Ancient history Books

The Epicureans were notorious in antiquity for denigrating most forms of civic participation and for rejecting those cultural activities (such as poetry, music, and rhetoric) which are broadly labelled paideia. In this, as in all else, they ostensibly...

Aristocratic Society in Ancient Crete, first published in 1955, investigates the emergence and progress of Dorian society on Crete from the 8th century BC onwards. The primitive foundations of the social system are examined; the four classes of the...

Mycenaean Greece, first published in 1976, investigates from an historical point of view some of the crucial periods in the Greek Bronze Age. The principal subject is the so-called 'Mycenaean' culture which arose during the sixteenth century BC, as...

In Rome and Its Empire, first published in 1989, Stephen Johnson examines our understanding of the archaeological aspects of Roman civilisation, and traces the development of archaeology from the earliest post-Roman times, through to its real discovery...

Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, one of his commanders, Seleukos Nikator, rose over a period of forty years from being a landless refugee to the most successful of the Successor kings. This biography, first published in 1990, makes...

Ovid, Rome's most cynical and worldly love poet, has not until recently been highly regarded among Latin poets. Now, however, his reputation is growing, and this volume is an important contribution to the re-establishment of Ovid's claims to critical...

J.K. Evans' pioneering work explores the profound changes in the social, economic and legal condition of Roman women, which, it is argued, were necessary consequences of two centuries of near-continuous warfare as Rome expanded from city-state to empire...

The streets of Roman cities have received surprisingly little attention until recently. Traditionally the main interest archaeologists and classicists had in streets was in tracing the origins and development of the orthogonal layout used in Roman...

Published in the year 2006, Lost Pharaohs is a valuable contrubution to the field of History.

This new edition of Aspects of Roman History 31 BC- AD 117 provides an easily accessible guide to the history of the early Roman Empire. Taking the reader through the major political events of the crucial first 150 years of Roman imperial history, from...

Metaphysics and Hermeneutics in the Medieval Platonic Tradition consists of twelve essays originally published between 2006 and 2015, dealing with main trends and specific figures within the medieval Platonic tradition. Three essays provide general...

In recent years scholars have re-evaluated the "parting of the ways" between Judaism and Christianity, reaching new understandings of the ways shared origins gave way to two distinct and sometimes inimical religious traditions. But this has been a...

The Etruscans and the History of Dentistry offers a study of the construction and use of gold dental appliances in ancient Etruscan culture, and their place within the framework of a general history of dentistry, with special emphasis on appliances, from...

In Juvenal's Global Awareness Osman Umurhan applies theories of globalization to an investigation of Juvenal's articulation and understanding of empire, imperialism and identity. Umurhan explains how the increased interconnectivity between different...

This volume examines the ways in which divination, often through oracular utterances and other mechanisms, linked mortals with the gods, and places the practice within the ancient sociopolitical and religious environment. Whether humans sought knowledge...

The Birth of the Athenian Community elucidates the social and political development of Athens in the sixth century, when, as a result of reforms by Solon and Cleisthenes (at the beginning and end of the sixth century, respectively), Athens turned into...

In the Ancient Near East, cutting off someone's head was a unique act, not comparable to other types of mutilation, and therefore charged with a special symbolic and communicative significance. This book examines representations of decapitation in both...

In A Social-Political History of Monotheism, Cataldo shows how political concerns were fundamental to the development of Judeo-Christian monotheism. Beginning with the disruptive and devastating historical events that shook early Israelite culture and...

In this volume, Brian Charles DiPalma examines masculinities in the court tales of Daniel as a test case for issues facing the burgeoning area of gender studies in the Hebrew Bible. In doing so, it both analyses how the court tales of Daniel portray the...

Preaching was an integral part of the crusade movement. This book focuses on the efforts of the first four Avignon popes to organize crusade preaching campaigns to the Eastern Mediterranean and on the role of the secular and regular clergy in their...

In The Greek and Roman Trophy: From Battlefield Marker to Icon of Power, Kinnee presents the first monographic treatment of ancient trophies in sixty years. The study spans Archaic Greece through the Augustan Principate. Kinnee aims to create a holistic...

Nebuchadnezzar I (r. 1125-1104) was one of the more significant and successful kings to rule Babylonia in the intervening period between the demise of the Kassite Dynasty in the 12th century at the end of the Late Bronze Age, and the emergence of a new,...

Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho is the oldest preserved literary dialogue between a Jew and a Christian and a key text for understanding the development of early Judaism and Christianity. In Between Jews and Heretics, Matthijs den Dulk argues that...

