The Roman Republic
Michael Hewson Crawford - 1978
Michael Crawford's highly praised history is now expanded and revised to accommodate recent discoveries and current thinking.
The Penguin Book of Classical Myths
Jennifer R. March - 2008
Whether it's Ikaros flying too close to the sun, Prometheus stealing fire from the gods or the tragedy of Oedipus, their characters have inspired art, literature, plays and films, and constellations named after them fill the night sky. But how much do you really know about them?From the clash of the Titans to the fall of Troy, here are the greatest legends of all time, brilliantly retold by classical scholar Jenny March. All the heroes, monsters, villains, gods and goddesses of classical civilization are included; the epic journeys of Odysseus and Aeneas; the founding of Athens and Rome; the quests of Jason seeking the Golden Fleece and Theseus slaying the minotaur. Giving the origins, development and interpretation of each myth, this is the essential guide to the stories that have shaped our world.
Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics
Anthony A. Long - 1974
to the end of the Roman Republic (31 B.C.).
The Roman Republic: A Very Short Introduction
David M. Gwynn - 2012
From humble beginnings on the seven hills beside the Tiber, the city of Rome grew to dominate the ancient Mediterranean. Led by her senatorial aristocracy, Republican armies defeated Carthage and the successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great, and brought the surrounding peoples to east and west into the Roman sphere. In this Very Short Introduction, David M. Gwynn provides a fascinating introduction to the history of the Roman Republic, ranging from the origins of Rome and the vivid Roman legends that surround the foundations of the city, to the overthrow of the monarchy in 509 BC, the five hundred years of republican rule, the rise of Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, and the establishment of the Principate. Gwynn considers the political structure of the Republic, including its unique constitution, and he highlights literary and material sources, bringing to life the culture and society of Republican Rome. He also reflects on the Roman values and beliefs of the time, in order to shed light on the Republic's dramatic rise and fall. Finally, Gwynn reflects on the remarkable legacy of the Roman Republic, including its modern-day resonance and legacy in literature and in film, where it is often presented as a model, a source of inspiration, but also a warning.
Canadian History in 50 Events: From Early Settlement to the Present Day (History in 50 Events Series Book 12)
James Weber - 2015
This book will give you a comprehensive overview of the Canadian history. Author James Weber did the research and compiled this huge list of events that changed the course of this nation forever. Some of them include: - Prehistoric hunters cross over into North America from Asia (30,000 - 10,000 BC) - The Inuit people begin to move into what are now the Northwest Territories (2000 BC) - Leif Ericsson leads Viking expedition to the new World (C.1000 AD) - Martin Frobisher sails to the Hudson Bay (1576) - Samuel de Champlain establishes a French colony (1608) - Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye returns Québec to France (1632) - Treaty of Utrecht (1713) - Great Britain founds Halifax (1749) - The USA invades British colonies (1812-14) - The provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are created (1905) - World War II (1939-45) - The St Lawrence Seaway Opens (1959) - The Québec referendum on sovereignty is narrowly defeated (1995) - Canada declines to enter the War in Iraq (2003) and many many more The book includes pictures and explanations to every event, making this the perfect resource for students and anyone wanting to broaden their knowledge in histoy. Download your copy now! Tags: history, world history, history books, history of the world, human history, world history textbook, history books for kids, earth history, geographic history, earth history kindle, human history, history books for kids age 9 12, history of the world part 1, canadian history nonfiction, history books for kids age 7-9, history books for young readers, history books for children, canadian history books, history books for kindle, canadian history encyclopedia, canadian history, canadian history books, canadian history for dummies, canadian history textbook, canada history books, canada history, canada
The Alexiad
Anna Comnena
It is also an important source of information on the Byzantine war with the Normans, and the First Crusade, in which Alexius participated. While the Byzantines were allied to the Crusaders, they were none the less critical of their behaviour and Anna's book offers a startlingly different perspective from that of Western historians. Her character sketches are shrewd and forthright - from the Norman invader Robert Guiscard ('nourished by mainfold Evil') and his son Bohemond ('like a streaking thunderbolt') to Pope Gregory VII ('unworthy of a high priest'). The Alexiad is a vivid and dramatic narrative, which reveals as much about the character of its intelligent and dynamic author as it does about the fascinating period through which she lived.E.R.A. Sewter's translation captures all the strength and immediacy of the original and is complemented by an introduction that examines Anna's life and times. This edition also includes maps, appendices, genealogical tables, a bibliography and indexes of events and names.
