Ancient & Classical

The "Father of History."Herodotus the great Greek historian was born about 484 BC, at Halicarnassus in Caria, Asia Minor, when it was subject to the Persians. He traveled widely in most of Asia Minor, Egypt (as far as Aswan), North Africa, Syria, the...

Ancient Athens' most successful tragedian.Sophocles (497/6-406 BC), with Aeschylus and Euripides, was one of the three great tragic poets of Athens, and is considered one of the world's greatest poets. The subjects of his plays were drawn from...

The Platonic ideal of government.Plato of Athens, who laid the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition and in range and depth ranks among its greatest practitioners, was born to a prosperous and politically active family ca. 427 BC. In early...

This is the eleventh volume in the Oratory of Classical Greece. This series presents all of the surviving speeches from the late fifth and fourth centuries BC in new translations prepared by classical scholars who are at the forefront of the discipline...

The classic account of crisis and conversion.Aurelius Augustine (AD 354-430), one of the most important figures in the development of western Christianity and philosophy, was the son of a pagan, Patricius of Tagaste, and his Christian wife, Monnica...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781590170175Author M. I. FinleyFormat PaperbackPage Count 232Imprint NYRB ClassicsPublisher The New York Review of Books, IncWeight(grams)...

'Consider just this, and give your minds to this alone: whether or not what I say is just' Plato's account of Socrates' trial and death (399 BC) is a significant moment in Classical literature and the life of Classical Athens. In these four dialogues,...

In this collection of twelve of his essays, distinguished Virgil scholar Michael Putnam examines the Aeneid from several different interpretive angles. He identifies the themes that permeate the epic, provides detailed interpretations of its individual...

The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend is both a critical history of the Arthurian tradition and a reference guide to Arthurian works, names, and symbols. It offers a comprehensive survey of the legends in all of their manifestations, from...

Antiquity's imperial biographer par excellence.Suetonius (C. Suetonius Tranquillus, born ca. AD 70), son of a military tribune, was at first an advocate and a teacher of rhetoric, but later became the emperor Hadrian's private secretary, 119-121. He...

'In ancient tales many marvels are told us ... now you may hear such marvels told!' The greatest of the heroic epics to emerge from medieval Germany, the Nibelungenlied is a revenge saga of sweeping dimensions. It tells of the dragon-slayer Sivrit,...

Taken from Appian's Roman History, the five books collected here form the sole surviving continuous historical narrative of the era between 133-35 BC - a time of anarchy and instability for the Roman Empire. A masterly account of a turbulent epoch, they...

This up-to-date edition offers a detailed literary and cultural analysis of Euripides' Helen, a work which arguably embodies the variety and dynamism of fifth-century Athenian tragedy more than any other surviving play. The story of an exemplary wife...

For over half a century, scholars have laboured to show that C. S. Lewis's famed but apparently disorganised Chronicles of Narnia have an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly...

Ancient Athens' most successful tragedian.Sophocles (497/6-406 BC), with Aeschylus and Euripides, was one of the three great tragic poets of Athens, and is considered one of the world's greatest poets. The subjects of his plays were drawn from mythology...

This is a comprehensive introduction to Latin forms and syntax, designed to train the student in reading ancient texts at an early stage.Reviews"[Teachers] more concerned with no-nonsense thoroughness will not be disappointed." * Classical News and Vews...

One of the greatest essayists of the Graeco-Roman world, Plutarch (c. AD 46 -120) used an encyclopedic knowledge of the Roman Empire to produce a compelling and individual voice. In this superb selection from his writings, he offers personal insights...

This critical edition provides unique access to a work which has challenged scholars and students alike. The book is the first to deal fully with the poem as literature and to supply the runic background necessary for an understanding of the raw...

A paperback anthology of essential Greek and Latin texts with facing English translations.This selection of lapidary nuggets drawn from thirty-three of antiquity's major authors includes poetry, dialogue, philosophical writing, history, descriptive...

