, Mary Beard told the thousand-year story of ancient Rome, from its slightly shabby Iron Age origins to its reign as the undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean. Now, drawing on more than thirty years of teaching and writing about Roman history, Beard turns to the emperors who ruled the Roman Empire, beginning with Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BCE) and taking us through the nearly three centuries—and some thirty emperors—that separate him from the boy-king Alexander Severus (assassinated 235 CE). Yet Emperor of Rome is not your typical chronological account of Roman rulers, one emperor after another: the mad Caligula, the monster Nero, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Instead, Beard asks different, often larger and more probing questions: What power did emperors actually have? Was the Roman palace really so bloodstained? What kind of jokes did Augustus tell? And for that matter, what really happened, for example, between the emperor Hadrian and his beloved Antinous? Effortlessly combining the epic with the quotidian, Beard tracks the emperor down at home, at the races, on his travels, even on his way to heaven. Along the way, Beard explores Roman fictions of imperial power, overturning many of the assumptions that we hold as gospel, not the least of them the perception that emperors one and all were orchestrators of extreme brutality and cruelty. Here Beard introduces us to the emperor’s wives and lovers, rivals and slaves, court jesters and soldiers, and the ordinary people who pressed begging letters into his hand—whose chamber pot disputes were adjudicated by Augustus, and whose budgets were approved by Vespasian, himself the son of a tax collector. With its finely nuanced portrayal of sex, class, and politics, Emperor of Rome goes directly to the heart of Roman fantasies (and our own) about what it was to be Roman at its richest, most luxurious, most extreme, most powerful, and most deadly, offering an account of Roman history as it has never been presented before.Persians: The Age of The Great Kings
By Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. 2022
THE PERSIANS is a definitive new history of the Persian Empire, the world's first superpower.The Great Kings of Persia ruled…
over the largest Empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the Steppes of Asia, and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. At the heart of the Empire was the fabled palace-city of Persepolis where the Achaemenid monarchs held court in unparalleled grandeur. From here, Cyrus the Great, Darius, Xerxes, and their heirs passed laws, raised armies, and governed their multicultural Empire of enormous diversity.The Achaemenids, however, were one of the great dysfunctional families of history. Brothers fought brothers for power, wives and concubines plotted to promote their sons to the throne, and eunuchs and courtiers vied for influence and prestige.Our understanding of the Persian Empire has traditionally come from the histories of Greek writers such as Herodotus - and as such, over many centuries, our perspective has been skewed by ancient political and cultural agendas. Professor Llewellyn-Jones, however, calls upon original Achaemenid sources, including inscriptions, art, and recent archaeological discoveries in Iran, to create an authentic 'Persian Version' of this remarkable first great empire of antiquity - the Age of the Great Kings.Ghosts of the British Museum: A True Story of Colonial Loot and Restless Objects
By Noah Angell. 2024
What if the British Museum isn't a house of learning, but a vast sinkhole of still-bubbling historic injustice?What if it…
presents us not with a carefully ordered cross section of history but is instead a palatial trophy cabinet of colonial loot swarming with volatile and errant spirits?When artist and writer Noah Angell first heard murmurs of ghostly sightings at the British Museum he had to find out more. What started as a trickle soon became a landslide as staff old and new, from guards of formidable build to respected curators, brought forth testimonies of their inexplicable supernatural encounters.It became clear that the source of the disturbances was related to the Museum's contents - unquiet objects, holy plunder, and restless human remains protesting their enforced stay within the colonial collection's cases, cabinets and deep underground vaults. Be it wraiths associated with genocides, uprooted sacred beings or the afterglow of deaths that occurred inside the museum itself, according to those who have worked there, the museum is heaving with profound spectral disorder.Ghosts of the British Museum fuses storytelling, folklore and history, digs deep into our imperial past and unmasks the world's oldest national museum as a site of ongoing conflict, where under the guise of preservation, restless objects are held against their will.It now appears that the objects are fighting back.(p) 2024 Octopus Publishing GroupGhosts of the British Museum: A True Story of Colonial Loot and Restless Objects
By Noah Angell. 2024
'An absorbingly creepy travelogue through the corridors, tunnels and basements of our most famous cultural repository. With Noah Angell as…
our guide, the British Museum becomes a haunted prison filled with imperial plunder and restless spirits clamouring for attention.' - Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin Of All Witches'Fascinating and illuminating' - Peter Ackroyd'Brilliantly delicate, pointed, shivery... You could read it as a guide to which galleries to avoid - or to where the push for repatriation should be most urgent.' - Erin L. Thompson, professor of art crime at the City University of New York'Achieves a near-impossible marriage between paranormal pop-culture, folklore and hauntology' - Roger Clarke, author of A Natural History of Ghosts'A heady cocktail of history and folklore that leaves a haunting aftertaste... Spine-tingling' - Lindsey Fitzharris, New York Times bestselling author of The FacemakerWhat if the British Museum isn't a carefully ordered cross section of history but is in instead a palatial trophy cabinet of colonial loot - swarming with volatile and errant spirits?When artist and writer Noah Angell first heard murmurs of ghostly sightings at the British Museum he had to find out more. What started as a trickle soon became a deluge as staff old and new - from overnight security to respected curators - brought him testimonies of their supernatural encounters.It became clear that the source of the disturbances was related to the Museum's contents - unquiet objects, holy plunder, and restless human remains protesting their enforced stay within the colonial collection's cabinets and deep underground vaults. According to those who have worked there, the institution is heaving with profound spectral disorder.Ghosts of the British Museum fuses storytelling, folklore and history, digs deep into our imperial past and unmasks the world's oldest national museum as a site of ongoing conflict, where restless objects are held against their will.It now appears that the objects are fighting back.Britain 3000 BC
By Rodney Castleden, Penelope Lively. 2024
Freedom and Power in Classical Athens
By null Naomi T. Campa. 2024
Athenian democracy was distinguished from other ancient constitutions by its emphasis on freedom. This was understood, Naomi T. Campa argues,…
as being able to do 'whatever one wished,' a widely attested phrase. Citizen agency and power constituted the core of democratic ideology and institutions. Rather than create anarchy, as ancient critics claimed, positive freedom underpinned a system that ideally protected both the individual and the collective. Even freedom, however, can be dangerous. The notion of citizen autonomy both empowered and oppressed individuals within a democratic hierarchy. These topics strike at the heart of democracies ancient and modern, from the discursive principles that structure political procedures to the citizen's navigation between the limitations of law and expression of individual will to the status of noncitizens within a state. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.Augustus: The Biography
By Jochen Bleicken. 1998
The great modern biography of Augustus, founder of the Roman EmpireBorn to a plebeian family in 63 BC, Octavian was…
a young solder training abroad when he heard news of Julius Caesar's brutal assassination - and discovered that he was the dictator's sole political heir. With the opportunism and instinct for propaganda that were to characterize his rule, Octavian rallied huge financial, military and political backing to eliminate his opponents, end the bloody turmoil that had so long wracked Rome and, finally, take autocratic control of a state devoted to republicanism. He became Augustus - Rome's first Emperor, and the founder of the greatest empire the world had ever seen.In this monumental biography, translated into English for the first time by Anthea Bell, Jochen Bleicken tells the story of a man who found himself a demi-god in his own lifetime and paints a portrait of one of the most dramatic periods of Roman history.