Bulfinch's Mythology
Thomas Bulfinch - 1855
The stories are divided into three sections: The Age of Fable or Stories of Gods and Heroes (first published in 1855); The Age of Chivalry (1858), which contains King Arthur and His Knights, The Mabinogeon, and The Knights of English History; and Legends of Charlemagne or Romance of the Middle Ages (1863). For the Greek myths, Bulfinch drew on Ovid and Virgil, and for the sagas of the north, from Mallet's Northern Antiquities. He provides lively versions of the myths of Zeus and Hera, Venus and Adonis, Daphne and Apollo, and their cohorts on Mount Olympus; the love story of Pygmalion and Galatea; the legends of the Trojan War and the epic wanderings of Ulysses and Aeneas; the joys of Valhalla and the furies of Thor; and the tales of Beowulf and Robin Hood. The tales are eminently readable. As Bulfinch wrote, "Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated. . . . Our book is an attempt to solve this problem, by telling the stories of mythology in such a manner as to make them a source of amusement."Thomas Bulfinch, in his day job, was a clerk in the Merchant's Bank of Boston, an undemanding position that afforded him ample leisure time in which to pursue his other interests. In addition to serving as secretary of the Boston Society of Natural History, he thoroughly researched the myths and legends and copiously cross-referenced them with literature and art. As such, the myths are an indispensable guide to the cultural values of the nineteenth century; however, it is the vigor of the stories themselves that returns generation after generation to Bulfinch.
The Ancient Guide to Modern Life
Natalie Haynes - 2010
In this thoroughly engaging book, Natalie Haynes brings her scholarship and wit to the most fascinating true stories of the ancient world. The Ancient Guide to Modern Life not only reveals the origins of our culture in areas including philosophy, politics, language, and art, it also draws illuminating connections between antiquity and our present time, to demonstrate that the Greeks and Romans were not so different from ourselves: is Bart Simpson the successor to Aristophanes? Do the Beckhams have parallel lives with The Satiricon's Trimalchio? Along the way Haynes debunks myths (gladiators didn't salute the emperor before their deaths, and the last words of Julius Caesar weren't "et tu, brute?") from Athens to Zeno's paradox, this irresistible guide shows how the history and wisdom of the ancient world can inform and enrich our lives today.
