Ancient

The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world.

This is the incredible true story of a Galilean stonemason who changed the course of the world forever. He lived and died over 2,000 years ago, fulfilling expectations that existed long before his birth.

The past truly comes alive as you take a series of imaginative leaps into the world of history's anonymous citizens....

Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....

Funerary rituals show us what people thought about mortality; how they felt about loss; what they believed came next. From Roman cremations and graveside feasts, to deviant burials with heads rearranged, from richly furnished Anglo Saxon graves to the first Christian burial grounds in Wales...

In this sweeping history of the ancient Near East, Amanda Podany takes listeners on a gripping journey from the creation of the world's first cities to the conquests of Alexander the Great....

A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations....

Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt....

Come on a journey with Aboriginal elder Aunty Munya as she guides you in discovering your purpose in life and how to walk in the footsteps of our ancestors. Learn what it means to truly belong and be family to everyone and everything....

Your ticket from the twenty-first century to the era of Jesus and the first Christians. A listenable, two-volume introduction placing the entire New Testament and early Christianity in its original context, written by distinguished scholar and author N. T. Wright. An ideal guide for students...

Here in a single volume is the entire, unabridged recording of Gibbon's masterpiece....

Dr Irving Finkel, curator at the British Museum, explores why the belief in ghosts is what makes us human....

Embark on a journey to the very beginning of writing as a tool of language and see how the many threads of history and linguistics came together to create the alphabet that forms the foundation of English writing....

Katherine Pangonis explores five forgotten cities of the Mediterranean: Syracuse, Antioch, Ravenna, Tyre and Carthage....

From the creator of the award-winning podcast series The History of Rome and Revolutions comes the "remarkably engaging" (Washington Post) history of the bloody battles, political machinations, and human drama that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic was one of...

Even today, the influence of Ancient Rome is indelible, with Europe and the world owing this extraordinary empire a huge cultural debt in almost every important category....

This fascinating history tells the story of the people of Japan, from ancient teenage priest-queens to teeming hordes of salarymen, a nation that once sought to conquer China, yet also shut itself away for two centuries in self-imposed seclusion....

By the end of the series, you'll have a new understanding of what it meant to be a Viking and a richer appreciation of this remarkable race....

These 34 astonishing lectures will introduce you to the major language families of the world and their many offspring, including a variety of languages that are no longer spoken but provide vital links between past and present....

New research and evidence that the Sphinx is thousands of years older than previously thought Contrasts what Egyptologists claim about the Sphinx with historical accounts and new research including reanalysis of seismic studies and updates to Schoch’s water weathering research and...

The March of the Ten Thousand is one of the most admired and widely read pieces of ancient literature...

Award-winning Professor John R. Hale of the University of Louisville is your guide to the fabulous civilizations of the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Ottomans, and to the natural wonders and idyllic landscapes that surround them....

Explore the captivating history of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was one of the most powerful forces the world has ever seen. But this isn’t just the story of conquest or the incredible system of institutions that made it possible....

A bloody revolt by a North African prince and a plot to seize control of Rome are the subjects of two short masterpieces of ancient history by the illustrious Roman chronicler, Sallust....

A profound and moving journey into the heart of Christianity that explores the mysterious and often paradoxical lives and legacies of the Twelve Apostles—a book both for those of the faith and for others who seek to understand Christianity from the outside in. “Expertly researched and...

Aucune nation dans l'histoire n'a laissé au monde un héritage aussi grand que celui des Grecs. Il semble à peine croyable qu'un peuple aussi dispersé, installé sur les îles et péninsules rocheuses de la mer Égée, ait pu accomplir tant de choses ; mais il a excellé dans tout ce qu'il a entrepris, qu'il s'agisse de guerre ou de politique, d'art ou d'athlétisme, de littérature ou de philosophie. Les Grecs ont donné une nouvelle définition de l'humanité. Leurs idéaux, leurs héros sont devenus les nôtres.

