Book picks similar to
A Companion to Archaic Greece by Kurt A. Raaflaub
history
reference
greek
calibre
Metamorphoses
Ovid
Horace Gregory, in this modern translation, turns his poetic gifts toward a deft reconstruction of Ovid's ancient themes, using contemporary idiom to bring today's reader all the ageless drama and psychological truths vividly intact. --From the book jacket
The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek
Barry Cunliffe - 2001
Renowned archaeologist Barry Cunliffe here re-creates Pytheas's unprecedented journey, which occurred almost 300 years before Julius Caesar landed in Britain. Beginning with an invaluable pocket history of early Mediterranean civilization, Cunliffe illuminates what Pytheas would have seen and experienced—the route he likely took to reach Brittany, then Britain, Iceland, and Denmark; and evidence of the ancient cultures he would have encountered on shore. The discoveries Pytheas made would reverberate throughout the civilized world for years to come, and in recounting his extraordinary voyage, Cunliffe chronicles an essential chapter in the history of civilization.
Greek: An Intensive Course
Hardy Hansen - 1985
The first edition of this extremely popular two volume Greek text has been successfully adopted in many high schools and colleges; the organization and approach used by the authors, make it an equally effective tool for those who would enjoy learning the language on their own.
The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World
Cyprian Broodbank - 2013
World-class interpretations exist of its Classical and subsequent history, but there has been remarkably little holistic exploration of how its societies, culture and economies first came into being, despitethe fact that almost all the fundamental developments originated well before 500 BC. This book is the first full, interpretive synthesis for a generation on the rise of the Mediterranean world from its beginning, before the emergence of our own species, up to the threshold of Classical times, bywhich time the Middle Sea was already in effect made.Thanks to unrivalled depth and breadth of exploration, Mediterranean archaeology is one of the world's richest sources for the reconstruction of ancient societies. This book is the first to draw in equal measure on ideas and information from the European, western Asian and African flanks, as well asthe islands at the Mediterranean's heart, to achieve a truly innovative focus on the varied trajectories and interactions that created this maritime world.The Mediterranean combines unusual conditions in a strictly unique fashion that goes a long way towards explaining its precocious development: it is the world's largest inland sea, easily the largest of the five challenging, opportunity-rich mediterraneoid environments on the planet, and adjacentto the riverine cores of two of the earliest civilizations, in Mesopotamia and Egypt. No wonder its societies proved exceptional.Extensively illustrated and ranging across disciplines, subject matter and chronology from early humans and the origins of farming and metallurgy to the rise of civilizations--Egyptian, Levantine, Hispanic, Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, Etruscan, early Greek--the book is a masterpiece ofarchaeological and historical writing.
Men and Gods: Myths and Legends of the Ancient Greeks
Rex Warner - 1950
These tales cover the range of Greek mythology, including the creation story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the heroic adventures of Perseus, the fall of Icarus, Cupid and Psyche's tale of love, and the tragic history of Oedipus and Thebes. Men and Gods is an essential and delightful book with which to discover some of the key stories of world literature.
Guide to Greece: Central Greece (Guide to Greece, 1 of 2) (book 1, 2, 7, 9, 10)
Pausanias
A study of buildings, traditions and myth, it describes with precision and eloquence the glory of classical Greece shortly before its ultimate decline in the third century. This volume, the first of two, concerns the five provinces of central Greece, with an account of cities including Athens, Corinth and Thebes and a compelling depiction of the Oracle at Delphi. Along the way, Pausanias recounts Greek legends that are unknown from any other source and quotes a wealth of classical literature and poetry that would otherwise have been lost. An inspiration to Byron and Shelley, Guide to Greece remains one of the most influential travel books ever written.Book 1 AtticaBook 2 CorinthiaBook 7 AchaeaBook 9 Boetia Book 10 Phocis
A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC
Marc Van De Mieroop - 2003
Beginning c.3000 BC with the advent of the first writing system, Van De Mieroop traces the emergence and development of some of the greatest states and powers, stunning cities and major empires, including the Babylonian and Hittite kingdoms, the Assyrian and Persian Empires and the conquests of Alexander the Great. Van De Mieroop's revisions for the 2nd edition aim to make the text even more accessible, and include the very latest research. "This text deserves a place on the shelves of ancient historians and archaeologists, and it will certainly have pride of place in reading lists for courses in Mesopotamian history" - Norman Yoffee.