Classical Mythology
Elizabeth Vandiver - 2000
Among those you'll investigate are the accounts of the creation of the world in Hesiod's Theogony and Ovid's Metamorphoses; the gods Zeus, Apollo, Demeter, Persephone, Hermes, Dionysos, and Aphrodite; the Greek heroes, Theseus and Heracles (Hercules in the Roman version); and the most famous of all classical myths, the Trojan War.Professor Vandiver anchors her presentation in some basics. What is a myth? Which societies use myths? What are some of the problems inherent in studying classical mythology? She also discusses the most influential 19th- and 20th-century thinking about myth's nature and function, including the psychological theories of Freud and Jung and the metaphysical approach of Joseph Campbell. You'll also consider the relationship between mythology and culture (such as the implications of the myth of Demeter, Persephone, and Hades for the Greek view of life, death, and marriage), the origins of classical mythology (including the similarities between the Theogony and Mesopotamian creation myths), and the dangers of probing for distant origins (for example, there's little evidence that a prehistoric "mother goddess" lies at the heart of mythology).Taking you from the surprising "truths" about the Minotaur to Ovid's impact on the works of William Shakespeare, these lectures make classical mythology fresh, absorbing, and often surprising.Disclaimer: Please note that this recording may include references to supplemental texts or print references that are not essential to the program and not supplied with your purchase.©2000 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2000 The Great Courses
China and the Chinese
Herbert Allen Giles - 1902
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
Night Walks
Charles Dickens - 1869
Night walks (All the Year Round, 21 July 1860) Gone astray (Household Words, 13 August 1853) Chatham Dockyard (All the Year Round, 29 August 1863) Wapping workhouse (All the Year Round, 3 February 1860) A small star in the east (All the Year Round, 19 December 1868) On an amateur beat (All the Year Round, 27 February 1869) Betting-shops (Household Words, 26 June 1852) Trading in death (Household Words, 27 November 1852)
Julian
Gore Vidal - 1964
for ISBN 037572706X.The remarkable bestseller about the fourth-century Roman emperor who famously tried to halt the spread of Christianity, Julian is widely regarded as one of Gore Vidal’s finest historical novels.Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshiping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign. A marvelously imaginative and insightful novel of classical antiquity, Julian captures the religious and political ferment of a desperate age and restores with blazing wit and vigor the legacy of an impassioned ruler.
The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Hell, Volume 01
Dante Alighieri - 2004
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
James Romm - 2014
. . the narrative verve of a born writer and the erudition of a scholar” —Daniel Mendelsohn) and editor of The Landmark Arrian:The Campaign of Alexander (“Thrilling” —The New York Times Book Review), a high-stakes drama full of murder, madness, tyranny, perversion, with the sweep of history on the grand scale. At the center, the tumultuous life of Seneca, ancient Rome’s preeminent writer and philosopher, beginning with banishment in his fifties and subsequent appointment as tutor to twelve-year-old Nero, future emperor of Rome. Controlling them both, Nero’s mother, Julia Agrippina the Younger, Roman empress, great-granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus, sister of the Emperor Caligula, niece and fourth wife of Emperor Claudius. James Romm seamlessly weaves together the life and written words, the moral struggles, political intrigue, and bloody vengeance that enmeshed Seneca the Younger in the twisted imperial family and the perverse, paranoid regime of Emperor Nero, despot and madman. Romm writes that Seneca watched over Nero as teacher, moral guide, and surrogate father, and, at seventeen, when Nero abruptly ascended to become emperor of Rome, Seneca, a man never avid for political power became, with Nero, the ruler of the Roman Empire. We see how Seneca was able to control his young student, how, under Seneca’s influence, Nero ruled with intelligence and moderation, banned capital punishment, reduced taxes, gave slaves the right to file complaints against their owners, pardoned prisoners arrested for sedition. But with time, as Nero grew vain and disillusioned, Seneca was unable to hold sway over the emperor, and between Nero’s mother, Agrippina—thought to have poisoned her second husband, and her third, who was her uncle (Claudius), and rumored to have entered into an incestuous relationship with her son—and Nero’s father, described by Suetonius as a murderer and cheat charged with treason, adultery, and incest, how long could the young Nero have been contained? Dying Every Day is a portrait of Seneca’s moral struggle in the midst of madness and excess. In his treatises, Seneca preached a rigorous ethical creed, exalting heroes who defied danger to do what was right or embrace a noble death. As Nero’s adviser, Seneca was presented with a more complex set of choices, as the only man capable of summoning the better aspect of Nero’s nature, yet, remaining at Nero’s side and colluding in the evil regime he created.Dying Every Day is the first book to tell the compelling and nightmarish story of the philosopher-poet who was almost a king, tied to a tyrant—as Seneca, the paragon of reason, watched his student spiral into madness and whose descent saw five family murders, the Fire of Rome, and a savage purge that destroyed the supreme minds of the Senate’s golden age.