An often overlooked, yet very important, environmental process in world history is known as the “Late Antique Little Ice Age,” which took place during the 6th century A.D. across most of the Northern Hemisphere and received its name because it was shorter and less well-known than the Little Ice Age, which took place from the 16th-19th centuries.

In 1887, an Egyptian woman made an astonishing discovery among the ruins of the heretic king Akhenaten's capital city, a site now known as Amarna. She found a cache of cuneiform tablets, nearly four hundred in all, that included correspondence between the pharaohs and the mightiest powers of the day, such as the Hittites, Babylonians, and Assyrians. Love, War, and Diplomacy tells the story of the Amarna Letters and the dramatic world of the Bronze Age they revealed.

Pompei è un unicum nella storia dell'archeologia, una miniera di informazioni non ancora del tutto esplorata. Soprattutto, è una continua riserva di sorprese per gli studiosi, una realtà più complicata e intrigante di ciò che riteniamo di conoscere. Indagando nel «paradosso di Pompei» in compagnia di Mary Beard scopriamo così che della vita antica che si svolgeva nel centro campano sappiamo contemporaneamente molto più e molto meno di ciò che crediamo.

Desde hace más de dos mil años, el Partenón domina la Acrópolis de Atenas como uno de los símbolos universales de la civilización clásica. Pero, ¿qué sabemos realmente de este edificio? En este libro, Mary Beard reconstruye con rigor y agilidad narrativa la historia del templo de Atenea: desde su construcción en el siglo V a.C. hasta sus múltiples transformaciones como iglesia bizantina, mezquita otomana, ruina romántica y epicentro de uno de los debates culturales más encendidos de nuestro tiempo.

Mary Beard ci offre una nuova visione della storia di Roma, caratterizzata da incredibili miti fondativi e grandi istituzioni politiche e sociali, da straordinarie conquiste militari e stupefacenti opere architettoniche, nonché, naturalmente, dalle gesta di personalità celebri: Cicerone, Catilina, Giulio Cesare, Ottaviano e Marco Antonio. Le innumerevoli testimonianze ci rendono partecipi dell'estrema vitalità e grandezza di un mondo globalizzato e in perpetuo movimento, dove uomini e merci, libri e idee, mode e religioni circolavano liberamente.

Taylor frames the Orphic hymns as fragments of a primordial theology in which the gods are not personalities but cosmic powers, each hymn functioning as a precise invocation of a universal principle. His translation exposes an initiatory system built on purification, cosmic sympathy, and ascent through successive layers of divine order.

Can Christians today read the great classics of Greco-Roman pagan literature for spiritual formation and growth in the virtues? Classical scholar Nadya Williams responds with an unequivocal "Yes!" Even in the Late Roman Empire Christian readers, like Augustine and Boethius, did just this. But...

What if Norse Paganism wasn’t myth—but a living tradition of gods, rituals, and magick still holding power today? For centuries, Norse Paganism was dismissed as legend. But the truth is far richer: a spiritual path of deities, runes, and rituals that shaped the Viking world—and still inspires and transforms today.

Step beyond the ruins and into the pulse of ancient Rome—not the Rome of marble triumphs and imperial decrees, but of whispered spells, ghostly omens, and mythic memory. The Folklore of Rome: Myth, Magic, Dying, and the Making of the Empire is an immersive exploration of how stories, superstitions, and sacred rites shaped the world’s most enduring civilization from its legendary beginnings to its imperial zenith.

He ruled for sixty-seven years. Built temples that dwarfed time. Fought the greatest chariot battle in history. Buried sons. Married goddesses. Made peace with empires. Rewrote the past. Refused to die. And three thousand years later, we’re still saying his name. RAMSES: The Pharaoh Who Wouldn’t Die is the story of Egypt’s loudest legend. The builder-king who turned himself into a monument, refused to step down, and became a god before his heart even stopped beating.

