Ancient Biography

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) is generally regarded as the greatest intellectual ever to have appeared in the Arab world - a genius who ranks as one of the world's great minds. Yet the author of the Muqaddima, the most important study of history ever produced in the Islamic world, is not as well known as he should be, and his ideas are widely misunderstood. In this groundbreaking intellectual biography, Robert Irwin provides an engaging and authoritative account of Ibn Khaldun's extraordinary life, times, writings, and ideas.

The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the world, attracting millions of visitors to the British museum every year, and yet most people don’t really know what it is. Discovered in a pile of rubble in 1799, this slab of stone proved to be the key to unlocking a lost language that baffled scholars for centuries.

St. Ignatius, first-century Bishop of Antioch, called the “God-bearer”, is one of the earliest witnesses to the truth of Christ and the nature of the Christian life. Tradition tells us that as a small child, Ignatius was singled out by Jesus himself as an example of the childlike faith all Christians must possess. In Bearing God, Father Andrew Damick recounts the life of this great pastor, martyr, and saint, and interprets for the modern listener five major themes in the pastoral letters he wrote.

While Nebuchadnezzar’s name lives on mostly due to the Bible and the Hanging Gardens, behind it all was a man documented by the Babylonians and his contemporaries as a competent and successful king.

James Romm seamlessly weaves together the life and written words, the moral struggles, political intrigue, and bloody vengeance that enmeshed Seneca the Younger in the twisted imperial family and the perverse, paranoid regime of Emperor Nero, despot and madman.

In this comprehensive and stimulating biography, Kathryn Tempest delves into contemporary sources to bring to light the personal and political struggles Brutus faced. As the details are revealed - from his own correspondence with Cicero, from the perceptions of his peers, and from the Roman aristocratic values and concepts that held sway in his time - Brutus emerges from legend, revealed to us more surely than ever before.

This epic chronicle by Plutarch (A.D. 46-120) continues with the lives of great Grecians and Romans. These biographies of the men who created the ancient world are brought to life in this new, high-quality recording. Legends such as Caesar, Alexander, Cicero, Demosthenes, and many others come alive as their politics, economy, and their individual stories play out in the time of the ancients. This translation is by John Dryden and is considered by scholars to be the quintessential translation.

1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

In his subtle and engaging investigation into the life and times of Jesus, Thomas Cahill shows us Jesus from his birth to his execution through the eyes of those who knew him and in the context of his time—a time when the Jews were struggling to maintain their beliefs under overlords who imposed their worldview on their subjects. Here is Jesus the loving friend, itinerate preacher, and quiet revolutionary, whose words and actions inspired his followers to journey throughout the Roman world and speak the truth he instilled.

This is the saga of the Hittite King Suppiluliumas, and rings with authenticity and the passion of a world that existed 1400 years before the birth of Christ. They called him Great King, Favorite of the Storm God, the Valiant. He conquered more than forty nations and brought fear and war to the very doorstep of 18th Dynasty Egypt, but he could not conquer the one woman he truly loved.

In Alexander the Great, Anthony Everitt judges Alexander’s life against the criteria of his own age and considers all his contradictions. We meet the Macedonian prince who was naturally inquisitive and fascinated by science and exploration, as well as the man who enjoyed the arts and used Homer’s great epic, the Iliad, as a bible. As his empire grew, Alexander exhibited respect for the traditions of his new subjects and careful judgment in administering rule over his vast territory. But his career also had a dark side.

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.

Although her name and story might be familiar, much of what we know about Cleopatra is shrouded in mystery. Her life was one of politics, murder, war, marriage and passion – but it was also one of pride, bravery, love and strength. Cleopatra may have lived as a goddess, but, beneath her magnificent exterior, she was just a woman who fought tirelessly for what she felt was rightfully hers. With a gripping, expertly researched and fact-checked text, this is the story of the woman behind the stories.

Pompey, Caesar, Cicero, Brutus, Antony: the names resonate across thousands of years. Major figures in the civil wars that brutally ended the Roman republic, their lives still haunt us as examples of how the hunger for personal power can overwhelm collective politics, how the exaltation of the military can corrode civilian authority, and how the best intentions can lead to disastrous consequences. Plutarch renders these history-making lives as flesh-and-blood characters.

Galen of Pergamum (A.D. 129-ca. 216) began his remarkable career tending to wounded gladiators in provincial Asia Minor. Later in life he achieved great distinction as one of a small circle of court physicians to the family of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, at the very heart of Roman society. Susan Mattern's The Prince of Medicine offers the first authoritative biography in English of this brilliant, audacious, and profoundly influential figure.

From the rising of the morning sun to the summer flooding of the Nile River, the ancient Egyptians believed powerful gods and goddesses ruled over every aspect of their daily lives. This Egyptian mythology guide takes you on a trip through the sands of time to explore the world of pharaohs and sphinxes - ancient Egypt!

Rumi's inspiring and deceptively simple poems have been called ecstatic, mystical, and devotional. To writer and activist Melody Moezzi, they became a lifeline. In The Rumi Prescription, we follow her path of discovery as she translates Rumi's works for herself - to gain wisdom and insight in the face of a creative and spiritual roadblock. With the help of her father, who is a lifelong fan of Rumi's poetry, she immerses herself in this rich body of work, and discovers a 13th-century prescription for modern life.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was one of the greatest Romans who ever lived. A man of constant honor, he worked side by side with Augustus and was responsible for the marble masterpieces of architecture ancient Rome is known for today. He was a consul, general, architect, and statesman and lived his life according to a strict code of conduct. If not for his early death, the people of Rome were expecting him to be their next emperor. Explore his life and regal legacy and the incredible impact one person can have on the course of a nation's history.

One of history’s most iconic figures, Cleopatra is rightly remembered as a clever and charismatic ruler. But few today realize that she was the last in a long line of Egyptian queens who bore that name. In The Cleopatras, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the dramatic story of these seven incomparable women, vividly recapturing the lost world of Hellenistic Egypt and tracing the kingdom’s final centuries before its fall to Rome.

St. Paul is known throughout the world as the first Christian writer, authoring fourteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament. But as Karen Armstrong demonstrates in St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate, he also exerted a more significant influence on the spread of Christianity throughout the world than any other figure in history.