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Since the Renaissance, Julius Caesar has been idolized as a superman. There is no doubt that Caesar was an extraordinary man. But as General Fuller points out, Caesar was more extraordinary for his reckless ambition, matchless daring, and ruthless tyranny than for his skills as a military commander. Caesar continually had to extricate himself from the results of mistaken judgments. His unpremeditated Gallic conquest was just one of Fuller's many examples.

During the Persian Wars, Sparta and Athens worked in tandem to defeat what was, in terms of relative resources and power, the greatest empire in human history. For the decade and a half that followed, they continued their collaboration until a rift opened and an intense, strategic rivalry began. In a continuation of his series on ancient Sparta, noted historian Paul Rahe examines the grounds for their alliance, the reasons for its eventual collapse, and the first stage in an enduring conflict that would wreak havoc on Greece for six decades.

The Hermetic corpus is a spiritual and intellectual treasure stemming from ancient Egyptian sages who could write and think in Greek. Since the Renaissance, this corpus has appeared in an order that does not fit the path of spiritual initiation suggested by the corpus itself.

In 536 AD, the sun dimmed, the sky turned a ghostly gray, and global temperatures plummeted. Crops withered, famine spread like wildfire, and entire civilizations were thrown into chaos. Historians and scientists now recognize this year as one of the most catastrophic climate events in human history—a volcanic winter that reshaped the world.

Britain. 179 AD. The centurion Rufus Atticus is intent on finding Gaius Maximus - a fugitive and friend. Whilst doing so, however, Atticus finds trouble - in the form of the brutal Meriadoc clan. The Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, wants to offer the former praetorian a pardon. Atticus also has important news for Maximus, which will change his life. But as well as offering the soldier a pardon, the Emperor has summoned Maximus to ask him to complete one final mission. He must venture into enemy territory and assassinate Balomar.

First published in three separate volumes from 1855 to 1863, Bulfinch's Mythology quickly became the standard source of classic tales from ancient Greece and Rome, the Norse tradition, and beyond. This edition contains the full text of The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes, the first volume of Bulfinch's seminal work. From stories of the Greek gods of Mt. Olympus to retellings of the Iliad and the Odyssey, from descriptions of mythological monsters to tales of Hindu and Egyptian deities, Bulfinch's versions of these classic stories bring their characters to life.

A real-life "Indiana Jones", Donald P. Ryan, PhD, offers a breathtaking personal account of his adventures in archaeology in Beneath the Sands of Egypt. Fans of The Lost City of Z will thrill to the exploits of this "unconventional archaeologist" as he retrieves the remains of Egypt's past - including his breakthrough discovery in the Valley of the Kings of Egypt's famous female pharaoh, Hatshepsut.

The year is AD 66, and the Roman province of Judea has exploded in rebellion. Far from being a revolution of unified peoples, the various Jewish factions of Sadducees, Zealots, Sicarii, and Edomites are in a state of civil war; as anxious to spill the blood of each other as they are to fight the Romans. The Judeans find hope when the Romans commit a serious tactical blunder and allow their forces to be ambushed and nearly destroyed in the mountain pass of Beth Horon.

In Norse Mythology and Runes, this book depicts the main Norse pantheon as follows: Odin, the highest of the mighty, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin's son, extremely powerful but not the wisest of gods; and Loki, Odin's blood brother and a trickster and unrivalled manipulator.

Herodotus is not only the father of the art and the science of historical writing, but also one of the Western tradition's most compelling storytellers. In tales such as that of Gyges, who murders Candaules, the king of Lydia, and usurps his throne and his marriage bed, thereby bringing on, generations later, war with the Persians, Herodotus laid bare the intricate human entanglements at the core of great historical events.

"Sono qui per rispondere alle grandi domande sulla mitologia greca che ti affliggono, sin da quando hai visto il celeberrimo classico Disney Hercules che non ha mezza cosa giusta, come scopriremo. E le domande sono: Filottete è esistito sul serio? Ha allenato veramente tutti gli Eroi del Muori? Aveva la voce di Magalli? Sì, no, forse. Questo libro sarà tutto così, anche meglio, mi sto solo scaldando. Dai, non te ne andare ti prego, ho detto che sarà megliooo. Chi sono questi Eroi del Muori, allora? Gli dèi dici? Che problemi hai!? Gli dèi non hanno niente di Muori, al limite la infliggono.

The Crusades shook the world. But why did they happen? Their origins are revealed in a new light. As part of a medieval world war that stretched from Asia to Europe. At its center was an ancient empire Byzantium. Told for the first time as a single, linked narrative are three great events that changed history: The fall of Byzantium in the 11th century, the epic campaign of the First Crusade and the origins of modern Turkey. Nick Holmes not only presents the First Crusade in a wider global context but he also puts forwards new interpretations of the original sources.

Two works by the Roman historian, Tacitus. Agricola is a portrait of Julius Agricola, a governor of Roman Britain, and the first surviving account of the geography, climate, and peoples of Britain. The German tribes of Northern Europe are discussed in Germania.

Africa is the continent where the first humans were born. They explored the vast land and produced the first tools. And although we migrated from that continent, we never completely abandoned it. From the beginning of time, humans lived and worked in Africa, leaving evidence of their existence in the sands of the Sahara Desert and the valleys of the great rivers such as the Nile and the Niger.

The historians of ancient Greece were pioneers of a new literary craft; their work stands among the world’s most enduring and important legacies and forms the foundation of a major modern discipline. This easy-to-follow edition includes new and newly revised translations of selections from Herodotus - often called the “father of history” - Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch, the four greatest Greek innovators of historical narrative. Here the listener will find their most important, and most widely taught, passages collected in a single volume.

Sparta traces the story of Ancient Greece's most iconic city-state, from its humble beginnings as a hamlet in the Peloponnese to its meteoric rise as the foremost military superpower of the Classical world. Andrew Bayliss uncovers the eclectic quirks that set Sparta above its rivals: its famous double monarchy, the harsh methods for raising children as soldiers and the unique role of women in Spartan life. Sparta was the world's first superpower and its legacy is still shaping popular culture and politics today. This is the story of its rise and fall.

The culture and events of Greece were so influential they have a significant effect on modern-day people all over the world. The ancient Greeks gave birth to democracy, a political system frequently used and considered by some as the best form of government. Great minds from Greece also made incredible and vital discoveries such as the water mill, the basics of geometry and using medicine to cure illness. The ancient Greek philosophers laid the groundwork for a whole new field of thought and study.

Written in the tradition of historians like Stacy Schiff and Amanda Foreman who find modern lessons in ancient history, this provocative narrative explores the lives of five remarkable pharaohs who ruled Egypt with absolute power, shining a new light on the country's 3,000-year empire and its meaning today.

Marcus Licinius Crassus (115-53 BCE) was a modern man in an ancient world, a pioneer disrupter of finance and politics, and the richest man of the last years of the Roman republic. Without his catastrophic ambition, this trailblazing tycoon might have quietly entered history as Rome's first modern political financier. Instead, Crassus and his son led an army on an unprovoked campaign against Parthia into what are now the borderlands of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, losing a battle at Carrhae which scarred Roman minds for generations.

Mastering the West offers a thoroughly engrossing narrative of this century of battle in the western Mediterranean, while treating a full range of themes: the antagonists' military, naval, economic, and demographic resources; the political structures of both republics; and the postwar impact of the conflicts on the participants and victims.