Ancient history Books

This study is the first to assemble the evidence for the existence of sorcerors in the ancient world; it also addresses the question of their identity and social origins. The resulting investigation takes us to the underside of Greek and Roman society,...

Gerald Hawting's book has long been acknowledged as the standard introductory survey of this complex period in Arab and Islamic history. Now it is once more made available, with the addition of a new introduction by the author which examines recent...

Early Christians and Animals presents a colourful and comprehensive overview and analysis of the significance of animals in early Christian thought, tradition, text and art.

The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity explores the social position of rabbis in Palestinian (Roman) and Babylonian (Persian) society from the period of the fall of the Temple to late antiquity. The author argues that ancient rabbinic sources...

Examines the theme of identity: geographic, ethnic , religious, status and sex-based. Discussions of Roman texts and images show how constructions of identity and culture contributed to the creation of "late antiquity" as a historical concept.

This is the first book to study how Haitian authors - from independence in 1804 to the modern Haitian diaspora - have adapted Greco-Roman material and harnessed it to Haiti's legacy as the world's first anti-colonial nation-state.In nine chronologically...

One of the most important books on the Old Testament of recent years. The general reader will find it enlightening and inforativeto the highest degree.

This is a book about an American woman's investigation into a past life in Egypt as Iput, daughter of the last 5th Dynasty pharaoh Unas of the Old Kingdom, and her role as an initiate of Hathor at the temple of Dendera. Sara's original fascination with...

In this strikingly original work, Stephen Moore considers God's male bodies--the body of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, and the Father of Jesus Christ, and Jesus himself in the New Testament--and our obsessive earthly quest for a perfect human form. God's...

An interdisciplinary analysis of the Archaic period--using literary, iconographical, and cultic evidence--shows the distinct concept behind the two deities of love. Aphrodite's character, sphere of influence, and function feature in her traditional myths...

First published in 2005. This work, while aimed at a general audience, is by no means a dreary introductory textbook. Blackman perceptively answers the reader's most pressing questions about life in ancient Thebes, providing not only an informative text...

The Metamorphoses or Golden Ass of Apuleius (ca. 170 CE) is a Latin novel written by a native of Madauros in Roman North Africa, roughly equal to modern Tunisia together with parts of Libya and Algeria. Apuleius' novel is based on the model of a lost...

This book presents for the first time a history of Eretria during the Archaic Era, the city's most notable period of political importance and Keith Walker examines all the major elements of the city's success.One of the key factors explored is Eretria's...

Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue explores the ways in which divergent ethnic, national and religious communities interacted with one another within the synagogue in the Greco-Roman period. It presents new perspectives regarding...

Trade, exchange and commerce touched the lives of everyone in antiquity, especially those who lived in urban areas. Trade, Traders and the Ancient City addresses the nature of exchange and commerce and the effects it had in cities throughout the ancient...

Fascinating texts written on small gold tablets that were deposited in graves provide a unique source of information about what some Greeks and Romans believed regarding the fate that awaited them after death, and how they could influence it.  These...

Theory for Classics provides a concise and clear introduction to the work of major contemporary theorists of the past century and how they can be applied to Classical studies today.

The existence of eunuchs was one of the defining features of the Byzantine Empire. Covering the whole span of the history of the empire, from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries AD, Shaun Tougher presents a comprehensive survey of the history...

In ancient Rome, the subtlest details in dress helped to distinguish between levels of social and moral hierarchy. Clothes were a key part of the sign systems of Roman civilization - a central aspect of its visual language, for women as well as men.This...

Compelling and clear sighted, this book presents new research using both archaeological and literary sources and provides an in-depth investigation into 'ancient magic' practices from curses to exorcism in antique Syria and Palestine.

Towards the end of the fifth century BC Ctesias of Cnidus wrote his 23 book History of Persia. Ctesias is a remarkable figure: he lived and worked in the Persian court and, as a doctor, tended to the world's most powerful kings and queens. His position...

Modern western education finds its origins in the practices, systems and schools of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is in the field of education, in fact, that classical antiquity has exerted one of its clearest influences on the modern world. Yet the...

This new translation presents two works, one by Epictetus and the other by Cebes, two ancient Greek philosophers of the Imperial period, in new translations of clear, straightforward English.In this book, readers will learn how to...

Written by an international range of renowned academics, this volume explores how women in antiquity influenced aspects of culture normally though of as male.Looking at politics, economics, science, law and the arts, the contributors examine examples...

Students of antiquity often see ancient Turkey as a bewildering array of cultural complexes. Ancient Turkey brings together in a coherent account the diverse and often fragmented evidence, both archaeological and textual, that forms the basis of our...

This book presents a collection of 13 articles on the topic of  "the passions" and their connection with moral advancement in ancient Greece and Rome. Writers discussed include the Cynics, the Neopythagorians, Aristotle and Ovid.

In this original and revealing work, Jeremiah B. McCall challenges the generally accepted view of the Roman cavalry and explores the fundamental connections between war and society in republican Rome, c.300-100 BC. McCall describes the citizen cavalry's...

Childhood in Ancient Athens offers an in-depth study of children during the heyday of the Athenian city state, thereby illuminating a significant social group largely ignored by most ancient and modern authors alike. It concentrates not only on the...

This exciting guide is the ideal companion to Greece if you are a traveller with historical and archaeological interests, as it combines practical information with impeccable scholarly research.

This new approach introduces Kabbalah as a spiritual Jewish way of living, a practical wisdom for living, creativity and well being, and not merely a religious phenomenon or esoteric theology. Professor Shokek suggests that the Kabbalistic theme of...

This groundbreaking volume explores Plutarch's unique survival in the argument that animals are rational and sentient, and that we, as humans, must take notice of their interests.Exploring Plutarch's three animal-related treatises, as well as passages...

This book examines the ways in which lived religion in Roman Italy involved personal and communal experiences of the religious agency generated when ritualised activities caused human and more-than-human things to become bundled together into relational...

This volume gathers together selected contributions which were originally presented at the conference 'Greek Art in Context' at the University of Edinburgh in 2014. Its aim is to introduce the reader to the broad and multifaceted notion of context in...

In this book an international team of contributors - working across Classics, History, Politics, and English - address a range of revolutionary transformations in England, America, France, Italy, and Russia, all of which were accorded the classical...

This book reconnoiters the appearances of the exceptional in Plato: as erotic desire (in the Symposium and Phaedrus), as the good city (Republic), and as the philosopher (Ion, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman). It offers fresh and sometimes radical...

Frankness, Greek Culture, and the Roman Empire discusses the significance of parrhēsia (free and frank speech) in Greek culture of the Roman empire.

This volume explores the reception of the classical past in the works of 20th century American dramatist Robert E. Sherwood and his use of the ancient world to critique key events and trends in American history.

This volume examines the discussion of the Chaldean Oracles in the work of Proclus, as well as offering a translation and commentary of Proclus' Treatise On Chaldean Philosophy. Spanu assesses whether Proclus' exegesis of the Chaldean Oracles can be used...