The Norton Book of Classical Literature
Bernard Knox - 1993
300-250 B.C.) Erinna (4th century B.C.?)From the Greek anthologyAnonymousPlatoAnyte (early 4th century B.C.?) Antipater of Sidon (2nd century B.C.)Diotimos NikarchosAsclepiades of Samos (c.320-?B.C.)Leonidas of Tarentum (1st half of 3rd century B.C.)Alexander AetolusDioskorides Meleager (c.100 B.C.)Glaukos Anonymous PhilodemosKrinagorasAutomedonAnonymousEruciusAntipater of Salonica (1st century B.C.-1st Century A.D.?)Marcus Argentarius (1st century B.C.-1st century A.D.?)Pompeius Lucilius NikarchosPaulus Silentiarius (6th century A.D.)Lucretius (98-c.55 B.C.) Catullus (c.84-c.54 B.C.) Horace (65-8 B.C.) Virgil (70-19 B.C.) Livy (59 B.C.-A.D.17)Propertius (c.50 B.C.-after 16 B.C.)Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 17) Tacitus (A.D. 56/7after 117) Petronius Arbiter (?-A.D. 65)Juvenal (55?-138?)Marcus Aurelius (121-180; Emperor, 161-180)Aurelius Augustinus (St Augustine (354-530)For futher readingPermissionsIndex
Famous Greeks
J. Rufus Fears - 2001
Course Lecture Titles - (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture) 1. Theseus 2. Achilles and Agamemnon 3. Hector 4. Odysseus 5. Lycurgus 6. Solon 7. Croesus 8. Xerxes 9. Leonidas 10. Themistocles 11. Pausanias 12. Pericles 13. Anaxagoras, Phidias, and Aspasia 14. Sophocles 15. Thucydides 16. Alcibiades 17. Nicias 18. Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War 19. Lysander and Socrates 20. The Trial of Socrates 21. Xenophon, Plato and Philip 22. Alexander the Great 23. Pyrrhus 24. Cleopatra
The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
Peter Heather - 2005
He shows first how the Huns overtuned the existing strategic balance of power on Rome's European frontiers to force the Goths and others to seek refuge inside the empire. This prompted two generations of struggle, during which new barbarian coalitions, formed in response to Roman hostility, brought the Roman west to its knees. The Goths first destroyed a Roman army at the battle of Hadrianople in 378 and went on to sack Rome in 410. The Vandals spread devastation in Gaul and Spain befor conquering North Africa, the breadbasket of the western empire, in 439. We then meet Attila the Hun, whose reign of terror swept from Constantinople to Paris, but whose death in 453 ironically precipitated a final desperate phase of Roman collapse, culminating in the Vandals' defeat of the massive Byzantine Armada, the west's last change for survival.Peter Heather convincingly argues that the Roman Empire was not on the brink of social or moral collapse. What brought it to an end were the barbarians.
Marcus Aurelius: A Biography
Anthony R. Birley - 1966
Even his face became more than usually familiar: the imperial coinage displayed his portrait for over 40 years, from the clean-shaven young heir of Antonius to the war-weary, heavily bearded ruler who died at his post in his late fifties.His correspondence with his tutor Fronto, and even more the private notebook he kept for his last ten years, the Meditations, provides a unique series of vivid and revealing glimpses into the character and peoccupations of this emporer who spent many years in terrible wars against northern tribes.In this accessible and scholarly study, Professor Birley paints a portrait of an emporer who was human and just - an embodiment of the pagan virtues of Rome.
The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology: An A-Z Guide to the Myths and Legends of the Ancient World
Arthur Cotterell - 1990
The myths and legends of the ancient worlds, from Greece, Rome and Egypt to the Norse and Celtic lands, through Persia and India to China and the Far East, the Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology is a comprehensive A to Z of the classic stories of gods and goddesses, heroes and mythical beasts, wizards and warriors.
War and the Iliad
Simone Weil - 1939
First published on the eve of war in 1939, the essay has often been read as a pacifist manifesto. Rachel Bespaloff was a French contemporary of Weil’s whose work similarly explored the complex relations between literature, religion, and philosophy. She composed her own distinctive discussion of the Iliad in the midst of World War II—calling it “her method of facing the war”—and, as Christopher Benfey argues in his introduction, the essay was very probably written in response to Weil. Bespaloff’s account of the Iliad brings out Homer’s novelistic approach to character and the existential drama of his characters’ choices; it is marked, too, by a tragic awareness of how the Iliad speaks to times and places where there is no hope apart from war.This edition brings together these two influential essays for the first time, accompanied by Benfey’s scholarly introduction and an afterword by the great Austrian novelist Hermann Broch.
The World of Late Antiquity 150-750
Peter R.L. Brown - 1971
150 and c. 750, came to differ from "Classical civilization."These centuries, as the author demonstrates, were the era in which the most deeply rooted of ancient institutions disappeared for all time. By 476 the Roman empire had vanished from western Europe; by 655 the Persian empire had vanished from the Near East.Peter Brown, Professor of History at Princeton University, examines these changes and men's reactions to them, but his account shows that the period was also one of outstanding new beginnings and defines the far-reaching impact both of Christianity on Europe and of Islam on the Near East. The result is a lucid answer to a crucial question in world history; how the exceptionally homogeneous Mediterranean world of c. 200 became divided into the three mutually estranged societies of the Middle Ages: Catholic Western Europe, Byzantium and Islam. We still live with the results of these contrasts.
The Works of Josephus
Flavius Josephus
Much of what we know about the beliefs of the Sadducees and Pharisees comes from Josephus. Without Josephus, we would know very little about the Essenes, the ancient Jewish group most frequently associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls.Features include:The War of the Jews—an account of the Jewish revolt against Rome up to the destruction of the temple in JerusalemThe Antiquities of the Jews—a history of the Jews from Creation to the Roman occupation of PalestineThe Life of Flavius Josephus—the autobiography of Josephus, who fought against Rome and later served the empireAgainst Apion—a defense of the origin of Judaism in the face of Greco-Roman slandersDiscourse to the Greeks Concerning Hades—a text Whiston attributed to JosephusIndex of parallels between Josephus’s Antiquities and the Old Testament including the Apocrypha