Ancient English History

The story of the Roman Republic is the greatest epic in human history. Seen in the long perspective of time, it seems too fantastic to be real. From its modest beginnings as a convenient fording place on the Tiber to its eventual destiny as the mistress of the Mediterranean, Rome offers a strange tale of fate, sacrifice, and indomitable willpower. The stern realities of war shaped its policies from the very beginning.

The early first millennium BCE was a time of great change and turmoil in the Near East and Eastern Europe. Many of the Bronze Age empires had collapsed, but in their place came new ones in Assyria, Persia, and Babylon, as well as a rejuvenated Egypt. Other peoples also began to enter the historical record and assert themselves. In the wake of the Sea Peoples destruction in Anatolia, the Lydians and Phrygians established powerful kingdoms, and by the 8th century BCE the Greek city-states had formed and the Greeks began establishing colonies along the western coast of Anatolia.

When people think of ancient Greece, images of philosophers such as Plato or Socrates often come to mind, as do great warriors like Pericles and Alexander the Great. But hundreds of years before Athens became a city, a Greek culture flourished and spread its tentacles throughout the Western Mediterranean region via trade and warfare. Scholars have termed this pre-Classical Greek culture the Mycenaean culture, which existed from about 2000 to 1200 BCE, when Greece, along with much of the Eastern Mediterranean, was thrust into a centuries-long Dark Ages.

In 1922, explorers opened King Tut's tomb and a nasty hex was placed on everyone present. RIGHT? Not so much. Okay, but aliens did soar in on a space craft and build the Pyramids, right? WRONG! The discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb taught historians a lot about ancient Egyptian culture. But no one incurred the wrath of a mummy. And this early civilization had the money, power, and smarts to build the Pyramids—along with a host of other impressive structures!

Whether you’re interested in the history of Africa or if you want to learn about the craft of hoodoo, then you will receive valuable information from this audiobook collection.

By the middle of the second century B.C., the Roman Republic has been changed completely from the sober and virtuous character of the previous generations of self-sacrificing soldier-farmers. Rome has become a wealthy, diverse metropolis of many conflicting interests.

This audiobook takes you on an exciting journey into the past to uncover the story of the Denisovans. Hidden deep in the Denisova Cave in Siberia, their remains went unnoticed for centuries. But when scientists discovered them, it changed what we knew about human history.

Volume Two of Appian's Roman History consists of his incredible chronicle of the Roman Civil War, which began in 133 B.C. with the conflict between the plebeians and the aristocracy over the attempted land reforms of the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. Violence continues on and off for the next century, ending only in 31 B.C. with the victory of Octavius over Mark Antony at the naval battle of Actium.

The Spartans of ancient Greece were a powerful and unique people, radically different from any civilization before or since. A society of warrior-heroes, they were living exemplars of self-sacrifice, community endeavor, and achievement against all odds, qualities that today signify the ultimate in heroism. Scholars even believe that Thomas More had Sparta specifically in mind when he coined the term "Utopia".

Sita, the beloved princess of Mithila, is one of the most revered women in Indian history; so well known, yet probably the least understood. At every crossroad of her life, she chose acceptance and grace over self-pity. Her life was filled with sacrifice yet wherever she was, there was abundance. It was as if she was carved out of an intense longing for Rama, yet she had infinite patience.

Through archaeological remains, ancient texts, and work by a new generation of historians, a picture can today be built of this remarkable civilization and their capital city. Although the city had been destroyed, the legacy of the Persians survived, even as they mostly remain an enigma to the West and are not nearly as well understood as the Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians. In a sense, the Achaemenid Persian Empire holds some of the most enduring mysteries of ancient civilization.

AD 916. In the Orkney Isles, a young woman flees her home to save the life of her unborn child. Eighteen years later, a witch foretells that evil from her past is reaching out again to threaten her son. Outlawed from his home in Iceland, Einar Unnsson is thrown on the mercy of his Uncle, the infamous Jarl Thorfinn 'Skull Cleaver' of Orkney. He joins forces with a Norse-Irish princess and a company of wolfskin-clad warriors to become a player in a deadly game for control of the Irish sea.

Since the late 1940s, a growing number of individuals and groups have urged the authorities to public disclose what they know about interaction between humans and non-human intelligences. But for 70 years, those authorities have employed various tactics to keep the subject secret, and to confuse perceptions of any information that does reach the public. But as people worldwide continue to experience various contact phenomena, the responsibility of researching and reporting this has fallen to those called in various ways to participate.

This riveting narrative explores the lives of six remarkable female pharaohs, from Hatshepsut to Cleopatra - women who ruled with real power - and shines a piercing light on our own perceptions of women in power today. Female rulers are a rare phenomenon - but thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, women reigned supreme. But throughout human history, women in positions of power were more often used as political pawns in a male-dominated society. What was so special about ancient Egypt that provided women this kind of access to the highest political office?

For fans of Victor Davis Hanson, Donald Kagan, and Barry Strauss comes a rich, sweeping account of the most imitated---and vicious---battle in history.

As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius had access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts) to produce one of the most colorful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome, from the foundation of the empire under Julius Caesar and Augustus, to the decline into depravity and civil war under Nero and the recovery that came with his successors.

Translated by W. E. D. Rouse, The March of the Ten Thousand is one of the most admired and widely read pieces of ancient literature to come down to us. Xenophon employs a very simple, straightforward style to describe what is probably the most exciting military adventure ever undertaken. It is an epic of courage, faith and democratic principle.

A Rome of One’s Own is a retelling of the history of Rome with the Important Things, but also all the things Roman history writers relegate to the background—or designate as domestic, feminine, or worthless. This is a history of individuals, twenty-one women who span the length of its territory and its centuries, who caused outrage, led armies in rebellion, wrote poetry, lived independently or under the thumb of emperors. A Rome of One’s Own highlights women overlooked and misunderstood, and through them offers a fascinating and groundbreaking chronicle of the ancient world.

The Pleistocene spans a period from around 2.5 million years ago (mya) to just over 12,000 years ago, and it was an epoch of enormous change on Earth, mainly characterized by climate changes involving fluctuations between periods of extreme heat and long periods of glaciation. This period is commonly known as the Ice Age, despite the fact there were actually a number of separate periods of cold. The Pleistocene Era: The History of the Ice Age and the Dawn of Modern Humans looks at the development of the era, what life on Earth was like, and the origins of archaic humans.

The West and Islam - the sword and scimitar - have clashed since the 17th century, when, according to Muslim tradition, the Roman emperor rejected Prophet Muhammad's order to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam, unleashing a centuries-long jihad on Christendom. Sword and Scimitar chronicles the decisive battles that arose from this ages-old Islamic jihad, beginning with the first major Islamic attack on Christian land in 636.