This new edition of an important early English poem includes a history of the text and an updated bibliography.Book InformationISBN 9780859895088Author P. O. E. GraddonFormat PaperbackPage Count 124Imprint University of Exeter PressPublisher Liverpool...

Numerous books have been written about Greek tragedy, but almost all of them are concerned with the 32 plays that still survive. This book, by contrast, concentrates on the plays that no longer exist. Hundreds of tragedies were performed in Athens and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780451471703Author PlatoFormat PaperbackPage Count 672Imprint Signet ClassicsPublisher Penguin Putnam Inc

The statesman on statecraft.Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106-43 BC), Roman lawyer, orator, politician, and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw the rise, dictatorship, and death of Julius ...

Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present (1843) was a prophetic warning of impending disaster for mid-Victorian Britain that was delivered in what the author described as a 'miraculous thunder-voice, from out of the centre of the world.' The impact of Carlyle's...

In "Cicero and Rome", David Taylor takes Cicero as the focal point for examination of the last years of the Roman Republic. He traces the often dramatic and violent events from the harsh dictatorship of Sulla (82 BC) to Cicero's own death in the...

The philosopher-statesman on ethics and rhetoric.Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106-43 BC), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw the rise,...

Rome, from the beginning.Livy (Titus Livius), the great Roman historian, was born at Patavium (Padua) in 64 or 59 BC, where after years in Rome he died in AD 12 or 17. Livy's history, composed as the imperial autocracy of Augustus was replacing the...

Kabir was an extraordinary oral poet whose works have been sung and recited by millions throughout North India for half a millenium. He may have been illiterate--'I do not touch ink or paper, this hand has never grasped a pen'--and he preached an...

Rome, from the beginning.Livy (Titus Livius), the great Roman historian, was born at Patavium (Padua) in 64 or 59 BC, where after years in Rome he died in AD 12 or 17. Livy's history, composed as the imperial autocracy of Augustus was replacing the...

Plato's Symposium is an exceptionally multi-layered dialogue. At once a historical document, a philosophical drama that enacts abstract ideas in an often light-hearted way, and a literary masterpiece, it has exerted an influence that goes well beyond the...

Rome, from the beginning.Livy (Titus Livius), the great Roman historian, was born at Patavium (Padua) in 64 or 59 BC, where after years in Rome he died in AD 12 or 17. Livy's history, composed as the imperial autocracy of Augustus was replacing the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780394701257Author Whitney J. OatesFormat PaperbackPage Count 480Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 289gDimensions(mm) 184mm *...

A History of the Hellenistic World provides an engaging look at the Macedonian monarchies in the period following the reign of Alexander the Great, and examines their impact on the Greek world. Offers a clearly organized narrative with particular...

Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem, recounting the great wandering of Odysseus during his ten-year voyage back home to Ithaca, after the Trojan War. A superb new verse translation, now published in trade paperback, before the standard Penguin...

Beowulf, the major surviving poem in Old English, is composed in a language that is rich but often difficult. This fully annotated edition makes the poem more accessible in its original language, while at the same time providing the materials necessary...

The Arthur of the North is the first book-length study of the Arthurian literature that was translated from French and Latin into Old Norse-Icelandic in the thirteenth century, which has been preserved mostly in Icelandic manuscripts, and which in early...

This book fills the Iberian linguistic and geographical gap in Arthurian studies, replacing the now-outdated work by William J. Entwistle (1925). It covers Arthurian material in all the major Peninsular Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan,...

'we can speak of no greater contest than Olympia' The Greek poet Pindar (c. 518-428 BC) composed victory odes for winners in the ancient Games, including the Olympics. He celebrated the victories of athletes competing in foot races, horse races,...

In the dying days of the eighth century, the Vikings erupted onto the international stage with brutal raids and slaughter. The medieval Norsemen may be best remembered as monk murderers and village pillagers, but this is far from the whole story...

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are treasured today-as they have been over the centuries-as an inexhaustible source of wisdom. And as one of the three most important expressions of Stoicism, this is an essential text for everyone interested in ancient...