Byzantine Empire traces the dramatic transformation of the Roman Empire’s eastern half into a distinct Byzantine civilization, charting its arc from the founding of Constantinople in 330 to the empire’s high-water mark under the Macedonian dynasty around 1025.

Frontinus’s military handbook, Stratagems, was likely composed towards the end of the first century A.D. Intended as a practical manual for military leaders, and drawing from the rich history of Greece and Rome, Stratagems offers a wealth of tactical ruses, ploys, and maneuvers that have been used to gain victory. His focus is entirely practical: what must a leader do to win? Because Frontinus grasps the psychological and moral factors of conflict, his work retains a timeless importance that modern listeners will find applicable to nearly every field of endeavor.

Die Bestsellerautorin Natalie Haynes nimmt uns mit in die Welt der griechischen Mythologie, zu den Göttinnen des Olymps. Missverständnisse und falsche Darstellungen in Kunst, Literatur und Popkultur verzerren unseren Blick, doch mit diesem Buch sehen wir Frauenfiguren, die wir schon zu kennen meinen, plötzlich in einem ganz neuen Licht. So ist Athene die Göttin des Krieges, wird aber auch für ihren weisen Rat geschätzt. Aphrodite ist die schönste aller Göttinnen, hat jedoch eine rachsüchtige Seite und bestraft jeden hart, der ihr missfällt.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) was one of the most influential figures in late republican Rome, a moment of great social, political, and cultural unrest that would lead to the transition from republic to empire. Cicero was a statesman who held the highest political office, the consulship, and then suffered politically motivated exile. His career was grounded in his continued success as an orator: his speeches were famous during his lifetime and, together with his rhetorical treatises, shaped the practice and theory of public speaking for centuries to come.

Auch nach seinem Untergang vor 1500 Jahren scheint das antike Rom hat nichts von seiner Faszination verloren zu haben. Ganz im Gegenteil: Es ist Zentrum eines neuen Hypes. In Serien und Kinofilmen ersteht es gerade wieder auf und der Instagram-Hashtag #RomanEmpire bringt es auf mehr als 1,3 Milliarden Beiträge. Woher aber kommt das ungebremste Interesse an dem versunkenen Imperium? Der Historiker Martin Verg geht dieser Frage nach und unterhält uns mit erstaunlichen Fakten, spannenden Geschichten und kuriosen historischen Randnotizen rund um das lebendige Erbe unserer römischen Vorfahren.

¿Cuál es nuestro origen como especie? ¿Están involucrados los neandertales? Estas preguntas y otras muchas acerca de nuestro pasado como especie forman parte de uno de los grandes hitos en la paleoantropología, completar el árbol genealógico humano. El paleontólogo Antonio Monclova nos descubre en esta obra las grandes cuestiones acerca de los neandertales, que tanto interés están suscitando.

Long ago, on a spring morning in Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate passed judgment on a mysterious preacher. Jesus of Nazareth was nailed to a cross shortly after and died in agony. The effects of this verdict have reverberated throughout the world and have shaped two millennia of history. Even so, the trial remains shrouded in mystery to this day. Killing the Messiah determines why and how Pilate deemed Jesus guilty of criminal behavior and the roles played by various people in ensuring Jesus' crucifixion.

The Persian Continuum traces how the Achaemenid Empire’s administrative genius, religious pragmatism, and infrastructural vision shaped a vast world stretching from the Aegean to the Indus—and how Alexander’s lightning conquests disrupted but did not erase that order. Through a sequence of richly drawn chapters, the book follows the Persian high tide under Xerxes, the long wars and negotiations with Greek city-states, and the empire’s resilient governance from Egypt to Bactria.

The Afterlife of Byzantium traces the final centuries of the Byzantine Empire from the Palaiologan restoration to the fall of Constantinople—and follows its astonishing afterlife far beyond 1453. Through nine richly detailed chapters culminating in a study of legacy and memory, this volume reveals how an empire under pressure reinvented itself through faith, diplomacy, art, scholarship, and everyday resilience.