The historian's task involves unmasking the systems of power that underlie our sources. A historian must not only analyze the content and context of ancient sources, but also the structures of power, authority, and political contingency that account for...

The Routledge Companion to Strabo explores the works of Strabo of Amasia (c. 64 BCE - c. CE 24), a Greek author writing at the prime of Roman expansion and political empowerment. While his earlier historiographical composition is almost entirely lost,...

The Roman Empire at Bay is the only one volume history of the critical years 180-395 AD, which saw the transformation of the Roman Empire from a unitary state centred on Rome, into a new polity with two capitals and a new religion-Christianity...

These three plays by the great comic playwright Aristophanes (c. 446-386 BCE), the well-known Lysistrata, and the less familiar Women at the Thesmophoria and Assemblywomen, are the earliest surviving portrayals of contemporary women in the European...

The work of Herodotos of Halikarnassos, 'the father of history', differs in many ways from that of modern historians, and it poses special problems to the student. In Herodotus the Historian, first published in 1985, K.H. Waters offers a comprehensive...

Despite the general scholarly consensus about Lucretius' debt to Empedocles as the father of the genre of cosmological didactic epic, there is a major disagreement regarding Lucretius' applause for his Presocratic predecessor's praeclara reperta (DRN 1...

Fully illustrated with over fifty photographs, this book describes the ancient fighting styles and mythical self-images of Germanic warriors from 200 BC - AD 1000 and presents vivid and fascinating survey that adds a colourful new dimension to our...

Gwendolyn Leick's approachable survey introduces the Babylonians, the people, the culture and the reality behind the popular myth of Babylon. Spanning some 1800 years in the history of the Babylonians, from the time of Hammurabi, famous for his...

Science in the Study of Ancient Egypt takes an innovative and integrated approach to the use of scientific techniques and methodologies within the study of ancient Egypt. Accessibly demonstrating how to integrate scientific methodologies into Egyptology...

Debating Archaeological Empiricism examines the current intellectual turn in archaeology, primarily in its prehistoric and classical branches, characterized by a return to the archaeological evidence. Each chapter in the book approaches the empirical...

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Aspects of Roman History 82BC-AD14 examines the political and military history of Rome and its empire in the Ciceronian and Augustan ages. It is an indispensable introduction to this central period of Roman History for all students of Roman history, from...

J.N. Coldstream has now fully updated his comprehensive survey with a substantial new chapter on the abundant discoveries and developments made since the book's first publication.The text is presented in three main sections: the passing of the dark ages,...

Resurrecting Pompeii provides an in-depth study of a unique site from antiquity with information about a population who all died from the same known cause within a short period of time.Pompeii has been continuously excavated and studied since 1748...

Deborah Sawyer discusses this crucial yet unresolved question in the context of contemporary and postmodern ideas about gender and power, based on fresh examination of a number of texts from Hebrew and Christian scripture. Such texts offer striking...

It is impossible to understand the cultures and achievements of the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Arabs, without knowing something of their technology. Rome, for example, made advances in many areas which were subsequently lost and not regained for...

The archaeology of early Rome has progressed rapidly and dramatically over the last century; most recently with the discovery of the shrine of Aeneas at Lavinium and the reports of the walls of the Romulan city discovered on the city slopes of the...

The Antonines - Antonius, Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus and Commodus - played a crucial part in the development of the Roman Empire, controlling its huge machine for half a century of its most testing period.Theirs was a period when art and...

First published in 1992. Epicureanism has had a long and complex history. This book is the first to chronicle this history, from its beginnings in Greece in the fourth century BC to its role in the development of philosophy and science in the sixteenth...

This groundbreaking study, among the earliest syntheses on female homosexuality throughout Antiquity, explores the topic with careful reference to ancient concepts and views, drawing fully on the existing visual and written record including literary,...

Male alliances, partnerships, and friendships are fundamental to the Hebrew Bible. This book offers a detailed and explicit exploration of the ways in which shared sexual use of women and women's bodies engenders, sustains, and nourishes such...

A History of Siena provides a concise and up-to-date biography of the city, from its ancient and medieval development up to the present day, and makes Siena's history, culture, and traditions accessible to anyone studying or visiting the city.Well...

Title: Paul Soleillet en Afrique ... Illustrations, etc. [A narrative of P. Soleillet's travels in Africa, with copious extracts from his journals, and a biography.]Publisher: British Library, Historical Print EditionsThe British Library is the national...

Title: Le Sahara de Constantine. Notes et souvenirs.Publisher: British Library, Historical Print EditionsThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the world's largest research libraries holding over 150 million items...